Who-Ology: Doctor Who - The Official Miscellany - Book Review
Credit: BBC Books
There are few continuities more daunting to enter than that of Doctor Who. When a franchise runs for fifty years, it can be hard for new fans to find an entry point for the series, or to fully understand the context of what came before. Given that this is a property that lives and breathes well beyond the TV screen. Through books, games, audio dramas and webisodes, it's virtually impossible to cull all that information together. Yet Who-Ology: Doctor Who - The Official Miscellany not only does just that, it does so in concise, edifying fashion. This is without mentioning that it's simply a fun read.
Of course, if someone were to make a Doctor Who compendium, you'd be hard pressed to argue that Cavan Scott and Mark Wright aren't the right men for the job. Both writers have an extensive background in the franchise, as Scott has written a wide variety of Doctor Who audio dramas and novels while Wright has written a series of short stories and comic strips set in the show's universe. Their intimate familiarity serves this volume of lists, essays and factoids well, as Cavan and Scott have written an all-purpose reference guide for Whovians new and old, softening the impenetrable nature of the show's extensive continuity.
However, Who-Ology is a lot more than simply a compendium of esoteric knowledge.
The collection offers some incisive analysis of The Doctor's history, providing a wealth of information that will allow readers to piece together The Doctor's past, from his first appearance in "An Unearthly Child" to the cataclysmic Time War that essentially wiped the slate clean for the show's 2005 re-debut. In addition, the book provides in-depth details on the various serials that were crucial in defining the show in its early years, and the actors who have had their careers launched by the sci-fi classic.
You could seriously lose hours in this tome, between the compilation of The Doctor's "kissing companions," to a "Dalek A-Z" chapter that tells you everything you need to know about The Doctor's best-known enemy in a fun, fleet list of facts (P is for Polycarbide! Who knew?). The book's lighter touch, in comparison to Gary Russell's comprehensive encyclopedia, is one of its biggest credits, as it reads like a casual, conversational analysis of Doctor Who's most compelling, engaging elements. The reference guide for the companions is invaluable in getting to the heart (both of them) of the show's mercurial, enigmatic protagonist. There are also plenty of useful tables and graphs here as well, including a helpful chart that categorizes companions by Reasons For Leaving The Doctor, and a pie chart of enemy types by species. The amount of trivia contained in these pages borders on inexhaustible, which is staggering when you consider that the book is only 189 pages in E-book format.
The book has other credits, however; chiefly, that the book treats the entire chronology as a single unit. Scott and Wright don't differentiate between classic episodes and post-2005 episodes, as all Doctor Who is part of the same Whovian fabric. This approach gives the book a definitive sense of scope, illustrating the astounding depth of the series, which is rivalled only by the expansive continuity of your average comic book superhero -- and even Batman gets a reboot every few years. Doctor Who, however, is meant to be taken as one unbroken chronology, which makes Scott and Wright's accomplishment all the more impressive. It's one thing to cover The Doctor's regenerations and his greatest enemies, but it's another thing entirely to fashion a history of the show's design, or offering little-known behind-the-scenes stories about the various creative forces involved in bringing the show to life.
In the era of Cracked, everybody is writing lists, it seems. But Scott and Wright have created something far more nuanced. Who-Ology is exhaustive in its breadth, but inescapably fascinating in its concise, informative, light-hearted approach. Not unlike the series that serves as its subject, Who-Ology provides a thoroughly addicting experience.
