The Doctor Who Programme Guide, Vol. 1

Doctor Who Reference Guides #1

by Jean-Marc Lofficier, Barry Letts (Foreword)

TV tie-in paperback

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Reference, Media Tie In, Tv

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1981

About the author

Jean-Marc Lofficier is a French author of books about films and television programs, as well as numerous comic books and translations of a number of animation screenplays. He usually collaborates with his wife, Randy Lofficier

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful and scholarly labor-of-love pair of reference books when they appeared forty-some years ago. Doctor Who was a wildly popular show (oops, I meant "programme"), but only the more recent episodes were familiar except for the Target novelizations, which gave us hints and glimpses of a vast and varied range of unknown adventures. This first volume listed the cast and production team and provided a detailed and chronological synopsis of everything that had gone before. It covered all of the adventures of the first four Doctors and was a treasured resource in those pre-internet days.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first resource for Dr Who episodes for many, many years.

[Stephen A. Corry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book chronicling all the early episodes of Doctor who, done so through a simle synopsis of each story.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't find MY edition of this book here (Published in 1989 with a Foreward by John Nathan-Turner) but this appears to be the closest I can get.

This is THE best Doctor Who episode guide or program guide out there. Unfortunately it is out of date, and long out of print, but I'd like to see it brought back in an updated form.

Reasons that this book is superior to similar ones.

1. Full descriptions of all episodes from the very first episode, "An Unearthly Child" to "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy"; episode titles and cast lists for the last season of the Classic Series (up to "Survival").

2. Full cast lists for all episodes that are covered.

3. True pocket size, it's a normal paperback size.

4. Easy look-up format.

5. Includes production codes and number of episodes per story.

6. Very little to no opinion on the episodes. This really is a "just the facts" episode guide.

By the way, I have enjoyed many of the essay collections, especially recent ones, that are out there for Doctor Who but this one stays on my desk even though it's out of date, because sometimes you just want to look something up.

Highly recommended, and one I'd like to see updated to include the New Who series.

[Nicholas Whyte]

Back in 1981 it seemed like centuries since the last Doctor Who reference book had come out (it was three years since the second edition of The Making of Doctor Who). We fans grasped eagerly at the two rather slim volumes produced in the break between the Fourth and Fifth Doctors. The first volume is a recapitulation of cast, crew and plot from the first eighteen seasons of Who; the second an A-Z of characters, creatures and concepts in the Whoniverse up to that point in time.[return][return]They are pretty thin by even the standards of the day. Characters and events from the less fashionable end of the Hartnell and Troughton eras get pretty short shrift (eg the entry in volume 2 for Ping-Cho, whch reads, in its entirety, 'Chinese girl'). [return][return]The two volumes are a good model for how to do a comprehensive guide for Who, but not a brilliant example of the execution. (Numerous misprintls - poor John Abineri!)

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I own two editions of this book: The 1981 edition (ISBN 0426201396), and the 1989 edition (ISBN 0426203429) with the forward by John Nathan-Turner.

These books were terrific references back in the day, before IMDB and Wikipedia cataloged virtually everything that has ever appeared on screen. The 1981 edition is complete through the end of season 18 and the departure of Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. (My copy has my hand-written additions of all episode titles through season 23.) The 1989 edition is complete through the end on Season 25, and has episode titles and cast listings for season 26, which was just beginning to air when the book went to print.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before Discontinuity Guides, About Time volumes, and other such guides...THIS is what we old-school Doctor Who fans had. A simple lists of stories, with transmission dates, cast lists, and a story-by-story synopsis. Nothing fancy...but it opened up a world of Doctor Who that few of us new: the series' own mythic past. Before the internet, TV repeats, DVD and VHS, THIS was our holy grail. A cherished book to all of fandom.

[Edward]

A very good resource for the original series. It was published before the 26th and last season so there are no synopses for those episodes.

Over the last 20 years I've used it to collect autographs of cast and crew that have been guests at Gallifrey One, LA's annual Doctor Who convention.

[Valerie]

This is a reference, not a novelization. Volume I covers the programmes up to the end of the 4th Dr.

[Paul Doody · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the earliest guides to Doctor Who. Out of date now, but essential in its day.

[Mhorg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish A)I still had my beaten to death paperback copy and B)a new, updated version or a volume 3, the new series would come out. Absolutely one of the best episode guides for any show ever written.

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent source book for checking basic facts on the classic Who series.