The Black Archive

The Black Archive
EditorPhilip Purser-Hallard, Stuart Douglas, Paul Driscoll, Kara Dennison
CategoriesMedia studies
FrequencyBi-Monthly
First issue1 March 2016; 8 years ago (2016-03-01)
CompanyObverse Books
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based inEdinburgh, Scotland
LanguageEnglish
Websitewww.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]

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".

  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. ^ Doctor Who Magazine issue 499 p72.