Easily the weakest of the "About Time" series. Left to his own device without former co-author Lawrence Miles, Tat Wood seems to have fallen prey to the infamous disease of not-being-edited. The initial Colin Baker section predominantly reads well, but once we hit the McCoy era Wood begins to waffle on...and on...and on. There is an excruciating amount of detail and commentary in that section of the book that simply doesn't go anywhere or add anything new. In previous volumes, I really felt like I came away with a new understanding of the time period and the way in which the show was produced. Here, I...erm...learned a few things about the strike that affected "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy." That's about it.

Wood's unrelenting hatred for the McGann TV movie is similarly baffling. He discards any attempt at being objective (something the previous books only managed in part, to be fair) and simply goes off the deep end, devoting a very long essay to whether or not McGann can reeeeally be the eighth Doctor, right down to a debate over whether that face drawn in "Human Nature" is reeeeally taken from a TVM publicity photo or not (it is, and a very famous one, too!). Perhaps the nadir of Wood's mania comes when he actually suggests Eric Roberts would've been a better Doctor than McGann. Yeah, we get that you don't like it, mate.

Overall I really felt like Wood's unbridled "opinion column" approach sabotaged the book from being the culmination of a great series. Instead, it's a decent entry, but you really have to wade through some overdone nonsense to get to anything interesting. It's one thing to present a humorous, spiky take on the making of a TV show. It's quite another to rant on and on and on without actually saying anything meaningful at all. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1032098.html

As in previous volumes, Wood's sarcastic yet affectionate humour makes it a good read, even though it's the period of the programme's history I probably know least well. There are some brilliantly sardonic one-liners which I was regrettably unable to refrain from reading aloud to anyone who would listen. The explanatory essays are as good as ever. Slightly disappointed with the editing - there seem to be a lot more typoes than usual, and some other structural glitches as well. But any serious fan needs to get this. ( )