Debating Doctor Who

Fire up the news klaxons, we've got a big return to discuss! Doctor Who turned 57 on Monday, and it was kind enough to get us a birthday present: a tiny teaser for the upcoming festive special, "Revolution Of The Daleks", revealing that Captain Jack will once again be back. We somehow manage to spin forty minutes of discussion out of this, including what kind of continuity we expect, just how rare it is for someone to come back in such a featured role after so much time away (counting this as a continuation of his "Fugitive Of The Judoon" appearance, that is), and what this might hint at about the overall story.

The world got busy around us once again, but Doctor Who is coming back, which means Debating Doctor Who must as well. Except, in both cases, we're improvising through the circumstances around us. For us, that means Allison is taking a little break through the holidays, meaning Rorypalooza must wait until the new year. But! We'll still both be doing a live show on Saturday, December 12 at 6:30 Eastern/5:30 Central. And Alasdair is going to enlist friends old and new to start exploring some potentially foundational works by new Doctor Who's most important creative voices, starting with Russell T. Davies and David Tennant's miniseries Casanova. Oh, right, and we talk about how series 13 has begun filming, how COVID-19 has affected production, and just who exactly is going to star in it alongside Jodie Whittaker...

We wrap up our trilogy of Clara episodes with a look at some stories from her final season aboard the TARDIS. We examine what "Under The Lake"/"Before The Flood" has to say about her willingness to do what needs to be done to save the day, and then how "Face The Raven" reveals just how dangerous acting like the Doctor can be. Also, we briefly reconsider "Sleep No More", and even Alasdair admits they've met their match on this one. We also talk generally about why this is probably our favorite season of new Doctor Who, and how essential Clara's character arc is to that. Next time, join us for Rory... well, just listen to the end for what silly name we give to our Rory special.

Our deep dive into all things Clara Oswald somehow gets even deeper in the second edition, as we look at no less than four of the episodes from series eight. That's a third of the entire season! We look at her re-beginnings in "Deep Breath", then Alasdair mounts a spirited defense of "In The Forest Of The Night", much to Allison's patient bemusement, and then we wrap up by taking another looking at the finale, "Dark Water"/"Death In Heaven." Honestly this whole season just seems to get better and better the more we look back on it... and we do A LOT of looking back on it this time around.

Our long-awaited (by us, anyway) deep dive into Clara Oswald begins! We take a look at a pair of stories from Series 7B, when Clara was more a mystery than a character and the 11th Doctor was kind of... is awful too strong a word? In "Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS," at least, 'awful' doesn't feel unjustified, as he's on his very worst behavior there. But anyway, we take a look at that and "The Rings Of Akhaten" to see what we can find in Clara's early days. There's a leaf, we can say that much. Also an all-time great costume. We're sure there are other things as well. Nah, we kid, there's some good stuff in these episodes... kinda. Credit for the bit at the very end of the episode goes to OdinNorse7 on YouTube.

We get back (after an unexpected but at this point probably not surprising delay) to our regularly scheduled programming with a look at a pair of Danny Pink stories, "Listen" and "The Caretaker." The former still stands as one hell of an episode, with plenty to say about all sorts of things, Danny very much included. The latter... well, it's not very good. And honestly, that's probably the most charitable way we can put it, considering we have way worse to say in the episode proper. Plus toward the end we get into a debate about the morality of the military and being a soldier that neither of us had prepared for at all, and so has more than its fair share of hedging and stammering, yet still we'd say is considerably better thought through than the Doctor's hatred of soldiers in that episode. Anyway, the real point is that Samuel Anderson is nothing short of incredible, and we're lucky to have had him on the show. Next time, join us for the long-awaited beginning of our Clarastravaganza/Clarathon with "The Rin

We'll be back soon with our regularly scheduled look at companion showcase episodes -- Danny Pink is next! -- but first, we wanted to take an episode to remember a legend of film and television. Diana Rigg died last week at 82, so we revisit her absolute delight of a performance as Mrs. Gillyflower in "The Crimson Horror." Sure, the rest of the episode isn't all that great, but! It's Diana Rigg having a complete blast as the villain, acting alongside her daughter Rachel Stirling, who is the other great part of this episode. A worthy showcase for them both, we'd say.

First thing's first: Allison has a book out! It's called "How TV Can Make You Smarter", available now at Bookshop.org and elsewhere! Plus she has a special offer for our listeners who get the book! As for the episode, well, before we return to the Capaldi era with our Danny Pink episode next week -- a prelude of sorts to the much-anticipated Clarastravaganza/Clarathon -- we take a wee break to open the mailbag. We talk some more about the specifics of Jodie Whittaker's performance, kick around a brilliant listener idea for the Jo Martin Doctor, and go on a merry digression about Steven Moffat's Jekyll, which Alasdair loves arguably a bit too much. (Nah, it's the correct amount.)

Going to be honest with you, friends: We really didn't expect being able to fill an entire hour with nothing but Nardole discussion. We... we apparently aren't familiar with our own show as we should be, because yeah, we talked at length about how Nardole grew from his initial performance, and how "Extremis" is, leaving aside all its other virtues, a tremendous showcase for all that Matt Lucas brings to the role. Also, some upcoming episode announcements at the start for what we're doing next week, and then just how much time we'll be devoting to one Clara Oswald. (Spoiler: Quite a bit!)

We're back, and after a perfectly normal intro that is completely like all the others we've done, we get into discussing Bill Potts in a pair of episodes the proved very Bill-centric indeed. So, well done us. First up is "Thin Ice", one of our favorite entries from series 10. Will it still stand up? Oh hell yes, give or take one moment we have mixed feelings about. Which, somewhat shockingly, ends up being our updated take on "The Lie Of The Land", which we didn't care much for first time around but found a lot to like on this rewatch. And, my goodness, is it good to spend time with Bill again...

We're a simple podcast, folks: If Big Finish announces that Christopher Eccleston is coming back to record a bunch of new audios as the Ninth Doctor, we're dropping everything several hours later to record an emergency podcast. We talk about our general, off-the-charts levels of excitement, wonder a little bit about what the stories might be like, and just generally praise Christopher Eccleston both as an actor and as a person.

We finish our look at the companions of the Chibnall era with a look at a pair of episodes that show some unexpected sides to our friend Graham. The use of "our friend" there lets you know we're not hiding our biases that as Graham fans, but we see him tested in consecutive episodes to finish off series 11: "It Takes You Away" and "The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos." We loved the former and had little use for the latter the first time we talked about them, but how have things changed? And is there an actual, honest-to-goodness character arc to pull out of all this? Listen to find out, then join us next time for a look at also our friend -- seriously, Pearl Mackie sent Alasdair a birthday message and everything -- Bill Potts, with "Thin Ice" and "The Lie Of The Land." (Yep, Alasdair chose the second one. Yep, still trolling.)

We're going to level with you, friends: "Resolution" is the best Ryan episode. If you want to hear about what an episode that does right by Ryan looks like, go back and give that one a listen. But do check this out too, as we take a look at two series 11 episodes that feature Ryan prominently: "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" and "Rosa." For the first, we reflect on just how galling it is that the show sacrificed Grace for the sake of other characters' development, and then for "Rosa" we wrestle with the fact that a lot of this episode doesn't stand up that well to a repeat viewing, especially in light of recent events. We also spend some time on why it's important to own it when we're wrong, drop some quick thoughts on "The Tsuranga Conundrum" and "Orphan 55" -- those two episodes we all love to remember -- and struggle through a mountain of technical difficulties, none of which should make this less fun to listen to, thankfully, just more time-consuming to edit.

We kick off a new recurring feature in which we devote an episode to a particular companion and what stories are their best. After some preliminary discussion of what, technically, even is a companion, we get to the main topic of discussion this week, namely Yaz. That's right, we started with about as tricky a companion as we could, given how unevenly she's been developed. Also given the fact that she's, well, a cop, which is a creative decision that wasn't great at the time it was first made and looks even worse in the context of the past couple months. We address all that, and we also look at stories that put a spotlight on her, including the still baffling "Can You Hear Me?" and the low-key really good "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror." But the main attraction here is "Demons of the Punjab," which at least one co-host is prepared to declare the best of the Chibnall era.

We kinda felt like the world didn't especially need two nerds rambling about Doctor Who the past few weeks, but now, well, the world still probably doesn't need it, but we missed doing this too much to stay away forever. Alasdair tells Allison about the latest Big Finish New Series stuff, which eventually segues into us discussing various British public figures -- J.K. Rowling chief among them -- revealing themselves as transphobes. We tried to keep it light, but 2020 isn't doing us any favors. Also, fair warning: We swear a decent amount in discussing said transphobes. Nothing too bad, but if you or any younger listeners you know would rather not hear people being called pieces of [redacted] several times, or just generally stick with lighter topics, might want to skip ahead from about 38:00 to 53:00.

We finally did it! We've talked about every new series Doctor Who episode! After a couple cameos (or maybe that's Cameos) to open the episode, Alasdair and Allison discuss the 13th Doctor's New Year's Day clash with a lone Dalek. We felt deeply meh about this episode when it first aired back in 2019, but coming back to it now? Dang, we actually kind of love it. We discuss how this might be the best story Chris Chibnall has written during his tenure as showrunner, and how it feels different from really anything in either series 11 or series 12. We were so pleasantly surprised by this one, folks. Better late than never, we guess.

We're back for another live show, and we might even have a surprise visit from the podcast's best friend. Which is to say, we totally do! The Captain Jack of the podcast is on hand, in the form of the great Kate Kulzick. She pops by for a spell to help discuss how the different showrunners approach the lives of the companions, and why one thing the Chibnall era has going for it is how real the companions' situations feel relative to, well, definitely the Moffat era companions. But what of the RTD companions? Then Allison and Alasdair discuss whether the Master could, in fact, be the Timeless Child, which leads to one hell of a lore dump about the Master. Then Alasdair cracks a listener riddle, and we offer a whole bunch of recommendations of other shows and movies featuring Doctors, companions, and more!

That's right, we're doing another live show! It's 1 p.m. Eastern this Saturday, May 9, and it will be at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/ddw-liveshow. We hope you'll come join us for it! After sharing those details, Alasdair does some more solo riffing about something that's been on their mind recently, which is performances by actors who played the Doctor that show hints of the Time Lord to come. There are some general thoughts about David Tennant's work on Blackpool and Casanova, the time Rufus Hound kinda sorta spoiled Peter Capaldi's casting as the Doctor, and where one might look for hints of the War Doctor in John Hurt's legendary filmography. More to come on this, probably!

Announcement! We have a live show this Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern! We hope you'll come join us! As for what we have this week, yep, we *finally* got round to this episode. Only took us three and a half years! But first, we read a little excerpt from Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat interviewing each other in Doctor Who Magazine, and pay a little tribute to Davies's brilliance in reimagining the show back in 2005. Then, we launch into our discussion of the 12th Doctor's penultimate Christmas special. We generally like this one a lot, though we do look at some pretty basic ways the story doesn't do right by its sole female character, which, yeah, that sounds familiar. Beyond that, we find a lot to praise, especially in the plotting and the performances and the general warm feelings it elicits. You'll be shocked--shocked!--to hear we say a lot of really nice things about Peter Capaldi. Some things never change...

No two ways about it: This is one of our loosest, silliest episodes in a while. We start out with some vaguely structured discussion of some Doctor Who current events, but pretty soon we go into an extended discussion of David Tennant's work on DuckTales, and more specifically his work with the rest of the cast in singing the DuckTales theme song. (Look it up on YouTube if you haven't seen it, it's a real delight.) We talk about David Tennant for long enough in this one I'm declaring this an impromptu appreciation week for him, even if we don't actually have much to say about the 10th Doctor in all this! We also take an old but excellent email about watching the show with a child, which leads to us sharing the very specific nightmare fuel of our youth, among other things. Also! Next week, it's finally happening: We're talking "The Return Of Doctor Mysterio"!