Book Review: The Long Game (The Inside Story of How The BBC Brought Back Doctor Who)

For a show that's been running for near enough sixty years at this point, Doctor Who didn't actually stay alive throughout all of it. Yes, there were some dark days in the shows history in which the BBC decided to no longer fund and produce any more episodes of the show, this happened during the seventh doctor's run. So on the 6th of December 1989, the final episode of Season 26's Survival story aired and as the Doctor and Ace walked off into the credits, Doctor Who fans were left with the sad reality that this was the end of era. The sixteen year period from which the show was abruptly ended and it's eventual resurrection by Russel T Davies aren't the most well documented, so it was nice to find that Paul Hayes decided to write a book detailing the history of that time with so much detail.

Paul Hayes has a considerable history at the BBC and is a self-proclaimed fan of Doctor Who so it made perfect sense that he would wish to outline the history of the shows time off air. The Long Game covers a more relevant period that stems from just after the release of the TV Movie and describes how events which followed lead towards the show's approval for revival. at the BBC. It's written in a way which outlines a detailed history behind the corporate influences and decisions which all had their own intrinsic impacts towards the shows resurrection

I think the level of detail Hayes goes into to describe this period ins fantastic. He's pretty robust on detailing the inner-workings at the BBC during this time and going into even further-depth on certain subjects pertaining to elements like the TV movie, rights issues, extended media, etc. While a lot of these chapters and details are very insightful to get a clear perspective on the history of this subject, I can't help but feel there were some chapters which felt a bit redundant to the books core aim. I appreciate Hayes wanted to give as much clarity and exposition as possible on all the relevant components to what led to the show's revival, but some elements feel like they trail off too hard and don't tie-up into the core subject all that well. I do like how Hayes adds a timeline, index and source section near the end to give readers extra details to reinforce what they're reading.

I think Hayes did an admirable job in trying to outline the history of this era, and thanks to this book I'm a bit more educated on the substantial efforts so many people went to get this show back on television screens. Whether Hayes effort to detail every single aspect works for the read is a subjective takeaway I think and in my case I think most of the chapters kept on track and had a lot of relevancy so it didn't feel as much of a detractor.