The Doctor Who Tenth Anniversary Special Reprint
Covers of The Making of Doctor Who [1972] and original
Tenth Anniversary
Special [1973] (see
comments below)
![Covers of The Making of Doctor Who and original Tenth Anniversary Special [1973]](images/10thmakingof01.jpg)
Comments
The original Tenth Anniversary Special pictured with the Piccolo book The Making of Doctor Who, two of the earliest programme guide style publications covering Doctor Who.
The first was The making of... which was published in 1972, it covered the series and production process in some depth (for the time) and was the only publication up until that point to do so.
The Tenth Anniversary Special, published the following year, was, however, unique in the fact that that it was published in magazine format (with many colour photographs and illustrations) and was an 'official' BBC publication. To our knowledge the first BBC publication to cover the series in depth.
It was also notable in that it included a year by year synopsis for each story but often the early stories were wrongly titled. This came about because up until the end of The Gunfighters, May 1966, in Season 3 each episode had an individual name rather than there being a single story title, e.g. the second 7 episode Doctor Who story, now commonly known as "The Daleks" had episodes titled as follows: "The Dead Planet", "The Survivors", "The Escape", "The Ambush", "The Expedition", "The Ordeal" and "The Rescue". In the 1973 Anniversary Special this story is listed simply as The Dead Planet, the title of it's first episode.
So when compiling the story guide for the Special those responsible looked at primary sources such as scripts and simply presumed, or decided, that the title for each story's first episode was the title of the whole story.
The magazine also featured many interviews with then current and former cast members and other members of the production crew, something that was very rare up until this point and would remain so for many years to come.
It is fair to say that whilst both publications are today very collectible, of the two it is the Tenth Anniversary Special that is more sought after by collectors and commands higher prices.
It is also worth noting that the 2003 reprint edition has been printed in more limited numbers than the original and could, therefore, become a rarer publication and all the more collectible in it's own right.