About Time 9: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who

About Time #9

by Tat Wood, Dorothy Ail, Lars Pearson (Editor)

In About Time, the whole of Doctor Who is examined through the lens of the real-world social and political changes as well as ongoing developments in television production that influenced the series in ways big and small over the course of a generation. Armed with these guidebooks, readers will be able to cast their minds back to 1975, 1982, 2005 and other years to best appreciate the series' content and character.

Volume 9 of this series focuses on Series 4 (2008) of the revamped Doctor Who starring David Tennant, as well as the 2009 Specials that finished out his era, with bonus write-ups on Music of the Spheres, the animated adventure Dreamland and The Sarah Jane Adventures story "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith." Essays in this volume include: “Should Doctor Who be Appointment Television?”, “How Can Anyone Know About the Time War?”, and “Why Can't Anyone Just Die?”

Genres: Doctor Who

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2019

About the author

Tat Wood is co-writer (with Lawrence Miles) of the About Time episode guides to the television series Doctor Who. This book series, begun in 2004, emphasises the importance of understanding the series in the context of British politics, culture and science. Volume Six is entirely Wood's work.

Wood has also written for Doctor Who Magazine. In a 1993 edition of "Dreamwatch", he wrote a piece entitled "Hai! Anxiety", in which the Jon Pertwee era of the series was — unusually for the time — held up to sustained criticism.

In addition to this he has written features for various magazines, on subjects as diverse as Crop Circles, Art Fraud, the problems of adapting Children's novels for television and the Piltdown Hoax.

He is also active in Doctor Who fandom, notably as editor of the fanzines Spectrox and Yak Butter Sandwich and Spaceball Ricochet, which mixes academic observations with irreverent humour and visual bricolage. Some of his fan writing was included in the anthology Licence Denied, published in 1997.

For most of 2005 he was the public relations face of the Bangladeshi Women's Society, a charity based in Leyton, East London, and managed to keep his work running a supplementary school separate from his writing.

Reviews

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

'About Time 9' is an in depth review of Tenant's last series as the Doctor. Thorough analysis of each episode combined with essays examining the influence of the wider world on the series (and vice versa) make this book a long read, but in the main, this is well written and easy to pick up and put down.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much more enjoyable than volume 8, particularly the essays...which seem a bit more considered and a little less snide than in the past. Unfortunately, the snide attitude remains in regards to (1) anything involving Steven Moffat, (2) anything made in America, and (3) treating the personal aesthetic opinions of the authors as dogmatic, accepted fact.

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could swear I'd already reviewed this. Hm. Oh well.

There's so much to say about this, but most of it is personal, not really applicable as a review. I'll say that this definitely made me appreciate these years of Who more than I had before (I'm not really a fan of the new stuff). I really wonder if a lot of the disconnect for me happened because some of the links to classic episodes was too subtle, or I'm too dumb, or ... I think the problem comes from me disliking the new episodes right out of the gate. When that happens, I'm less inclined to pay attention as the episode goes on, basically just keeping an ear out for nice one-lines from the Doctor.

See? I doubt others care much about this.

Beyond this, Wood gets pretty unsubtle about his assertion that what makes a good episode is (I hope I'm not being too reductive here) a sort of redressing of an event/story from classic fiction or current events, with the Doctor there to comment upon it. It can be, but isn't necessarily, a camp reimagining. It definitely made me think of the definition of camp (which is, I guess, a gay sensibility?) used in an earlier edition of About Time, which is essentially taking something butch (or even just "status quo") and poking fun at it (or queering it). As a fan of MST3K , it struck me that that's a lot of my formative comedic 'training,' if you will: the stuff I loved the most was something that took reality and said, 'that's a bit naff, innit?' (DC Follies and the more anarchic skits from SNL also spring to mind as things I loved when young.)

Bathos can often be involved here, too. One of my favorite examples of all of this is the Fifth Doctor serial Terminus, which without About Time I would have just viewed as garbage, but then realized that this is like ... a reimagining of Norse mythology in which the universe is either beginning or ending, and the man in the rubber dog mask is the guardian to Hell. Once you see the truth under the masks, it becomes so much more fascinating.

Anyway, I can't wait for #10.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/about-time-9-by-tat-wood-and-dorothy-ail/

Latest in the magisterial set of books about Doctor Who (I have previously read volumes 1, 2, 3, 3 (revised), 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8), this covers Series 4 of New Who, the season with the Tenth Doctor and Donna, and also the 2009 special, with a side order of the Proms concert Music of the Spheres, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and the animated Dreamland story. This actually came out in 2019, but I only got it in August, and with David Tennant and Donna Noble about to return to our screens, it’s a timely read.

As usual, there is lovely detailed analysis of each story, including all the sections familiar from past volumes plus a new one, “English Lessons”, explaining cultural allusions which may not be as clear to the non-UKanian reader. None of these stories has yet been covered by the Black Archives, so you can’t really compare and contrast, but I feel comfortable that the two series are doing different things and both doing them well. In particular, the chapters on Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, Midnight and The End of Time were very good.

I’m sorry to say that I did not feel the same way about the sidebar essays accompanying the analysis of each story. There are two standout pieces in the middle of the book, one on the history of the online spinoffs of the show, and one asking “Why Can’t Anyone Just Die?” in the Moffat version of the show, a valid question answered in forensic detail. But in general the companion essays seemed to me a notch or two below the very high standards set in previous volumes, most of them dedicated to exploring obscure rabbit-holes of continuity which I find it difficult to care about.

However, it’s comprehensive on the actual episodes, and the Black Archives you would get for the same price would cover a fraction of the material. So I would still recommend it to the analytical fan, just not as highly as some of the earlier volumes.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

By now it's clear I'm going to read every single volume of About Time - the Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who - and enjoy it even I don't always (or even often) agree with the writers' criticism of the show. Volume 9, the one with the big wasp on it, covers Series 4 and the 2009 specials, including Doc10's appearance on the Proms, the Sarah Jane Adventures, and the animated Dreamland. In addition to the nitty-gritty completism I find useful for research, there are always interesting essays about various facets of Doctor Who (the stage plays, knock-off series, comic strips, going to HD) and trying to untangle the continuity (what's a fixed point? how can any know about the Time War? what happened to UNIT between the 70s and the 2000s?). While I think Wood and Ail are happily a little more positive about this series compared to the first three seasons of NuWho, a lot of their nitpicks can themselves be picked apart and when they try to untangle a continuity issue, they often only manage to make it more tangled when easier explanations exist. The essays are weaker on average because of it, and more prone to typos than the rest of the text. Rush to publication? It feels like there are more typos in this one than in the others, including a missing footnote number that screws up the End Notes section. Fair warning.

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, Tat's authorial voice is entertaining, amusing, and educational.

This was one of my least favorite sections of new Who, so it was interesting learning a ton of context for it all. It's especially fascinating learning how the show is damn near a different beast for British viewers than it is for someone like me.

From references made in here, I believe this came out after Jodie's first season so I'll be very curious to see what gets shoved in to explain some of the craziness in her second season.

Some of the ideas that have been simmering for a while (in the About Time books) come to a head here, in my opinion. Gallifrey Mean Time seems to make more and more sense, as ludicrous as it might seem. And the idea of a slightly shifting continuity in the cosmos for everyone except The Doctor and his companion(s) at the time seems not only implied but downright necessary at this point in the series. Also, I like the idea of Tennant's hubris in Waters of Mars causing the crack in the wall next season, and possibly both Gallifrey's ability to influence events in End of Time and their paradoxical freedom come Day of the Doctor.

In some ways these books make me feel like I've been watching Doctor Who wrong for the 25 years I've been watching it, but I think (I hope!) it's possible to watch it both ways.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is chock full of fascinating information, and while that's a good thing, it also has the side-effect of being overwhelming. With there being so much to put together, the book was published with there being multiple columns of print (like a newspaper), because otherwise, this book would probably have been closer to 500-600 pages. That, and the authors' propensity to shit all over many of the characters (and even the actors in some cases) really just turned me off on this.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with the previous volume, this is hampered by discussing material a bit too recent for the dust to have settled and for all the gossip to have come out. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...