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The Discontinuity Guide
“Resistance is futile!”
Fluffs, goofs, double entendres, fashion victims, technobabble, dialogue disasters: these are just some of the headings under which every story in the Doctor’s twenty-seven-year career is analysed.
Despite its humorous tone The Discontinuity Guide has a serious purpose. Apart from drawing attention to the errors and absurdities that are among the most lovable features of Doctor Who, this reference book provides a complete analysis of the story-by-story creation of the Doctor Who universe.
One sample story, Pyrsmids of Mars, yields the following gems:
Technobabble: a cytronic particle accelerator, a relative continuum stabiliser and triobiphysics.
Dialogue Triumphs: ‘I’m a Time Lord…You don’t understand the implications, I’m not a human being, I walk in eternity.’
Continuity: the Doctor is about 750 years old at this point and has apparently aged 300 years since Tomb of the Cybermen. He ages about another 300 years between this story and the seventh Doctor’s Time and the Rani.
An absolute must for every Doctor Who fan. Wear your anorak with pride and keep The Discontinuity Guide in its pocket.
Fluffs, goofs, double entendres, fashion victims, technobabble, dialogue disasters: these are just some of the headings under which every story in the Doctor’s twenty-seven-year career is analysed.
Despite its humorous tone The Discontinuity Guide has a serious purpose. Apart from drawing attention to the errors and absurdities that are among the most lovable features of Doctor Who, this reference book provides a complete analysis of the story-by-story creation of the Doctor Who universe.
One sample story, Pyrsmids of Mars, yields the following gems:
Technobabble: a cytronic particle accelerator, a relative continuum stabiliser and triobiphysics.
Dialogue Triumphs: ‘I’m a Time Lord…You don’t understand the implications, I’m not a human being, I walk in eternity.’
Continuity: the Doctor is about 750 years old at this point and has apparently aged 300 years since Tomb of the Cybermen. He ages about another 300 years between this story and the seventh Doctor’s Time and the Rani.
An absolute must for every Doctor Who fan. Wear your anorak with pride and keep The Discontinuity Guide in its pocket.
350 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 1995
35 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
About the author
Paul Cornell
617 books1,505 followersPaul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.
via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...
via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 15, 2016
With the Horror channel rerunning old Doctor Who episodes, it seemed like fun to read through these descriptions of the old episodes as I was watching them...
July 25, 2011
There are only two Doctor Who guides I would recommend getting: Lance Parkin's Ahsitory and this book by the trio of Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping. While Ahistory is essential to any Doctor Who fans library for putting the whole range of stories into a "historical" context this book is essential for a whole different reason. It's a guide to the original series and does so with considerable tongue and cheek style.
For one thing this isn't your typical TV show guide. It isn't full of cast info, behind the scenes information and the like but is a solid but tongue-in-cheek look at the show itself. With sections covering everything from (possible) story influences to an ever humorous list of goofs, fluffs, bad/good dialogue, pieces of useless technobabble and continuity pieces the trio found after sitting through the series who knows how many times. For a fan of the original series its good fun and even illuminating at times. In particular their takes on the two possible histories of the Daleks and if it's possible to rewrite history make for some interesting reading indeed.
The only part of the book I found debatable was the section called "the bottom line" where the trio gives their thoughts on the stories. While Ahistory was very much non-partisan and didn't judge the stories Discontinuity Guide does and the result is rather interesting. Some stories tend to be over praised and others tend to get dished unnecessarily. Then again that section is just pinions and there's one thing that can be said about Doctor Who fans it's that we can't really agree on anything.
While it may only cover the original series (and not the new series) if you're a Doctor Who this is essential. With its tongue in cheek attitude it makes for not only good reading but for a hilarious one at that. You may disagree with the trios opinions of the various stories but otherwise it is hard to find much else wrong with the book. Get this and Ahistory and you're set to go inside the universe of Doctor Who.
For one thing this isn't your typical TV show guide. It isn't full of cast info, behind the scenes information and the like but is a solid but tongue-in-cheek look at the show itself. With sections covering everything from (possible) story influences to an ever humorous list of goofs, fluffs, bad/good dialogue, pieces of useless technobabble and continuity pieces the trio found after sitting through the series who knows how many times. For a fan of the original series its good fun and even illuminating at times. In particular their takes on the two possible histories of the Daleks and if it's possible to rewrite history make for some interesting reading indeed.
The only part of the book I found debatable was the section called "the bottom line" where the trio gives their thoughts on the stories. While Ahistory was very much non-partisan and didn't judge the stories Discontinuity Guide does and the result is rather interesting. Some stories tend to be over praised and others tend to get dished unnecessarily. Then again that section is just pinions and there's one thing that can be said about Doctor Who fans it's that we can't really agree on anything.
While it may only cover the original series (and not the new series) if you're a Doctor Who this is essential. With its tongue in cheek attitude it makes for not only good reading but for a hilarious one at that. You may disagree with the trios opinions of the various stories but otherwise it is hard to find much else wrong with the book. Get this and Ahistory and you're set to go inside the universe of Doctor Who.
August 28, 2012
Saying I've read this is a bit of a mis-nomer -- it's like saying I've read Webster's Dictionary. But this book is about as useful, which is to say extremely! As the title implies...this excellent book points out all the gaffes, on-screen bloopers, and other "opps" of Classic Doctor Who>. Definitely a book every Doctor Who fan should own!
June 5, 2013
Hilarious and brutally honest, this is probably my favorite reference book on classic WHO.
February 10, 2011
Entertaining and amusing taken in moderate doses. Many factual errors (makes you wonder about the quality of the tapes the authors say they consulted) and frequently unnecessarily complicated retconning. Nevertheless, if you want to look up a Doctor Who factoid this book is the most likely one to have it.
January 28, 2011
Take the old Program Guide, replace each story synopsis with vigorous, pithy reviews, add in comments about origins, goofs, fluffs, and continuity debates...and a second classic non-fiction bible for Doctor Who fandom is born.
June 16, 2010
Brilliant and witty guide to this great TV show. Wonderful.
April 13, 2020
An absolute treasure for any fan of the Docrot Who series original run from 1963-1989 by offering a handy, quick reference guide to every episode, including the unaired Shada.
A selection of the categories includes:Roots (storylines that are similar to the ones in the episode), Goofs (mistakes in continuity, costume, dialogue, plot holes, or whereever it occurs), Technobabble (a theme or dialogue that offers ridiculous explanations for the plot), Dialogue Disaters (cringe worthy dialogue within the episode), constrasts nicely with the Dialogue Triumphs, Continuity (an expansive section that covers links to past episodes), and The Bottom Line (is a review of the episdoe).
When I find myself in a mood to gorge upon several episodes, this is a handy guide to give me the highlights. I would recommend this to any one that cherishes the series that began a phenomena, and shaped a generation so that one may also be keen to notice the same points as mentioned in the text.
A selection of the categories includes:Roots (storylines that are similar to the ones in the episode), Goofs (mistakes in continuity, costume, dialogue, plot holes, or whereever it occurs), Technobabble (a theme or dialogue that offers ridiculous explanations for the plot), Dialogue Disaters (cringe worthy dialogue within the episode), constrasts nicely with the Dialogue Triumphs, Continuity (an expansive section that covers links to past episodes), and The Bottom Line (is a review of the episdoe).
When I find myself in a mood to gorge upon several episodes, this is a handy guide to give me the highlights. I would recommend this to any one that cherishes the series that began a phenomena, and shaped a generation so that one may also be keen to notice the same points as mentioned in the text.
October 22, 2017
Still my go-to reference book for Who. Track down a copy; you won't regret it. The concise reviews of each story are funny and thoughtful. The goofs section reflects the pedantic nature of a fan's love/hate relationship with a show and this book really stands as a love letter to the show in that mid-90's era when the show was kept alive by the fiction and non-fiction that fans were writing.
August 14, 2017
Great Whovian reference
This is not really a book for reading through but great for dipping into and checking up on individual stories of the first seven Doctors. Having said this once I started I just couldn't stop.
This is not really a book for reading through but great for dipping into and checking up on individual stories of the first seven Doctors. Having said this once I started I just couldn't stop.
September 24, 2018
I haven't read the whole thing -- yet. I got this via inter-library loan and am really enjoying it. I just bought the Kindle version so I'll have to handy as I watch or re-watch classic Who episodes.
This is is a must for classic Who fans.
This is is a must for classic Who fans.
January 5, 2026
Too sparse and to be a truly authoritative reference guide in an era when About Time is available to us, too dry to be an entertaining read. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
July 12, 2021
Just a brilliant and hilarious, lots of material for my doctor who podcast. A must for classic series fans
April 10, 2014
I've marked this as read today, though really it was finished months ago. I made my way through all of the old episodes of Classic Who via DVD, CD, and Audible [where appropriate] and as I went I read the entries for those episodes in this book. Often more than once, so I've probably read this a couple-three times over. It makes for an interesting extra bit of insight into each episode, with some plot notes, some big areas of continuity questions, and a lot of fun sub-bits like Fashion Victims, Double Entendres (a few stretching the term very hard [see what I did there?]), notable quotes, notable flubs and goofs, some inspirations, and links to other episodes. Each entry is only a page or two long, and generally only will make sense if you know the episode already, though technically there are spoilers galore.
It is the sort of thing that makes more sense in a pre-wiki world (and, in fact, many of the entries seem to be the seed of the equivalent tardis.wikia.com entry), but it still is a delight to thumb through if you want to trip down Classic Who Lane. Particularly when you get glimpses of the authors' preferences, with a love of the now too readily dismissed Seventh Doctor and a dismissal of some episodes considered by others to be classics. Doctor Who fans have gone through about as many changes as the show itself, and this makes a fascinating example of that.
It is the sort of thing that makes more sense in a pre-wiki world (and, in fact, many of the entries seem to be the seed of the equivalent tardis.wikia.com entry), but it still is a delight to thumb through if you want to trip down Classic Who Lane. Particularly when you get glimpses of the authors' preferences, with a love of the now too readily dismissed Seventh Doctor and a dismissal of some episodes considered by others to be classics. Doctor Who fans have gone through about as many changes as the show itself, and this makes a fascinating example of that.
October 21, 2007
http://nhw.livejournal.com/599526.html[return][return]Yeah, yeah, I know that almost all of the text is also available on-line. But there's nothing like dead trees (especially if you are in the middle of a long plane flight). This is a great compilation of odd facts about the series, including most particularly an attempt to introduce consistency to such matters as the Doctor's age, his academic qualifications, the histories of the Cybermen and of the Daleks, and Mars. Interesting to see the foreshadowing of two of the Ninth Doctor's more memorable lines - "Hairdryer!" ("The Web Planet") and "Run!" (Second Doctor, passim). And there's a certain amount of "Yeah, that was my favourite bit".
August 5, 2008
I used to adore this godawful show when I would watch it on the local PBS affiliate in the 1990s with my little boy. It allowed us to enjoy some wholesome fun and sparked our mutual imaginations and love of science fiction. We even talked about going to see Patrick Troughton at a sci-fi convention in Chicago, which we didn't do, alas, and he died very soon thereafter. I have since tried to watch this show, but can't. Without sharing this in the company of a young sensibility, the flaws of the show are too glaring, especially the tedium induced by the hopelessly padded plots. This guide to the show, however, is quite excellent, done with a tasty wit and the courage to run the gauntlet of fanboy conventional wisdom. -EG
April 20, 2009
Excellent guide book for the original Doctor Who series. Very loving and knowledgeable and funny too. It gives critical reevaluations of all of the episodes and challenges conventional fan attitudes towards many of them.
July 15, 2023
I've read this book at least 4 or 5 times, but this is my first time in a decade or so. It defines a genre and it a must read.
But on re-read I'd forgotten just how hard they are on the Pertwee era. I'm pretty sure the writers have learned better in their later years.
But on re-read I'd forgotten just how hard they are on the Pertwee era. I'm pretty sure the writers have learned better in their later years.
August 8, 2012
I love this book. Honestly, it is such a fantastic guide for the classic Doctor Who series. If I find myself watching an old episode, I will reach for this in heartbeat as my go to reference.
September 28, 2012
Unfortunately, just adequate. There's too much time discussing minutia and too little going after the big picture of the episodes.
June 23, 2015
Indispensible
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews