Doctor Who: The Official Guide

(2013/2024) Justin Richards & Julian Richards, BBC Children’s Books/Puffin,
Ł20.00 / Can$43.00 / US$26.00, hrdbk, 272pp , ISBN 978-1-405-96987-1

[NOTE - the title page says ”BBC Children’s Books are published by Puffin Books, part of the Penguin Random House group of companies”]

This book has a bit of a history, having been updated and reprinted under various titles. It was first published in 2013 as Doctor Who: The Essential Guide to Fifty Years of Doctor Who and reissued in 2018 as Doctor Who: The Handbook. An updated edition was published in 2020 as Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor’s Guide. It has now been further updated and this edition was published in 2024 as Doctor Who: The Official Guide. The authors are named only on the publishing details page, which also thanks Derek Handley.

The cover proclaims ‘Everything you need to know about the Whoniverse’; that is a tall claim and unsurprisingly it does not achieve it. Doctor Who has been around for over sixty years and it is never all going to fit into 272 pages (no, the book is not bigger on the inside than the outside).

It starts with a few pages in general then moves on to each Doctor, in order along the Doctor’s timeline. First is the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin - 4 pages), followed by the First Doctor (William Hartnell - 10 pages), the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton - 12 pages), the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee - 14 pages), the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker - 18 pages), the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison - 12 pages), the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker - 12 pages), the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy - 12 pages), the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann - 6 pages), the War Doctor (John Hurt - 4 pages), the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston - 14 pages), the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant - 20 pages), the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith - 20 pages), the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi - 34 pages), the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker - 48 pages), the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant - 12 pages), and finishing with the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa - 12 pages, covering only his first season).

For each Doctor, the layout is generally the same. It starts with a general introduction to the Nth Doctor and the actor then moves on to ‘Adventures in Space and Time’, which gives a brief outline of some of the stories. Next comes ‘The Nth Doctor’s Companions’, which gives brief notes on that Doctor’s companions and who played them. This is followed by ‘The Nth Doctor’s Foes’, which lists the foes that the Doctor encountered, though strictly not all of them were foes. Last comes ‘The End of the Nth Doctor’, which describes what overwhelmed them and thus caused their regeneration. Needless to say, some of the Companions appear with more than one Doctor and some of the Foes appear several times.

All in all, it is a useful reminder of each Doctor and some of what they got up to, as well as who their companions and foes were. It is a glossy production with a pleasant layout, and there are many photographs which brought back memories. It does not say a lot really, but it is a pleasant wander through the Doctor’s history. I doubt that you will learn anything new but collectors will enjoy it, and is a handy reference for those general Doctor Who fans who want a simple reminder.

Non-Fiction Reviews

Doctor Who: The Official Guide