By Philip Bates

Obverse Books, out now

Obverse Books’ ongoing series of monographs focusing on a Doctor Who serial or story hits 2010’s Series 5 two-parter The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang.

Author Philip Bates clearly has a lot of love for the timey-wimey multi-episode season finale for Steven Moffat’s first year as showrunner, and it’s a sentiment shared by me. Having been lucky enough to attend a preview at BAFTA in the presence of cast and crew, I was dazzled by its chutzpah and the sheer cleverness of it all. Maybe because he’s preaching to the converted, I’m fully on board with Bates’ study, and it’s a great read.

The book looks at themes that would dominate the Moffat era – time travel and complex stories. Were the stories too complicated, or had other TV become too simplistic and easy to digest ? On reflection, these were episodes that were bursting with ideas and ambition, drawing on influences like Indiana Jones and Grimm’s fairy tales. These episodes serve as a sequel to every episode in Series 5, and this season is the first 21st Century run not to feature a Doctor or companion leaving.

Bates looks at the theme of fairy tales that runs throughout this sequence, offering up what ingredients make such a genre and how they are represented here. Additional chapters on anomalies (always plenty of those in Doctor Who) and a thoughtful consideration of when time travel wouldn’t help, take this study deeper and posit some relevant questions. Why doesn’t the Doctor go back in time and help himself more often? If he can’t rely on piloting the TARDIS accurately, why not use a vortex manipulator? Bates concludes that rules only apply when convenient to the plot.

There’s a further deep dive, this time into time travel, where you can tie yourself up in knots with temporal loops, Bootstrap Paradoxes/causal loops and déjà vu, and a science-based examination of the Big Bang itself, and just what would have to happen for the stars to disappear from the sky. And finally, those unanswered questions are addressed – how did the TARDIS blow up? Who was the voice in the TARDIS at the end of The Pandorica Opens?

Verdict: An affectionate dissertation on the many elements of this series finale, breaking them into well-considered and clearly explained topics of discussion. Unlike Pandora’s Box, this is a gift you can happily open. 8/10

Nick Joy

Click here to order from Obverse Books