Night Of The Living Geeks

Having seemingly survived the Flux, The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan are dropped in the Crimean War where the British are battling the Sontarans! Yep, they're taking advantage of the Flux to conquer Earth across time. Meanwhile, on the Planet Time, not all is well. Time seems to be sentient and the mechanisms in place to make it behave are in need of repair! Can Team TARDIS make things right before the Swarm Squad sweep in to wreak havoc?! It wouldn't be the wild ride that Flux is turning out to be if there wasn't lots at stake!

Doctor Who is back, baby! And hoo boy do they come in swinging! There is so much happening in The Halloween Apocalypse that we think we easily could have filled a couple podcast episodes about it. We are definitely going to need a bigger flowchart (or a conspiracy board for Taylor...he has some speculation about what's going on)! Either way, join us as we look at the beginnings of this six-part puzzle Doctor Who is calling Flux!

In May of 1973, a most peculiar thing happened in Sandown on the Isle of Wight. A girl, known only to us as Fay, and a boy, whose name we never learn, met a seven foot tall creature that for all intents and purposes looked like a poorly crafted clown. He communicated in an odd syntax at times and also gave cryptic answers. Despite having an encounter approaching an hour with these two kids, Sam's never been seen again (at least not in this guise). This month, we look at the odd case of Sam the Sandown Clown, speculate on what he could have been, and even pull some insight from the Secret Ciper of the UFOnauts! Plus, you get a bonus discussion about alien nudists landing in Georgia!

Well, we could have spent most of the episode discussing news of our impending 13th season of Doctor Who (that's only two weeks away, if you hadn't noticed), but we also have a great episode to discuss this time! We continue the dinosaur trend with DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP. There's no sign of Samuel L. Jackson, but we do have guest visits from Mr. Weasley and Argus Filch! We enjoyed many aspects of this episode and we also chew on the subject of this darker Doctor we get as he deals with Solomon? Did he have to die? We certainly debate it out!

The Doctor and Sarah Jane return to present day London to find it basically empty, save for looters, UNIT, and dinosaurs?!!? Trying to sort out the cause of these time eddies, The Doctor & Sarah Jane also discover deep underground (former) military bases, MK Ultra-esque mind control programs, and a secret space program psyop worthy of Alternative Three! All of this bonkers conspiracy-ness is ultimately hiding a plot to turn back time as an act of returning to a less polluted time! It’s six-parts of intrigue, mystery, and environmental commentary (that comes off better than Orphan 55 did) with Invasion of the Dinosaurs! We also spend a good few minutes talking about the news of RTD's return to Doctor Who!

October is finally here and, with it, the spookiest month of the year! Join us as we discuss one of the most haunted places in America: The Queen Mary. From her life as a luxury liner to her service in World War 2, we look at the various events and mishaps that shaped her history. We talk about the hauntings aboard, when they started, and why perhaps they're there. We even share a listener's experience with a ghost aboard the Queen Mary!

This time we discuss the 5th Doctor story The Visitation! We go deep on the interpersonal dynamics on the TARDIS right now, marvel at a sparkly droid, and behold the joy that is the character of Richard Mace! Team TARDIS are finally getting Tegan back to Heathrow, but they’re 315 years early. That’s okay, right? The air is clean, the locals are...being controlled by a fugitive Tereleptil bent on exterminating the human race and taking over the planet using a modified version of the Black Plague. Just a regular day in jolly old England, yeah? Can The Doctor save the day without his sonic? Can Nyssa turn up the bass against a sparkly android? Can Tegan manage to get through an adventure without being possessed? And could Adric possibly whine and cry in the same story? It’s all that and more during The Visitation!

Jump around! Jump around! In time, that is! This week, John & Taylor review...well, two different versions of Day of the Daleks! So you get the added bonus of us comparing what you'll find on BritBox versus the original broadcast version (and there definitely are some differences!). Regardless, Day of the Daleks is a little bit of an underwhelming story, but we dig through the muck to find the gems and also come up with an idea of a Doctor Who racing video game! Who do we know out there in the games industry?

Imagine yourself in a dark room in the middle of the night. Your only source of light is the glow of the shortwave radio before you. Your headphones are filled with static as you slowly creep along the dial. Amongst the background hiss are chirps, warbles, the occasional faint staccato rhythm of morse code. And then you stumble across a female voice calmly, almost robotically, calling off a series of numbers and letters from the phonetic alphabet. Just as quickly as you catch it, the transmission ends and is replaced by an eerie piece of music or channel marker. Aside from the creep factor for the casual listener, Numbers Stations have for decades provided a nearly uncrackable code for both military and espionage purposes. Join us this month as we dial in the weird and discuss some of our favorite numbers stations. And a quick word of warning. If you’re listening to this episode on headphones, maybe turn us down a couple notches because some of the samples we’re going to play tonight have sudden loud bursts

John is back! And we're reviewing The Girl in the Fireplace! The Doctor, Rose, and (well…) that other guy, arrive on a spaceship in the 51st Century. No time agents about, but the power of the spaceship is being used to punch holes back to 18th Century France and the life of Madame de Pompadour. Rather snazzy looking clockwork droids are terrorizing Reinette until she’s "ready." Can The Doctor, Rose, and the horse figure out when Reinette will be ready and possibly stop the droids from going all “off with her head”? They’ll have to if they want to save The Girl in the Fireplace! Also, please don’t ever place actual girls in actual fireplaces. That’s not a safe place for them. This Public Service Announcement brought to you by your friends at Podcastica!

This time Taylor is join by friend of the show Dan van der Werf who's chosen The Aztecs for them to watch. The Aztecs is an incredible story that shows just how powerful early Classic Who can be. Frankly, they both see much of the Modern Who template in this story! Join them for a discussion about the merits of this adventure along with some heartfelt stories of just how much Doctor Who is an anchor during these troubled times!

As the legend goes, 2.5 miles under the Archuleta Mesa outside Dulce, New Mexico exists a seven-level base that is a joint operation between the US military and extraterrestrials. The legend of the Dulce Base is also something of a nexus point for various other legends that permeate modern UFOlogy: cattle mutilations, the MJ-12 documents, the whole Eisenhower agreement with the greys, battles between humans and aliens, large-scale government infrastructure connecting various alleged underground bases, breakaway civilizations, and so much more. Some of these legends may not have had their start in the late 1970s when Paul Bennewitz was contacted by Richard Doty for the first time, but Doty’s ability to manipulate Bennewitz along with the continued proliferation of ufologists sharing information before the information superhighway came along served as something of an interstate cloverleaf for both information and, unsurprisingly, disinformation that proceeded to spread through a network of people whose names ar

This time Taylor is joined by friend of the show Terry Manley as they discuss the 5th Doctor story (and Season 19 finale) Time-Flight! It's a bonkers adventure with next to no budget that was all inspired by Peter Grimwade's hope that he could score a ride on the Concorde! But Time-Flight is a generally panned adventure that possibly would have worked better in the middle of the season. Regardless, Taylor and Terry find the elements that work best (Kalid's accent definitely not amongst that list) and celebrate the craziness that is Time-Flight!

Effective immediately there is a tax of five Talmars for listening to this podcast! Just kidding, but this time we watched the 4th Doctor story The Sun Makers! This is a bonkers tale and quickly becomes one of our favorites. From set design to costume to the dialogue, it was very clear Robert Holmes was miffed with the tax board and, well, sometimes an artist's frustration produces some of their best work. So sit back, save the Talmars for a nice cold beverage, and let's talk about The Sun Makers!

On the evening of August 21, 1955 in the tiny town of Kelly, just above Hopkinsville in western Kentucky, the Sutton family had an encounter that would radically shape their lives and the field of ufology for generations to come. Diminutive creatures (the number varies based on who you ask) approached the small Sutton farm house. The Suttons, like many living in remote areas, were quick to defend themselves from these visitors. But what played out next defies physics in many ways and leads those of us who study this event to continue questioning the nature of the phenomenon as we try to determine exactly what happened during the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident. Goblins? Spacemen? Fairies? Ultraterrestrials? We’re still not sure. So grab your thinking cap, your .22, and maybe a tin can and let’s get into it! Plus, as we explore this encounter, Taylor stumbles across an interesting theory that may work some way toward explaining this incident. And (!!) Seb's Descent into the Archives makes a possibly new connection

The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara land on Dido...not the singer, don’t worry, she’s fine...only to be instantly separated after discovering a crashed rocket ship on the planet’s surface. But a slightly menacing figure named Koquillion is keeping crash survivors Vicki and Bennett confined to the rocket. The Doctor, however, having been to Dido before, finds things aren’t as they ought to be. Can he uncover the rather delightful twist at the end of the story? Can Barbara manage to not point the flare gun at herself? And can we get a moment of silence for Sandy? It’s time for The Rescue! Oh! And today just happens to be Maureen O'Brien's birthday! How's that for timing?

In the sixth episode of Soundtracks on the Sticks, hosts Chris Damasceno and Jordan Young return and with some help from another long time friend Phil Nau (@shinryuucos), they go over the history behind Mega Man X being the series' first leap into 16- bit, how that affected its soundtrack on a technical level, their favorite tracks over the years and the overall impact that it made on the gaming scene plus discussing their own experiences with the game itself as a whole.

We're back after a slight delay! This time around Taylor is joined by Michael Nixon (of The Game of Rassilon fame) to discuss Christopher Eccleston's return to the role of the Ninth Doctor (this time in audio form for Big Finish)! Despite being quite happy to have new 9th Doctor adventures, we're both left wanting a little bit more from what Ravagers offers. As always, we discuss what worked, what didn't, and where we've heard something like that gruff guard's voice before!

The story goes that on March 16th 1957, a Venusian named Valiant Thor landed on Earth and was taken to Washington DC. He met the president, vice-president, and a host of higher ups. He scored himself a three-year lease on an apartment at the Pentagon while trying to sell Eisenhower on his fairly Christian message of peace and galactic brotherhood. Sadly, Eisenhower was more worried about the American economy and rebuffed Val’s offer. But this wasn’t the last we’d hear of Val Thor. In fact, we only know about Val because of a man named Frank Stranges: a reverend-doctor-maybe-FBI-guy-maybe-conman. We’re not really sure. And when we set out to start researching this topic, Seb found possibly the stranges...t thing of all: what appeared to be a reference to Valiant Thor from 1939! Nearly a full 20 years before Stranges claims Thor first came to Earth! What unfolded was our most researched episode to date. So settle in, grab a drink, and get ready for one weird trip!

The Doctor, eager to impress his new friend, launches them not 100, not 10,000, but 5-ish billion years into the future! Because nothing impresses a shop girl more than seeing her home planet blasted to pieces by the expansion of the sun as it approaches its next phase of life. But not all is hunky dory as glorified skin pancake, Cassandra, is plotting some shenanigans of her own as a way to maybe sort of extort money out of the delegations present. Can The Doctor save the day, save Rose, and flip the script on Cassandra all while spending the whole season’s CGI budget? Welcome to The End of the World!