It may have escaped you attention, but Doctor Who is fifty years old this year. Yes, whodathunkit, indeed? Inevitably there are plentiful opportunities for merchandising and official tie-ins and equally inevitably these will be of varying interest and quality. Two new books debut at the end of this month, each celebrating the landmark event...
Doctor Who: The Vault ('Treasures from the first 50 Years') might sound as if it's going to be a lightweight pick'n'mix into the history of the show, but it's actually much more of a superior and detailed look at the five decades the series has been on screen. Written by Marcus Hearn, it is richly illustrated with photographs, images, sketches, floorplans, cuttings and production designs... this remains a book expertly divided between the pictoral needs of a modern guide-book but also strong, informative chapters and commentary about how the show developed. Aimed at the discerning fan and those who are genuinely interested in not just thecommercial 'fannish' aspects but the actual history on show, there's a detailed, but never 'dry' analysis of how Doctor Who came into being and the ebb and flow of its popularity over the years. There's a linear approach to proceedings, going from year to year and Doctor to Doctor, all the way from before the 1963 debut, to current plans for the 2013 celebrations. There's a not small £30.00 price-tag to this tome but the textured, if somewhat plain blue-hued cover, an introduction by Steven Moffat and over 300 over-sized pages make it the kind of luxury, but good-value tie-ins that migth make a solid treat or early Christmas present for the dedicated fan.
9/10
The Doctor: His Lives and Times feels a little more thrown together, as if it were a work-in-progress in which the remit kept changing through production - or maybe simply being the inevitable result of the product created by two authors (James Goss and Steve Tribe) with different styles and jobs to do. It's clearly geared for a younger audience than 'The Vault' stuffed full of imagery and has a format which is divided between that of a rough and ready scrapbook - with jumbled off-set photographs, illustrations, mocked-up diary pages and faux newspaper headlines - the kind of content that you find yourself reading through halfway before you can decide whether it is 'real', 'made-up' or truly of interest... and other pages that have collections of quotes from various actors, writers, directors and commentators about the stories and series as a whole. It veers between the two and it is this latter aspect also feels particualrly bitty. It is as if someone thought about writing an in-depth article and then decided it would be easier to just cut and paste a Q&A and then decided it would be even easier just to do the 'A' part.
It's not that the whole book isn't interesting and somewhat entertaining, but it's so ill-defined that it feels somewhat opportunistic - a lite-snack in attractive, expensive wrapping for Doctor Who fans rather than the banquet provided in The Vault - almost as if this was the collected edition of many of the weekly part-work periodicals that get launched on a yearly basis. It may well find a solid place with that younger age-group or casual of readers, but with a price-tag of £20.00 for its 250 pages, it's going to have some stiff competition on the shelves despite placing the departing Doctor front and centre on its cover. Good fun but not essential.
7/10
Both official BBC Books are available from the 24th October...
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