The Black Archive

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The Black Archive
Editor Philip Purser-Hallard, Stuart Douglas, Paul Driscoll, Kara Dennison
Categories Media studies
FrequencyBi-Monthly
First issue1 March 2016;8 years ago (2016-03-01)
Company Obverse Books
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland
LanguageEnglish
Website www.blackarchive.co.uk

The Black Archive is a series of critical monographs about selected individual Doctor Who stories, from the series' earliest history to the present day. [1] [2] Rather than focusing on behind-the-scenes production history as much Doctor Who fan scholarship has done, the series aims to analyse and explore the stories as broadcast. [3] It has been described by Sci-Fi Bulletin as "a fascinating series of short books", [4] and by Doctor Who Magazine as "a grandly ambitious thing to attempt with something as exhaustively detailed as Doctor Who. But they actually manage it." [5]

Contents

The series is edited by Stuart Douglas, Paul Driscoll, Kara Dennison and Philip Purser-Hallard, and is published by Obverse Books. Previous editors have included James Cooray Smith and Paul Simpson. The series showcases the criticism of prominent Doctor Who critics and authors such as Simon Bucher-Jones, James Cooray Smith, Simon Guerrier, Una McCormack, James F. McGrath, Fiona Moore, Jonathan Morris, Kate Orman, Ian Potter and Dale Smith, as well as of less established and new writers. It is named after the museum of alien artifacts seen in the Doctor Who stories "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Zygon Inversion".

History

The series was launched in March 2016 with the release of the first four books (on Rose (2005), The Massacre (1966), The Ambassadors of Death (1970) and "Dark Water" / "Death in Heaven" (2014)), to generally positive reviews. [6] [7] James Cooray Smith's book on The Massacre was singled out for particular praise for its placing the serial in its historical context, both that of its 1570s setting and that of its writing and production in the 1960s. [5] [8] [9]

Subsequent titles were published every two months and continued to gain consistently positive reviews. [10] [11] In 2018, the series moved to a monthly publication schedule: the books for that year were announced early in 2017. [12] The tenth volume, on the 2003 Doctor Who webcast Scream of the Shalka , reprinted the detailed episode breakdown treatment for "Blood of the Robots", the commissioned but unmade sequel story by Simon Clark. [13] The 25th book, on the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, included a foreword by, and a new interview with, scriptwriter Matthew Jacobs, and others include new interviews with scriptwriter Chris Boucher and director Farren Blackburn.

John Toon's Black Archive on Full Circle won the 2019 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Professional Production/Publication. [14] and the same author's Black Archive on Paradise Towers won the 2023 Award in the same category. [15]


Published titles

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References

  1. ↑ Doctor Who Magazine issue 498 p75.
  2. ↑ As of August 2022, the earliest Doctor Who story to have a Black Archive title announced is The Edge of Destruction (1964), while the most recent is Flux (2021).
  3. ↑ Interview: Philip Purser-Hallard takes us to the Black Archive by Kara Dennison, (Re)Generation Who.
  4. ↑ Review: Doctor Who: Books: The Black Archive 3: The Ambassadors of Death by Paul Simpson.
  5. 1 2 Doctor Who Magazine issue 499 p72.
  6. ↑ The Black Archive #1 - Rose by Kieron Moore, Starburst .
  7. ↑ Review: The Black Archives (Dark Water/Death in Heaven) by Elizabeth Sandifer.
  8. ↑ Review: Doctor Who: Books: The Black Archive 2: The Massacre by Paul Simpson.
  9. ↑ Black Archive 2: The Massacre by Philip Bates
  10. ↑ The Black Archive 10: Scream of the Shalka Reviewed
  11. ↑ Doctor Who Books - The Black Archive 9: The God Complex
  12. ↑ Post on the official Black Archive Facebook page.
  13. ↑ Doctor Who Books - The Black Archive 10: Scream of the Shalka
  14. ↑ Sir Julius Vogel Award Results - 2019
  15. ↑ "Sir Julius Vogel Award Winners – 2023 – SFFANZ Inc" . Retrieved 26 November 2023.
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