By Cavan Scott & Mark Wright, illustrated by Ben Morris

BBC Books, out now

An updated version of Cavan Scott and Mark Wight’s collection of facts, figures and stories from Doctor Who’s first 55 years, taking us right up to the end of Twice Upon a Time.

The trouble with writing a tie-in guide to an ongoing series is the knowledge that it’s probably going to be out of date by the time it hits the shelves. Luckily for Scott and Wright, there’s a good few months before Doctor 13 starts her own series, meaning that this lively collection of Time Lord trivia can boast to cover off all televised episodes from An Unearthly Child to Peter Capaldi’s Christmas 2017 swan-song. By this definition, Shada is outside of scope, but there’s plenty to learn about that serial elsewhere on the recent digital and disc releases.

The authors (can we call them Whokeepers?) first unleashed their Who-ology in the show’s golden anniversary year and have returned five years later to mop-up the 11th Doctor’s final episodes and chronicle the 12th Doctor’s three season run. They’ve probably also taken the opportunity to fix any errors that crept into version 1.0, which made history by being the first Doctor Who book to hit the Sunday Times Bestseller list. And as that winning formula wasn’t broken, we get more of the same, ranging from the different names that the Doctor calls himself to all the variants of Cybermen leader.

Wisely broken up into typical sections for a Doctor Who book – The Doctor, Monsters, Planets, Technology, etc – it’s easy to drop in to your chosen area of focus, and I particularly enjoyed the section that lists the companions like they’re competing in a football league, the equivalent of a ‘goal difference’ being used where there’s a tie in number of episodes that they’ve appeared in. While I’m sure they’d deny that it spoils the fun, I wonder if the authors’ first thought when watching any new episode is ‘Oh, there’s another song and book reference to add to the list’. Someone has to be noting and cross-referencing this minutiae, and on behalf of the many, I say thank you, gentlemen.

Simple line illustrations by Ben Morris help break up the copy – his Cybermen and Dalek designs are crying out to be mobile phone emojis – and I love the list that details those stories that reference their title within the episode dialogue; probably more than you think. Healthily acknowledging that Doctor Who is a TV programme, the book also happily moves between ‘in-world’ facts and production details, allowing us to easily check who wrote and directed most stories.

Verdict: A perfect volume to dip into at will, or to satisfy a nagging question that needs answering, there’s a lot of information in here, presented in a no-nonsense style that just begs you to turn the page and uncover another Whoniversal truth. 9/10

Nick Joy