We've reached the penultimate story in the season with The Interstellar Song Contest, where "Die Hard meets Eurovision" and hijinks ensue. Ben reminisces about past Eurovisions. David wonders if singing a Hellion folk song can really cause three trillion people to overlook they were about to be murdered? Throw in another bi-generation, Susan Foreman, a sidelined Belinda, a married couple with skills perfect to solve the story's problem, and the Doctor becoming a torturer, and well, there's much ...
Jul 23, 2025•51 min•Ep. 268
The Doctor goes home to Lagos, Nigeria, and finds themself trapped in a barbershop. In a powerful script by Inua Ellams, Ncuti Gatwa's portrayal of the Doctor is equalled by Ariyon Bakare as the Barber. There's much to like in this story, but Jo Martin was underused in her cameo — RTD, just give Martin her own series already. We thought shoehorning in Mrs Flood in this story was a tad lame. We'd have enjoyed seeing her wandering the Lagos marketplace ala Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) in Raiders ...
Jul 06, 2025•57 min•Ep. 267
The series reaches the midway point, so why not drop in on last season's companion and spend some time with Ruby? Pete McTighe brings a story examining contemporary issues while he tries to channel his inner Haisman and Lincoln, massaging both the right and left wings of the political spectrum to leave us with a muddy middle. Toss in a new UNIT dating controversy and some continuity reinforcement, and you get yourself a "Lucky Day". Does Millie Gibson have the acting chops to carry another heavy...
May 12, 2025•44 min•Ep. 266
Well, well, well. This week returns us to Midnight, but this time with Lombardo space marines on a search and recovery mission to a diamond mine that has gone silent. Another interesting future-tech gadget from the mind of RTD, with the TARDIS cracking the spacesuit selection for Belinda and the Doctor. But overall, David thought the Doctor's thinking and planning was sloppy and Ben thought the story was a bit choppy. Opening music is " Diamonds are Forever " composed and conducted by John Barry...
May 03, 2025•41 min•Ep. 265
In a rare intersection of time and space, Ben and David sit down on the same couch in the same living room at the same time to not only watch "Lux", a new episode of Doctor Who , but also to record a podcast on the very same story together. Wow! We talk about animation, RTD's storytelling and handling of 1952 America, Belinda's yellow dress, and breaking the fourth wall and who Davies depicted to represent fandom (replete with good-natured Moffat ribbing). Opening music is from " Make 'em Laugh ...
Apr 28, 2025•41 min•Ep. 264
The new Doctor Who season has launched with Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor joined by new companion Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu. Both of us agree that Sethu's debut as Belinda was great! We look forward to spending the next seven episodes with her and the Doctor. Ben reflects upon what movies "The Robot Revolution" reminded him of, and David wonders if there wasn't a little bit of a Douglas Adams inspiration to the story. Plus, who was more cringy, AL or the Doctor? Opening music is from "Belin...
Apr 19, 2025•41 min•Ep. 263
Ben spills the beans on this year's Gallifrey convention. Has Ben turned 180° on his thoughts on Steven Moffat? Listen, and you be the judge. This episode was recorded right after the con closed, but due to real life getting in the way, the podcast took a bit of time to get produced. Better late than never, we hope? We recorded this podcast on 19 February 2025. Opening and closing music is from "Santa Monica" by Everclear.
Mar 29, 2025•56 min•Ep. 262
Ben welcomes back to the podcast Lena Barkin and Jess Jurkovic to discuss the upcoming Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles. What are the Gally gang looking forward to at this year's guest-loaded con? And, what have Lena and Jess been up to in fandom in the past year? Opening music is "Space Adventure Part 2" composed by Martin Slavin and closing music is "Morton's Fork" composed by Dudley Simpson. We recorded this podcast on 30 January 2025....
Feb 03, 2025•47 min•Ep. 261
We're kicking off our 2025 podcasting year with a look back to the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special: Joy to the World. David worries that the time hotel may open the door to temporal instability, and Ben comes up with an interesting what-if that could have tied the time hotel to The War Games. Opening music Brian Hodgson's " Galaxy Atmosphere " and closing music is "Hotel California" performed by the Gipsy Kings. We recorded this podcast on 15 January 2025....
Jan 22, 2025•42 min•Ep. 260
We discuss the phenomenal animation of "The Wheel in Space" by Iz Skinner and her partner Steve Skinner. It easily ranks in the top three of Doctor Who animations. We speculated about this animation having an official release before Josh Snares released his informative "Making of" documentary . Thus our podcast is a little behind the times due to the editing and production lag. To view the animation, you may watch the complete episodes on Gav Rymill's Missing Episodes Patreon or a playlist on TA...
Dec 17, 2024•57 min•Ep. 259
We conclude our look at Ian Marter's time on Doctor Who with a chat about the role of Harry Sullivan in Terror of the Zygons and The Android Invasion. Harry starts out strongly in Zygons, but is treated poorly in his final appearance. Harry was the third wheel to the Sarah and the Doctor relationship, and he was bullied by both of them in the Season 12 finale, which helps explain, storywise, his departure from the team. We suggest some ideas to give Harry a dramatic series exit. We wrap up by la...
Nov 29, 2024•56 min•Ep. 258
We continue on with our leisurely-paced examination of Ian Marter's time on Doctor Who by looking at Harry Sullivan's role in Genesis of the Daleks and Revenge of the Cybermen. The character starts out strong with Terry Nation's sidekick / buddy writing for Sullivan in Genesis, but by the time Bob Holmes writes Revenge, Harry is on the chopping block, and we witness a prickly, almost hostile relationship with Sarah and the scapegoat and butt of jokes for the Doctor — a total disintegration of th...
Nov 17, 2024•45 min•Ep. 257
In this podcast we talk about Ian Marter's first two stories after his character, Harry Sullivan, joins the TARDIS crew: The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment. We discuss the ease at which Marter portrays Sullivan as a decent, square-jawed Englishman. We also lament what could have been if the Doctor Who production team better utilised the character since he was an effective foil and compatriot of Tom Baker's Doctor. At the end of the podcast are two brief convention panel answers from Ma...
Oct 07, 2024•43 min•Ep. 256
We continue with our Ian Marter discussion with a brief conversation about the debut of Harry Sullivan in "Robot"! But, before we get underway, we pick up where we left off with new details about Marter's time at St. Edmund Hall at Oxford University with the discovery that there is a recording on vinyl of Marter singing in You Can't Do Much Without a Screwdriver , an original musical staged by the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club at the Oxford Playhouse in May 1965. Marter played the ...
Sep 10, 2024•34 min•Ep. 255
We kick off our Ian Marter retrospective with a look at his time at Oxford University. Thanks to back issues of St. Edmund Hall Magazine, we uncover new information that places Marter at Oxford three years earlier than is widely and incorrectly reported in other published sources. From our research, we found that Marter was at St. Edmund Hall , aka Teddy Hall, from 1963-1966 and was heavily involved with drama in the college's John Oldham Society and the Oxford's drama cuppers. Before Oxford, Ma...
Aug 25, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 254
We discuss the recent animation of the William Hartnell story, The Celestial Toymaker. Overall, we think it successfully presented a boring, at times, story that is hard to follow with moving images for episodes 1–3 missing. Ben would like to see the animators push it even further away from the original broadcast visuals. David would have preferred the guest cast's likeness to be better expressed in the animation designs for the clowns, cards, and toys. The opening music is from The Celestial To...
Jul 29, 2024•48 min•Ep. 253
We pay our respects to William Russell, the actor who played Ian Chesterton, Doctor Who's original leading man. With Russell, Ian proved to be a solid and dependable man of action and reason. Along with Jacqueline Hill, who played Barbara Wright, the two provided the moral centre for the early show, which relied on their decency, normality, and dependability to guide the viewers in the early mid-1960s along this amazing adventure in space and time. The programme will likely never see another cha...
Jul 20, 2024•45 min•Ep. 252
An entertaining enough finale, but with big enough plot holes that you could drive a pyramid through. Something went wrong with this season in more ways than one and with Empire of Death, Davies seemed oblivious and tone death to some of the underlying messages his drama was sending. Basically, nothing in it really makes sense, and many of the story's emotional beats were insensitive or unearned. The opening music is from the soundtrack composed by Murray Gold. The closing music is Johnny "Guita...
Jun 30, 2024•50 min•Ep. 251
Skidding into your UNIT-approved podcatcher is the pod on "The Legend of Ruby Sunday," and, oh boy, do we have questions. Has Unit become the earth-based research office for Doctor Who? Why would Unit drop everything to find the Doctor's new friend's mother? How would the Tennant Doctor react if he saw Susan Triad's big reveal on television? And what is Sutekh without the Egyptian / Osirian backstory to lean on? All this and more as two grumpy old fans come to terms with the penultimate episode ...
Jun 22, 2024•42 min•Ep. 250
In this podcast we talk about Rogue, the Doctor's new sexy friend, who we met along with some dubious bipedal bird cosplayers or LARPers. Ben gives a brief background on Oliver Frey, aka Zack's Rogue in Him magazine and connects the dots between the comic and RTD. David muses on watching a show for young people and wonders if adventure plots are a thing of the past. The opening music is Vitamin String Quartet's version of Billie Ellis's "Bad Guy," and the closing music is VSQ's version of Lady G...
Jun 15, 2024•39 min•Ep. 249
We meet the first real monster in this season of Doctor Who and no, we don't mean the slugs of doom, aka Mantraps. RTD catches us a little flat-footed with the surprising ending, but the subtle hints were there all along. With a wave of the hand, we excuse any plot holes and applaud what may be the best episode of Ncuti Gatwa's first series of Doctor Who. The opening music is the episode's soundtrack by Murray Gold and the closing music is "Slugs of Love" by Little Dragon. We recorded this episo...
Jun 12, 2024•43 min•Ep. 248
Russell T Davies has written a new Doctor Who story that he describes as Welsh folk horror in which he packs in a lot to 45 minutes, including the obligatory Susan Twist, creepy pub denizens, and an homage to other ghostly stories. We were a little surprised to have a Doctor-lite episode in a season that is a mere eight episodes long. What caused the Doctor to vanish? Is the fairy circle in the shape of the TARDIS console? Did that mysterious space and time machine somehow create the circle and ...
Jun 01, 2024•39 min•Ep. 247
With Moffat back writing for who and RTD as showrunner does it feel like 2005 all over again? Well, maybe? We discuss the latest Doctor Who episode, Boom, complete with the requisite fatherly love, casting surprises, LED scenery, returning vicars, twist speculation, and a dose of handwavium to resolve this tight, immersive bottle episode. Opening Music is "Skye Boat Song" performed by Martine Mussies. Closing music is from "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince and the Revolution. We recorded this episode o...
May 25, 2024•47 min•Ep. 246
Doctor Who, aka Ncuti Gatwa, is off in space and time with Ruby, his new traveling companion. So what does Russell T Davies have in store for a new generation of Who fans, and what do two old Who fan podcasters make of all of it? Opening Music is "My Dog Fred" by Murray Gold. Closing music is "Scream & Shout" by will.i.am and featuring Britney Spears. We recorded this episode on 13 May 2024.
May 19, 2024•54 min•Ep. 245
Kicking off this pod, Ben recounts his visit to Gunnerysbury Museum to see " Set to Stun: Designing and Filming Sci-Fi in West London ". Then we watch and discuss the two teaser trailers put out by the BBC in anticipation of Ncuti Gatwa's first season of Doctor Who with our usual spoiler-free rampant speculation, wild theories, spotting of the pre-title sequence clip, and more. Opening music is from "Bowie" by Flight of the Conchords and closing music is from David Bowie's demo of "Changes". We ...
May 04, 2024•54 min•Ep. 244
Ben is in England where he had the opportunity to visit the " Adventures in Time and Space - 60 Years of Doctor Who Art " exhibition at the Weston Museum in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. This impressive collection spans the show's history and features original art from novelisations, VHS covers, annuals, and other visual treasures, including works from Chris Achilléos, Andrew Skilleter, Roy Knipe, and Colin Howard. Ben has shared some pictures he took of the overall exhibit and artwork on his Ins...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 243
Ben checks in before heading back to the UK to give our listener and David the scoop on what happened this year at the GallifreyOne Convention. Opening music is "Dancing Across Space and Time" and closing music is "Nothing Is Forever", both composed by Segun Akinola. We recorded this episode on 10 March 2024.
Mar 23, 2024•45 min•Ep. 242
Ben chats with Lena Barkin and Jess Jurkovic about the upcoming GallifreyOne convention this week in Los Angeles. Lena recently contributed to Adventures Across Space and Time: A Doctor Who Reader a chapter about fandom and Tumblr and will be presenting and signing autographs, plus celebrating Blake's 7. Jess wrapped up the second season of his Dudley Simpson is Doctor Who Project this past year and will be interviewing composers, including Segun Akinola and Dominic Glynn, on the main stage in P...
Feb 11, 2024•47 min•Ep. 241
We wrap our mini-series looking at production design in Doctor Who with our own top-five design picks from stories broadcast from 2011 through to 2020. Listen in to hear which stories design work overseen by Michael Pickwoad, Arwel Wyn Jones, or Dafydd Shurmer will make our cut and why we picked them. Opening music is "Up the Shard" and closing music is "A Fly on a Painting", both composed by Murray Gold. We recorded this episode on 14 January 2024.
Jan 30, 2024•52 min•Ep. 240
We discuss The Church on Ruby Road, Ncuti Gatwa's first solo-starring story as the Doctor. It was great watching Doctor Who once again on Christmas Day and think it was a fun story with a strong cast. We also like the science-fantasy direction that RTD appears to be taking with this first series and think Disney's input has been so far positive. Ben likes the Goblins and wonders if one might become a companion of the Doctor. David's is enjoying the delight and joy Davis appears to be having writ...
Jan 02, 2024•50 min•Ep. 239
