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nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/927416.html[return][return]Though third in chronological sequence, this was the first of the About Time series published, covering precisely the years of Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor, and almost as precisely the years of Barry Letts as producer and Terrance Dicks as script editor. It's a huge change of setting for the show with almost two thirds of the 24 stories - including the whole of the first Pertwee season - set on contemporary Earth with the UNIT team. (Compare precisely one contemporary adventure, plus some odd bits and pieces [including the first ever episode], of the 29 Hartnell stories, and a fairly steady rate of 10-20% for the remainder of the classic series; compare, of course, also 100% of the eighth Doctor's on-screen adventures, and a third of the stories since the 2005 revival.)[return][return]Miles and Wood have done a very good job of identifying the roots of each story, literary, political and televisual. It's not yet at the levels of genius that their Volume 2 reached, but there are some glorious moments, including the frightening similarities between Jon Pertwee, Jimmy Saville and Bruce Forsythe. They have also yet to give in to the unfortunate enthusiasm for endnotes which is one of the few really annoying things about later volumes. (The five fairly restrained end-notes here concern Enoch Powell, Oswald Mosley, Sooty and Sweep, the aforementioned Bruce Forsythe, and Catweazle.) There are the usual discursive essays, of which the two best are probably on the importance of the incidental music and on the implied history of UK politics in Doctor Who.
nwhyte's review against another edition
"http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1256014.html[return][return]I read the first edition of this two years ago, since when it has been sitting on the shelf with the other volumes of this superb series of handbooks to Doctor Who, looking a bit thin in comparison with its fellows. This second edition is massively expanded from the first, with most of the new material simply being more of the same excellent analysis of the programme's context (in this case the early 1970s) plus a lot more analytical essays and 147 endnotes (which is 142 more than in the first edition; though I repeat my complaint about them being endnotes rather than footnotes). There is loads more information about what was going on behind the scenes, most of which is very interesting; my own recent back problems make me very sympathetic to Jon Pertwee. A welcome shift in Wood's attitude has him attempting to incorporate New Who continuity into Old Who analysis, rather than the invective he was previously lapsing into; this offers him room for writing such essays as 'All Right, Then... Where Were Torchwood?' and additional evidence for 'When are the Unit Stories Set?' There are a couple of other standout pieces, 'Why Did We Countdown to TV Action?' on the early 1970s Doctor Who comics, and 'Why Didn't Plaid Cymru Lynch Barry Letts?' which ostensibly attempts to explain Wales to Americans but actually has a lot of good points to make.[return][return]When I read the first edition of this I hadn't yet seen all the Pertwee stories, and tended to go and look them up in Wood and Miles after I had finished watching them. Now I want to watch several of them again to see the things I missed first time around. An excellent handbook, and I am very glad that Wood is planning a seventh volume to cover the first years of New Who."
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