A very in-depth, scholarly look at the first 20 years of Doctor Who and apparently the first book of its kind about DW (by the time this book came out, the latest episode aired was THE FIVE DOCTORS, which is a landmark in itself for the series). Goes into a lot of the background production information of the series and also examines the themes and eras of the show through various critical lens. Even for someone like myself, who has been watching Doctor Who for over 20 years, I learned a lot from this volume. It would have been interesting to read an updated version of this that includes the rest of the 1980s episodes. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1072828.html

I guess this was the first book on Who from an academic point of view (published 1983). Better such books have been published since (in particular Time and Relative Dissertations in Space, and the meatier parts of the About Time series) but this is a decent enough start - easy to mock for its slips ("Mandragola", "Castravalva" and variations, "Doug Adams") and for its rather partial selection of stories from the black and white era, and for its occasional repetitiveness, but I found a number of really interesting points too: despite the authors' somewhat uncritical acceptance of Ian Levine's views, Graham Williams is allowed to put his side of the story and puts it well, and one gets a sense as in nowhere else that I have seen of Who as emerging from continual dialogue among its creators. Also they actually explain the phrase "semiotic thickness" and make it comprehensible. If you have read the Butler collection and want more you should try and get hold of this. ( )