Book review by Paul Scoones
To those fortunate few who possess complete collections of publications such
as In-Vision, The Frame, DWM and DWB, this book will add very
little to their store of information on Doctor Who. However to the rest
of us whose reference resources are rather less well endowed, this book is a
godsend. And coming as it does from The Frame team, you can be sure that
this is going to be a resource that you can rely upon to be perhaps the most
complete and accurate analysis of the Fourth Doctor's era yet published.
The Handbook at first appears to be all too similar to the Sixties,
Seventies and Eighties series in that their subject is for the
most part about the production of Doctor Who and both series are written
by the Howe-Stammers-Walker team. Apart from The Sixties and The
Handbook: The Fourth Doctor both being superb books, this is to my mind
where the similarity ends.
The Sixties (and one presumes The Seventies and The
Eighties), is an overview of a decade, concentrating on the people behind
the show and its spin-offs as well as, of course, all those beautifully
presented rare photographs.
The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor (and again, one presumes, its
successors), is on the other hand a far more detailed and concentrated analysis
of the show's technical and artistic development. No doubt there will be some
crossover with the 'decades' trilogy, but only in as much as they cover the
same television programme.
The Handbook's authors must be congratulated for not shying away from
including such minutiae as the actual recording dates (and which studio where
known), the duration timings, viewer ratings and chart positions, listings of
every location and production people down to costume, make-up and visual
effects designers for each story. This is a brave step to take, considering
that unlike a fanzine - the usual repository of this depth of information - the
book must appeal to the general book-buying public as well as the inevitable
Doctor Who fan market. Speaking however as one who falls into the latter of
these two groups, I'm delighted to find this information made so readily
available.
Effects, location, production development and marketing are all essayed in
their own chapters. One story - The Brain of Morbius - is singled out
and is discussed as a television production in great detail by the director and
designer who have been specially interviewed for this book whilst actually
watching the story.
All of this however comprises just one of three sections of the chunky 256
page Handbook. Another section attempts to give an insight into the life
and philosophies of Tom Baker through what appears to be a fairly exhaustive
collection of interview extracts. To my mind, Mr Baker has this extraordinary
knack of being very candid and at the same time very cagey, and having read
this section I didn't really feel I knew the 'real' Tom Baker any better, but I
had a greater understanding of why this is. That chapter is followed up by an
analysis of the Fourth Doctor and the development of the character over his
era - which is to my mind more marked than any other Doctor, with the possible
exception of the Seventh.
The other section is a programme guide containing plot synopses that easily
surpass Lofficier's for accuracy, as well as detailed information relating to
recording and transmission, including repeats (the only thing that Lofficier's
Programme Guide has that The Handbook doesn't are cast lists).
There are a few brief trivia facts, and a capsule review of each story, which
make this section read a bit like an armchair video viewer's guidebook.
Disturbingly, I did find that these reviews tend to dwell rather more on the
negative aspects of most stories than the positive. I don't think I would be
enthused to watch many Tom Baker stories if I had only this as an indication of
their quality.
For me, the most fascinating item in the book was a chapter called
'Rewriting the Myth', which looks at the ways in which the Whoniverse was both
altered and built upon by the stories of the Fourth Doctor's era. I hope this
feature will be retained for future Handbooks.
If you are at all interested in the Fourth Doctor's era, especially the
behind-the-scenes aspects, then this is the best of its kind. Personally, I
can't wait to have the whole seven-book set!
Book review by Jon Preddle
This is a difficult book to review. For me, the book contains nothing new (I
have seen much of it all before in other publications) and yet I still found it
an interesting read.
Written by the same trio who wrote The Sixties, The Handbook is an analysis
of the Fourth Doctor's era. There is a biography of Tom Baker which is made up
of extracts from various interviews, a look at the Fourth Doctor's persona, his
personality traits, etc, plus the obligatory story-guide. I found these three
sections somewhat bland, but only because I've read the like elsewhere. However
I did find the latter sections of the book interesting.
There is a look at the continuity factors that were introduced into the
overall Whoniverse during the Fourth Doctor's era and the developments and
innovations made in television and special effects during the seven years (or,
to be precise, 6 years, 2 months and 25 days!), that Tom Baker was the Doctor.
There is an unusual look at the making of The Brain of Morbius (inaccurately
described as a typical Tom Baker story since it didn't have any
location filming, unlike the majority of Baker stories), a location guide, the
now obligatory merchandise listing, and a ratings chart.
As I said above, the book contains little that is new, but least most of the
information is now contained in one book. Fans of the Fourth Doctor will no
doubt enjoy it, but The Handbook is, I'm afraid, for completists only.
