[.ca] Doctor Who (ISBN 1904048749)

Practical Guide:
This book is a practical guide which itemises detail, time, place etc, with precise storylines and opinion set out in an easy to read format for anyone wanting information. Surprise and interest for me was the number of well known actors "Dr Who" used.

Fulfills Promise:
This convenient slim volume fulfills its promise - a basic overview that covers the essential elements of each show. While the author's reviews (or "verdicts") can seem a bit didactic, they always entertain. More importantly, Campbell delivers a fitting addition to this series of paperbacks: succinct, thorough, and easy to carry along on shopping trips. Could anyone have written this? Probably not. It's too short for sloppy writing. This type of brevity takes hard work!

Essentials? Hardly that:
I was greatly dissappointed in the book. While it has some interesting points of view, it is so slanted the book should be a trapizoid and not rectangular. I disagreed on several of the ratings. All in all, I much prefer The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping. While at times they disagree on their reviews, they are fair in their outlook.

Disappointed:
As a person new to the Who-niverse, I was looking for something that would outline all prior episodes and provide background information about the Doctor, Gallifrey, and the universe as a whole. This book doesn't give it. For what it is, I'm sure it's excellent: for each episode, the book lists the cast, crew, broadcast date, a one-line synopsis, a few notes, and a verdict. The synopsis is too short to give a complete picture of what happened, the observations (generally a few points of production information) are brief, and the verdit insufficiently discussed to really give a newbie an idea of what's going on. In short; this book is not for newbies. Hardcore fans who want a good facts book would probably like this book, though I have to admit, I find the production information to be light and not gripping.

A Joy to Read:
I would just like to say how much I am enjoying reading "Pocket Essentials TV: Doctor Who". I like the unofficial style, which gives the bad points as well as the good. I'm currently mid-way through the Jon Pertwee section, and am finding it thoroughly enjoyable. I've recommended the book to many people. Overall the book gets a groundbreaking 10 out of 10.