I just got the second edition of About Time 3,by Tat Wood, which is apparently three times the length of the first edition.
I just wonder if the sentence “Miles cornered the market in sarcastic, whiney petulance and prima-donnaism, but here he went too far, and we’re left wondering how Lawrence was put in charge of such a complex and sensitive undertaking” appeared in the first edition, credited to Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood?
Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! 
Erm.. suspect not. Where in the book does it appear? I’ll look.
In the bit about The Silurians, talking about Peter Miles’ performance…
Can’t see it anywhere. In “The Lore” there is the sentence “This story features the first appearance of actor Peter Miles (as Dr. Lawrence), and he displays the same talent for playing neurotic, high pitched villains that stands him in such good stead in both Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Genesis of the Daleks….” and also a remark in “Things that don’t make sense”: “How did Dr. Lawrence end up in charge of a project as big as Wenley Moor, given that the permanent under-secretary knows him of old and always thought him a bit unstable?”
So it looks like the same ideas have been re-arranged to form a new sentence which may have had attractions all its own for Tat Wood!
I thought that might be the case…
I wish I had the first edition actually – a lot of the new material in this seems to be based around explaining the discrepancies between nuWho and the proper series (there’s also mention of a, presumably Miles-less, seventh volume in the indica, which I won’t be bothering with even though I love the first six).
Hmm. The first edition is nice, but I suspect I will be buying the second edition any day soon, because the first edition really does feel a bit thin compared to the other books in the series. It’s a shame that Loz didn’t make it to the final book, though, I’d have been interested to read some Milesian analysis of McCoy’s era.
I wondered how it could have three times the material but only be about one and a half times the thickness of the other volumes…
Yeah, Miles is missed in vol 6, but not as much as I’d expected. I’d have liked to have seen what he thought of The Two Doctors though, rather than having to get in Rob Shearman to counterbalance Wood on that one…
What’s the mention of Vol 7? I presume focussing on the current series? Strange that there’s no mention of it on Mad Norwegian’s website….
From what what I recall, the writers of the books share your opinions of new Who. To that end, the book might end up being more on why they think it *doesn’t* work (for them, and for you), especially in comparison to Classic Who, and might actually be more of interest to you than you’d think.
In any case, I agree on the About Time series; it’s by far the best and most in-depth series of episode guides I have EVER seen. I generally disliked the bulk of Jon Pertwee’s run (I prefer the black & white era, myself), and I already own the first edition of Vol 3, but I’ll be picking up the second edition too. Because they’re just that good.
It’s mentioned in the ‘other books by’ page as ‘coming soon’, and there are a few mentions in the text of essays with nuWho programmes. Not sure if it’ll also be covering TW/SJA…
I’m presuming as well that it’ll be another solo Wood one, like vol VI and the revised Vol III. Certainly Wood’s comments on the new show and spinoffs in this volume seem mostly negative (and I know Miles has been very critical on his blog) but I’m not sure I want to read an entire book about how a show I don’t watch isn’t very good. I still *might* get it though, because I love the series. (About Time not nuWho)