Doctor Who: The Vault: Treasures from the First 50 Years

This book is a treasure trove of information about the first 50 years of Doctor Who: from its beginnings in 1963 to the 50th anniversary special in 2013. There are production notes, explorations of other aspects of the fandom (the novelizations, Big Finish), and tons and tons of photos. It’s a beautiful book and I learned a great deal from it. Reading this will make you want to dig through your Doctor Who DVDs, fire up BritBox if you have it, or go on a spending spree at Big Finish. Lots of fun and highly recommended. ( )

This slick-looking coffee table book, which was put out to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in 2013, takes us through the history of the series year-by-year. Each year is covered in one chapter (except for the years when the show was off the air, which are mostly lumped together), and each chapter essentially has two different components. First, there's the visual part, which consists of an interesting miscellany of pictures. There are photos taken from the show itself, or from behind the scenes, or released as publicity images. There are pictures of props and models and scraps of production notes. There are images of the covers of publications devoted to the show, and sometimes snippets of articles about it or comics based on it. And there is a rather startling array of Who-themed merchandise.

Then there's the text. Each chapter starts off with a short overview of and commentary on the episodes produced that year. Then there is a short article featuring some subject relevant to (but not necessarily confined to) what was happening with the series that year. Examples of the topics addressed include regeneration, time travel paradoxes, music, profiles of important writers and directors, the reception of the show in the US, and the history of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. These don't necessarily go into a lot of depth, but they do offer up some odd snippets of trivia and some interesting perspectives from various people involved with the show.

All in all, it's an interesting, nostalgic, visually pleasing walk down memory lane for the Who fan. I thought it might help tide me over here at the start of the long, long wait for the new season, but mostly it's just made me crave it even more by reminding me just how much I love the show. ( )

I haven't read many books about TV shows - let alone shows with a 50-year history - and I enjoyed Doctor Who: The Vault. There was an introductory overview page for each year the series was on the air, followed by a few pages of text, images, and captions.

Visual: There were memos, pages of scripts, toys and action figures, cover images of fan magazines, photos of the actors on set, masks and costumes and swatches, and more.

Text: The text for each year didn't focus so much on the episodes themselves as on behind-the-scenes negotiations between showrunners and the BBC, Doctor Who's growing fan base (which spawned fanzines and conventions), special effects, theme music, budget woes, off-screen productions, and debate about the direction of the show (sci-fi, gothic, adult or family, etc.).

At first I thought I'd just skim, but I ended up reading most of the book. I've only seen the show since it re-started in 2005 and I'd like to go back to a few of the older episodes (particularly Ghost Light, which was mentioned a few times). ( )