A 1989 book about the size and shape of a Doctor Who annual, about everyone’s favourite 17-episode cult TV show (apart of course from Here Come The Double Deckers). It’s a bit of a missed opportunity. The front few pages have some interesting detail about the making of the show, including differing narratives on some of the key moments, but also demonstrating the extraordinary extent to which McGoohan was show-runner; did even Roddenberry have the same level of control over the original Star Trek?
But abut 90% of the book is simply a retelling in tedious and slightly disjointed detail of the storyline of each of the 17 episodes, with a cast list and notes on variant versions where they exist; and nothing else. Really, even in 1989 I think the entire show was available on video, so anyone who was keen enough to want to know what happened in each would have had better means of accessing that information. I can’t recommend it; there are at least three better books about the show out there, by Robert Fairclough, Alain Carrazé and Hélène Oswald, and Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore.
It is interesting that you should choose that poem, as it is also just after that 50th anniversary of The March on Washington and MLK’s awesome ‘I have a dream speech’.
The poet’s words so accurately reflect the events of those intense years. I believe, many of us, standing there in the sunshine that day, thought that the beautiful future was surely just around the corner. How wrong we were. The birth pangs of that terrible struggle had only just begun.
I also lament the passing of a great poet. His works engender an ineffable sadness and thoughtfulness in me.