My wife and I were big fans of the blog Adventures with the Wife in Space, where Doctor Who fan Neil Perryman got his "not-we" wife Sue to watch every episode of classic Doctor Who, from 1963 to 1989. Sue wasn't a fan, but she does teach television production, so she can appreciate it and comment on it interestingly... plus she's quite funny. A book of the blog came out for Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary, which my wife got me for Christmas that year. In classic me fashion, I finally got around to reading it just after the sixtieth anniversary (though thankfully before the new edition of the book came out).

The first half of the book chronicles Neil's life as a fan from childhood and his adult life with Sue, up until the invention of the blog. I can see how if you were not previously invested in Neil and Sue, this might not be super-interesting, but I really enjoyed getting to hear their relationship history spelled out in detail—mostly it had been something you just had to infer from their blog posts before. Neil's name upon meeting Sue was hilarious, and it was great to get the whole living-in-a-caravan story explained. The second half details the blog, how it came about, and how it carried on. Both halves are filled with small excerpts from blog entries.

The whole thing is quite funny, of course, but also somewhat moving. The back cover spells out the book's premise somewhat flippantly: "Neil loves Sue. He also loves Doctor Who. But can he bring his two great loves together?" It's a part of the fan experience that will resonate with any fan, I suspect. One way a fan shows their love is by sharing something they love. But of course other people don't always love what their loved ones love. Longtime readers of my blog know that I introduced my older son to Oz, one of my childhood loves, and over two years later, we're still reading them together. Sometimes it works, and it's magical. But as I write this, I've been thinking about introducing him to Doctor Who... but will he love it? I am honestly a little trepidatious! Neil captures this quite well. He and Sue were married for years before he dared to share what he loved with her... but for them it paid off, and as he tells it, even made their relationship stronger!

Highly recommended if you're a certain type of Doctor Who fan, or even if you just know one. Though you may benefit from reading the blog first. As for me, I'm using the book as a launching-off point for a reread of the blog, in the form of the ebook collections of it I've bought over the years but have never gotten around to reading.

If I could give the first half of the book a different score to the second half, it would have been 2 stars for the first half and at least 4, maybe 4.5 stars for the second half. I wasn't at all interested in the various bits of autobiographical detail which made up a good 50% of this. The rest was very good though, and took me right back to my childhood, particularly the Tom Baker, Peter Davison and to some extent Sylvester McCoy parts.

I'm tempted to do something like this, but then I come to my senses and remind myself that it would probably be a really good way of inducing a deep-seated hatred for Doctor Who in myself which is something I'd never forgive myself for in the long run. And besides, I'd be more interested in a novel reading challenge or marathon. Not that I plan to do that either. Just saying though.

Having almost given up on this during the first half of the book, and then happily realising that the second half was actually the book I thought I was getting in the first place, I was eventually glad I didn't. If I could give any Doctor Who lover a piece of advice, it would be to skim(at best) the first half and then settle in for a really fun, entertaining and interesting dash back through a nostalgic, rose-tinted journey back in time, when bubble wrap and tin-foil were king and a Doctor's regeneration actually seemed like an event rather than the slap-dash, half-arsed, slip-shod excuse to indulge in unnecessary CGI it has become in recent times.

So, skip the first half for it's indulgent, and rather dull autobiographical stuff and head for the real Adventures in the second half.

First half - 2 out of 5
Second half - 4.5 out of 5

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As a Dr. Who fan (Tom Baker was my doctor) I thoroughly enjoyed this book. ( )

flew through this wonderful book, which at times was like reading my own childhood and teenage years ... wonderfully entertaining ( )

The Adventures with the Wife in Space is a blog which documents the experiment in which Neil Perryman (a diehard Doctor Who fan) gets his wife Sue (who is not) to watch and review every story of the classic Doctor Who from 1963 to 1989. It's brilliant because Sue challenges the fan community gospel of Doctor Who while also being wickedly funny. One would expect that this book would simply be a compilation of the blog reviews with some extra content, but instead it is something better. It turns out to be a memoir of Perryman's life and interests (he's obsessed with things other than Doctor Who, like Tangerine Dream and Jaws) and his marriage with Sue. Turns out that the Perrymans are interesting people with lots of good stories. The book also offers a behind-the-scenes view of the experiment watching Doctor Who which both strengthened their marriage while offering challenges of being an internet phenomenon.
Favorite Passages:

'If anything, the old series has made me a fan of the new series. I bloody love it. But at the same time, I don’t need to wallow in the past. Yes, it’s nice to have it there to refer to, but you have to keep moving forward. You know, like a shark.'

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