By Simon Guerrier

Obverse Books

Obverse Books’ ongoing series of monographs focusing on a Doctor Who serial or story hits 1964’s Season 1 two-parter The Edge of Destruction.

I don’t want to labour the point, but I really didn’t take to the previous entry in this series, so I’m delighted to confirm that normal business has been resumed with this clever, witty and well-researched entry. Serving as a lead-in to his upcoming biography of David Whitaker, Simon Guerrier looks at the writer’s TARDIS-set story. In his intro, Guerrier makes some reasonable assumptions about the typical Black Archives reader (in my case, correct on all counts) and promises 10 absurd theories about the adventure.

To his credit, none of the arguments are that ‘out there’, with Guerrier supporting his ideas with proof and/or passion. What sets the tone is a detailed section on what written archives exist for the story, and this serves as a springboard for the subsequent extrapolations.

I laughed heartily at the description of this ‘bottle show’ as being ‘…the equivalent of a wet playtime at school.’ Was it written to save money, to act as a filler while sets for Marco Polo were built, or was it planned all along? And just how has ‘cumulative reiteration’ influenced the way we see it?

Verdict: At under 100 pages before acknowledgments, this is one of the shorter entries in the series, but it packs in more ideas and background than volumes twice its length. A quick read and totally satisfying. 9/10

Nick Joy