Pocket Essentials' Guide to Doctor Who
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Pocket Essentials Pocket Essentials' Guide to Doctor Who |
| Author | Mark Campbell |  |
| ISBN# | 1 903 04719 6 | |
| Publisher | Pocket Essentials | |
| Published | 2000 |
| Summary: A short guide to the series at a glance, with every story reviewed |
Probably a Non-Essential Selection by Andrew Wixon 19/7/00
If you're saying 'What?', you're not alone: I hadn't heard of it either until my regular SF dealer pointed it out to me. Pocket Essentials probably didn't bother to send out review copies. Anyway, on with the review: Brothers and sisters, probably 90% of us could have written this book, being as it is another story-by-story, capsule-description-and-review style trawl through the televised series. Think a very heavily condensed version of The Discontinuity Guide and that's the format. The author (Mark Campbell) sat down and watched (or listened to) every episode and committed his opinion to paper. That's the book. Full stop. As I say, most of us could do the same.
This is a slim volume (less than 100 pages) and is thankfully correspondingly cheap, but it does mean it doesn't cover everything. The films, recent TV parodies, stage shows, and radio series get a review, the BF stories get a mention, and, er, that's about it. A few books and websites get plugged (but not this one).
So why even bother buying it? Well, Campbell's is a new voice and he's not afraid to be controversial or blunt. No sacred cow is safe, and he even goes so far as to suggest that the show is dead and gone forever. Many of his opinions come straight out of left field, and they'll provoke infuriation and sighs of 'thank God I'm not the only one who thinks that!' in equal measure. Just a handful of his observations:
And so on, and so on, and so on -- though Cambell agrees with fan orthodoxy a lot of the time too. (I personally agree with at least one of the above opinions, by the way, and think at least one other is utter nonsense -- but naturally I'm not saying which is which.) I get the impression this book wasn't edited terribly rigorously. There's the obligatory 'spot-the-source-material' slot for each story, and things get especially weird here -- we learn that 'The Great Escape' influenced Planet of the Daleks, 'The Wicker Man' inspired The Stones of Blood, and that apparently the key influence on Four to Doomsday was bearded Aussie vet-botherer Rolf Harris. You also have to question his ability to review things like Curse of the Daleks with such authority given that he can only have read the script.
So is it worth buying? Well, maybe. If you use the Guide you must have an interest in hearing other people's opinions of Doctor Who, and that's basically all this is. At the very least it'll make you think, if only for the length of time it takes you to retrieve it after you hurl it away in outraged fury. And you will.
A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 25/7/00
Pocket Essentials is basically a watered down version of the Howe/Stammers/Walker collection of handbooks, complete with reviews, quotes and observations. This would certainly serve the casual fan, although die hard fans would find it difficult to get anything new from it. At least it is up to date with reviews of the two Dalek films, the Big Finish Audios, the stage plays and various other television spin offs. What is noticeable is that author, Mark Campbell, doesn`t hold back in his reviews, being very blunt about what he does and doesn`t like. Not essential by any stretch of the imagination.
The nonfan's miniguide to Doctor Who by Konstantin Hubert 30/9/04
That The Pocket Essential: Doctor Who is a guide not aimed at fans is made clear since the very beginning, the introductory essay, where Mark Campbell believes that he will surprise the reader by revealing that this guide is not the first book written on Doctor Who and that the series is dead for many years now, two facts well-known of course to every fan. One therefore infers that revelations or exclusive information or long, insightful reviews should not be expected in Pocket Essential: Doctor Who, which the average fan obtains either out of curiosity or if he collects the programme's nonfiction books, for completeness' sake. The novice on the other hand will discover a notable, not perfect nor indispensable, miniguide, which by providing the essential knowledge on Doctor Who may function as his portal to this universe.
The guide opens with a highly informative but informal and of a rather low quality introductory essay, in which Doctor Who's 40-year history is recorded laconically, in just three pages. The introduction includes references to the programme's roots and its brainchild, Sydney Newman and summarises the way this institution was born and how it has evolved all those years. And although Richard Grant's contribution is mentioned, the introduction isn't so updated to include Christopher Eccleston's name (the new edition was published for the Fortieth Anniversary in late 2003, namely, before the BBC's announcement of Eccleston's selection).
The essay is then succeeded by the main and by far biggest section, that of the television stories. Information on the plot and the principal cast and crew of every single televised story, including the 1996 telemovie, is provided along with mention of broadcast dates and video or DVD releases. Non-Who sources of influences are surprisingly brought forward to our attention, whereas the writer's observations and evaluation of the story are the icing on the cake. With regard to the evaluations, the verdicts, fans will inevitably agree and disagree and to varying degrees. For instance, I disagree with the writer when he claims that the first Doctor's regenaration/rejuvenation in The Tenth Planet is particularly well-done and I have explained the reasons in my review. I disprove that the death of the cosmos by entropy in Logopolis is a very impressive element, because in its undue extravagance it becomes really ludicrous. On the other hand, I second Mark Campbell when he asserts that Timelash is unfairly maligned and that Peter Miles (Nyder) and Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks give chilling performances. Disagreements and agreements are natural and very expected, so we should not judge the overall work by the writer's preferences.
The miniguide continues with an arrangament of all the relevant Big Finish audios released before 2004, a one-page reference to the missing episodes and a very comprehensive section on the spin-off productions and closes with the lists of nonfiction sourcebooks and websites. As a result, in 87 pages is crammed the alpha and omega of Doctor Who.
This Pocket Essential, although a decent sourcebook, is not free of flaws. The first imperfection lies in the introductory essay, which oddly lacks objectivity. The writer ought to record Doctor Who's history impartially disciplining his feelings, avoiding references to personal experiences and concealing his preferences. He shouldn't have evaluated in this essay any aspect of the programme's history. He calls for example the Hinchcliffe/Holmes years a period of recycled Gothic horror and yet to most of these stories he grants a good grade. In the same paragraph it becomes obvious that he likes very much the Fifth Doctor, who, according to Campbell, was wonderful and never gave a bad performance no matter what dross he was in and he complains about Peter Davison's relatively brief tenure of the Time Lord''s role through the exaggerated and tasteless joke, that there should have been a law prohibiting Davison's early departure. It is worth quoting Campbell: "Davison bowed out after a criminally short three years (there should be a law agaist it)." And when he evinces his dislike of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century and fondness of Queer as Folk, the unnecessary information on his preferences exceeds Doctor Who's boundaries. When it comes to personal experiences, we learn that Carnival of Monsters and Sea Devils were the stories that hooked him and that his two children watched Doctor Who regularly and even Doctor Who and the Silurians, a serial father Mark isn't fond of, had pleased them... In the last paragraph on page 8, it is implied that objectivity is sacrificed for honesty, "let's be honest here, (and honesty is what this whole introduction is about)". His "honesty" however is sometimes very subjective, statements such as "the Fifth Doctor was wonderful" and "Patrick Troughton the finest actor to take on the role" can raise objections, so those subjective and personal comments have tarnished the essay and should have been avoided.
The second flaw is its complete lack of pictures, most probably a common feature of the Pocket Essentials editions. Only one picture is found, that of the TARDIS on the cover (I am referring to the new edition) and even this one shows not the TARDIS in its entirety. A collection of pictures (not necessarily a lavish one, just 12 -15 black& white pictures) displaying each Doctor and the most popular companions and villains should have been included and would have been valuable to the novice, who would have thus gotten flavour of some of the series' most importants aspects. The absence of pictures results in the guide looking somewhat untidy, incomplete, whereas their presence would have simply slightly boosted the price of this inexpensive guide, which is currently sold at the price of a monthly magazine.
Informative and handy, Pocket Essential is a nice but not faultless little introductory guide to Doctor Who covering all aspects of this manifold universe, the fiction books and comic strips excepted. Its small size, low price and simple, hobbyist style are advantages over other nonfiction DW works making it accessible to the nonfan, of whom it might prove to be the key to the TARDIS and countless travels in space and time.
Grade: 7.5/10 or 8/10