The Fifth Doctor Handbook
by David J Howe & Stephen James Walker

Few can really compare to the Howe/Stammers/Walker team (or, in this case, just Howe and Walker) in terms of research into Doctor Who's past. Only Marcus Hearn and Andrew Pixley have produced work which has been as comprehensive and as accurate. As with the previous Handbooks and the Decades books, then, I approached "The Fifth Doctor Handbook" eager to learn new facts about one of my preferred eras of Doctor Who, and to revisit things I already knew in greater detail.

Unfortunately, "The Fifth Doctor Handbook" doesn't really provide either. With this, the fourth addition to the Handbooks range, Howe and Walker seem to have hit a snag in that the Davison era has really been pretty well documented already. Unlike the previous "Sixth Doctor Handbook", for instance, there are few events which have been poorly presented in the past and so this book serves mainly as a regurgitation of the same familiar stories. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, of course -- it's still written in an enjoyable, readable (albeit occasionally repetitious) style. But "The Fifth Doctor Handbook"; really lacks the fascinating revelations which made the previous volumes so absorbing.

Even instances where unknown facts could be revealed -- like, for instance, greater detail about the early drafts of Terrance Dicks' script for "The Five Doctors" -- are mainly glossed over. The section on the making of this story instead turns into a slightly inferior imitation of Andrew Pixley's DWM "Archives".

In the past, some have criticized this book for having overwhelmingly negative reviews. Really, this isn't the case. David Howe in particular is pretty fair in his assessments of the individual stories, and although Stephen James Walker does occasionally reveal a somewhat aggravating bias towards Doctor Who's early years, it's not so overt as to be ridiculous. It is perhaps a shame, though, that with the absence of Mark Stammers on this book that the opportunity wasn't taken to bring a more (dare I say it) contemporary reviewer into the fold. Oh, and like almost everyone else they do completely miss the boat on "Dimensions in Time". ;-)

While satisfying, "The Fifth Doctor Handbook" pales in comparison to last year's superb "First Doctor Handbook". In a way I can't help but wonder if complacency is beginning to set into Doctor Who's premiere historian team, but I think it's fairer to say that this was simply a case of the authors encountering a decade which was already pretty well spoken for. I'm sure more casual fans less well-versed with the existing documentation will find it very enjoyable indeed.

5/10.

Back to Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)

Back to Reviews From The Land Of Fiction