Rating: WORTHY!
Kind of cheating to ask me to do a review of a Doctor Who "treasure vault" like this because I love the show in general. I have to admit though that I have some issues with the new writer who took over after Steven Moffat. I don't think he's capable of achieving the same high bar initiated by Russell Davis - one that was taken to even greater heights by Steven Moffat. And before anyone says anything, my position has nothing to do with the Doctor now being female. I think that's great. I just wish Jodi Whittaker had better scripts to work with, which brings me to my next point which is that the seasons are far too short.
In the old days, those of the original Doctor Who seasons, there was a show every week for half of the year, typically running to forty or more episodes (the stories were split into half-hour serialized episodes back then, a varying number of episodes making a story). Admittedly some of those scripts were duffers, but they were there because numerous writers were hired to write them. From season 8, that number was reduced by almost half and then further reduced to 20 episodes and finally dropped to 13 or 14 by Colin Baker's time (although the episodes were longer, rather mirroring the more recent seasons) and into Sylvester McCoy's era. It's hardly surprising that viewership dropped-off when there was nothing to view for much of the year, and the scripts were all-too-often lacking something.
This reduced schedule was resumed when the new series kicked-off in 2005 and despite the quality of both scripts and production rising significantly, for some reason the powers-that-befuddle chose not to increase the number of episodes (now each a full story). This annoys me because there are writers out there who could write great episodes if given the chance and the will was there from the BBC to produce them. But the show has gone in the other direction, with the episode numbers being reduced - and even missed entirely in two years within recent memory, and under Chibnall, the number of episodes has been dropped to ten. if they were longer or better that might not be so bad, but they're simply not.
While Chibnall's first season had quite high ratings due to Whittaker's presence, the ratings consistently dropped throughout the series from almost 11 million to less than 7, and in series 12, from 7 down to less than five. Chibnall is killing it in the worst way possible. He wrote or co-wrote 13 of these 20 shows and one report I read has it that six of season 12's shows are among the top ten least-watched in the entire Doctor Who canon. Way to go Chibnall.
But we have our books! This one is a lush hardback - or soft hardback since there is some cushioning which lends it a nice 'expensive' feel. The book is like a scrapbook and it leaves nothing of the first fifty years untouched, including the Peter Cushing movies, and the hilarious and star-studded Case of the Fatal Death comedy special for charity, which featured a female doctor in part - although the special was far from canon!
The book covers each of the years there have been shows from the early sixties to the early 20-teens, and gives a summary of the year supplemented by lots of photos. I commend this as a worthy read.
