Watching Doctor Who Fan Reception and Evaluation
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Paul Booth is Professor of Media and Cinema Studies in the College of Communication at DePaul University, USA. He has published or edited more than ten books, including the Wiley Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (2018); Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Contemporary Fan Audience (2016); Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Board Games as Media (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Craig Owen Jones is a lecturer at San Jose State University, USA, and an Honorary Research Associate at the School of Music and Media, Bangor University, Wales. He has written four books and over 30 articles on TV and film studies, music, history, and literary criticism.
This book proves that some of the most fascinating adventures of<i> Doctor Who </i>didn’t take place on screen, but within the constant flux of critical perception and reassessment. This is an extraordinary and celebratory look at the evolution of a television series that can still inspire and baffle well into its sixth decade.
- Robert Shearman, World Fantasy Award-winning author and screenwriter of Doctor Who,
<i>Watching Doctor Who</i> moves smartly across fan and academic debates surrounding the value of TV series more generally, and the valuation of <i>Doctor Who</i> stories in particular. For anyone who’s ever argued over their favourite episodes, Paul Booth and Craig Owen Jones offer a timely provocation, a brilliant new dialogue, and a valuable intervention in the many understandings and evaluations of the good Doctor’s epistopic interfaces.
- Matt Hills, Professor of Journalism and Media, University of Huddersfield, UK,
An incisive and thoroughly readable study of how<i> Doctor Who</i> fandom ascribes value – and values – to the series in all of its incarnations, and how those value(s) shifting over time are reflected in the larger study of fandom as a cultural experience.
- Lynne M. Thomas, eight time Hugo Award-winning editor of Chicks Dig Time Lords and Uncanny Magazine, and Verity! podcast contributor,
An entertaining and informative history and examination of <i>Doctor Who</i> fandom and criticism. I recommended it for anyone who ever debated their favourite Doctor … or companion … or monster – in other words, for all <i>Doctor Who</i> fans.
- Rachel Talalay, film and television (Doctor Who, ‘Heaven Sent’) director,
Through a richly detailed account of fan cultures and media over the over fifty-year history of the show, Watching Doctor Who explores fandom’s changing attitudes towards this much-loved TV series. Why do fans love an episode one year but deride it a decade later? How do fans’ values of Doctor Who change over time? As a show that's featured as part of the shared landscape of home entertainment since the 1960s, Doctor Who helps us understand the changing
nature of notions of ‘value’ and ‘quality’ in popular television. Through a series of in-depth case studies of fan polls and debates, Paul Booth and Craig Owen Jones interrogate the way Doctor Who fans and audiences re-interpret the value of particular episodes, Doctors, companions, and eras of Who.
With a foreword by Paul Cornell.
Figures
Tables
Foreword by Paul Cornell
Acknowledgements
Notes on Titles
Introduction: Going Forward in All Our Beliefs: Regenerating and Re-Valuing Doctor Who Fandom
Chapter One: The Concept of Evaluation in Doctor Who Reception
Case Study 1A: The Mightiest Values: Rankings of Doctor Who — Paul Booth
Case Study 1B: Fan Reaction Videos: Responding to Doctor Who — Craig Owen Jones
Dialogue 1C: Evolving Evaluation of Doctor Who — Paul Booth and Craig Owen Jones
Chapter Two: Reception History and Fan Perceptions of Doctor Who
Case Study 2A: Tegan: The Makers’ Vision — Craig Owen Jones
Case Study 2B: Reception after the Fact: Companions in Big Finish — Paul Booth
Dialogue 2C: The Ends of an Era – Paul Booth and Craig Owen Jones
Chapter Three: The Error of Eras
Case Study 3A: Nightmare of Eden and the Limitations of Genre — Paul Booth
Case Study 3B: The Discovery of The Time Meddler — Craig Owen Jones
Dialogue 3C: Series 24 — Craig Owen Jones and Paul Booth
Chapter Four: Re-Evaluating Value in the Canon of Doctor Who
Case Study 4A: Evaluative Changes in The Talons of Weng-Chiang — Craig Owen Jones
Case Study 4B: The Caves of Dilemma: or, The Twin Androzani? Evaluating Value at the Poles — Paul Booth
Dialogue 4C: Minisodes and Changing Appreciation – Craig Owen Jones and Paul Booth
Conclusion: Go Forward in All of Your Beliefs, and Prove to Me that I Am Not Mistaken in Mine
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Paul Booth is Professor of Media and Cinema Studies in the College of Communication at DePaul University, USA. He has published or edited more than ten books, including the Wiley Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (2018); Crossing Fandoms: SuperWhoLock and the Contemporary Fan Audience (2016); Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Board Games as Media (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Craig Owen Jones is a lecturer at San Jose State University, USA, and an Honorary Research Associate at the School of Music and Media, Bangor University, Wales. He has written four books and over 30 articles on TV and film studies, music, history, and literary criticism.