About Time 4: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who [Paperback]

ABOUT TIME 4, the second (don't be fooled by the numbers, Mad Norwegian decided to start in the middle of the series because the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Doctors are the ones most known to viewers of the show, especially in America.) in Mad Norwegian's exhaustive series of guides to the televised adventures of Doctor Who, covers the bulk of the Tom Baker years; the period where the show was first noticed, for the most part, in America; the period with the classic team of producer Philip Hinchcliffe and, as I mentioned in my review of ABOUT TIME 3, my favorite Who writer, script editor Robert Holmes, and the time frame where Douglas Adams was script editor. To most casual fans then, this is the book that will mean most, because it's the Fourth Doctor's book; to myself, the ABOUT TIME series gets interesting because here is where the authors start disagreeing on what is good Who and what isn't, and more importantly actually state the differences. More on this later.

ABOUT TIME 4 details the first six years of Tom Baker's run on Doctor Who in the same sort of insane detail that ABOUT TIME 3 started. Each story is examined by the authors on every level imaginable, from the memorable moments, to the development of the main characters, to the continuity and history of the show, and to the monsters and aliens and other creatures that were staples of the show. Each story has a section about the most glaring of plot holes, continuity errors, or just plain wrong things about the story, as well as background history on what was going on behind the scenes during the filming of each story. The level of detail is mindboggling at times-as I said in my other review, Miles and Wood devote as much space to the Fourth Doctor as other guides do to the entire 26 years of the series run; if anything, perhaps they use too much detail, but one can hardly quibble about the authors spending that much care on a subject, rather than being lazy.

Of interest to many is the coverage of the time Douglas Adams spent on Doctor Who, first as the writer of THE PIRATE PLANET, then later as script editor of Season Seventeen. Fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide who aren't aware of this aspect of Adams' life will be interested in how much of the Guide turned up in Who, and vice versa.

To me though, the most interesting part is that where, in ABOUT TIME 3 the critiques of each story were mostly in agreement over the quality of said episode, as time goes by in ABOUT TIME 4, the critiques are broken down into a defense of the episode and a prosecution of it. It's interesting trying to guess if one author disagrees with the other, or if they're presenting both sides of a controversial story. Given what I know about Lawrence Miles, I would say the former, though I can't be certain; it is interesting though to see a guidebook give more than one opinion on a story, rather than following some sort of editorial party line (and it gets really good in ABOUT TIME 5, when the John Nathan-Turner era gets in full swing, but that's another review.)

ABOUT TIME 4 is an exhaustive, detailed, and moreover honest guide to some of the most crucial years of Doctor Who, and is highly recommended.

"About Time" is the best work written so far about Doctor Who. It is incredibly thorough and somewhat witty, and shows connections that would have made James Burke blush.

Besides giving accurate continuity (which tries to be as objective as possible, unlike "Ahistory" or "The Discontinuity Guide"), "About Time" also offers where the ideas for the stories came from, arguments (both pro- and con-) about the merits of the show, and many, many anecdotes which are a lot of fun to read, as well as a plethora of gaffes and plot points that don't make sense (of which there are many in Doctor Who).

The big thing which is missing is of course a proper synopsis or summary of each story. However, it is more likely that if you have bought these books, you have already seen the stories several times over and just want to read more about them, so a summarization would be a waste of paper. (And if you have not seen Doctor Who, the book has no intention on convincing you to see it.)

This fourth volume covers the Tom Baker era from its inception all the way through the untransmitted story "Shada".

Much is said about the problems with and during production, about the ego clashes that were bound to take place, many of the conflicts with scriptwriters, producers and even occasional fanboys, and quite a few interesting tales about why certain stories work and why some do not.

And yes, there are some new anecdotes about Douglas Adams.

I very heartily recommend this book if you want a very intensive and enjoyable romp through the good old days of the mid to late 1970s and how Doctor Who managed to survive the changeover to "The show with the scarf-wearing, jelly baby eating, sonic screwdriving, robodog-owning, cavegirl's best friend", and having done that, to still keep its identity in the wake of increased competition with other, sometimes more sophisticated science fiction.

Those who do not wish to buy all six volumes will probably buy "The Discontinuity Guide" or perhaps something else, and will definitely miss out on a lot of gold here. (Always keep gold in mind in case of Cybermen.)

The "About Time" books are, by far, some of the most thorough analyses that I've ever seen for "Doctor Who." I've written some TV companion books myself and can't even imagine the amount of time that went into creating these tomes. If you want to know about "Doctor Who" before the new stuff, these are highly recommended reading.

I would love to see Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood doing a seventh volume, covering the new series, even though it seems that neither are into the "Welsh series" that much. Their style of writing and critical eyes make "About Time" stand out, so even if it's not painted pretty with gushing praise all the time, it's still incredibly honest.