Doctor Who: The Metebelis 2

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 to talk about. Opening music is "Apricot Stone" with Eva Rivas for Armenia from Eurovision 2010, and closing music is "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" with Alex Swings Oscar Sings for Germany from Eurovision 2009. We recorded this episode on 7 July 2025.

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 of the Lost Ark. Also, we missed Varada Sethu as Belinda, but aside from a few grumbles, we quite liked this episode. Opening and closing music is "Aké" by Blick Bassy. We recorded this episode on 13 May 2025.

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-lift Doctor-lite story like with last season's "73 Yards"? Perhaps, but not for us though. Ben speculates that this story is a soft launch for The War between the Land and the Sea. And David wonders why does posh Jonah Hauer-King look like a long lost McGann brother? Opening and closing music is "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. We recorded this episode on 7 May 2025.

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 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Closing music is a 1935 recording from Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, "I'm Just an Ordinary Human". We recorded this episode on 29 April 2025.

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" by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed from the 1952 MGM musical Singin' in the Rain and performed by Donald O'Connor. Closing music is "The Girl In The Yellow Dress" by David Gilmour and Polly Sampson off of the 2015 album, Rattle That Lock. We recorded this podcast on 23 April 2025.

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 "Belinda" by the Eurythmics in 1981. Closing music is "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" by the Flaming Lips in 2002. We recorded this podcast on 15 April 2025.

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.

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? We recorded this podcast on 30 January 2025.

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.

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 TARDIS Timegirl's YouTube channel. Opening and closing music is from Wheel's soundtrack and was composed by Brian Hodgson. We recorded this podcast on 2 December 2024.

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 derparture from the team. We suggest some ideas to give Harry a dramatic series exit. We wrap up by lamenting Marter's untimely death on his forty-second birthday and the missed possibility of him writing for New Adventures novels. As a listener bonus, the final 10 minutes of the podcast is an August 1984 interview with Ian Marter on The Chuck Rabb Show that previously appeared on Doctor Who: Podshock, episode 306, courtesy of Louis Trapani and Chuck Rabb. Opening and closing music is from the Terror of the Zygons soundtrack composed by Geoffrey Burgon. We recorded this podcast on 18 November 2024.

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 the character due to no fault of Marter. Opening music is from the Genesis of the Daleks soundtrack composed by Dudley Simpson and closing music is "Rockfall" composed by Carey Blyton. We recorded this episode on 4 November 2024.

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 Marter (on Harry being "naff" and "clumsy") in 1983 in Chicago celebrating 20 years of the programme. Opening music is from The Ark in Space soundtrack and closing music is from The Sontaran Experiment soundtrack, both composed by Dudley Simpson. We recorded this episode on 16 September 2024.

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 lead character, Guy Ffolkes, an Amnesian nationalist, and sings "Bang On" with Jack and Harry, described as two villains in the playbill. There's a photograph of Ian with Adèle Geras née Weston on stage during the production. We also uncovered a photograph of young Ian with fellow Oxford students, Tamara Ustinov, John Dodgson, Anne Bibby, and Nick Elliott rehearsing for another play. Plus a photograph of Marter with actor Richard Burton in a local pub. Opening and closing music is "Mysterious Robots," composed by Dudley

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, Marter went to school at the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School in Greater London and went to Oxford on a scholarship to study English language and literature. Among other highlights, Marter directed a well received production of John Osbourne's Luther in 1964 during the Trinity Term of his freshman year at the Oxford Playhouse. He also acted in productions of Fire in Heaven, The Sport of My Mad Mother, and Anton Checkov's The Cherry Orchard. In his final year at St. Edmund Hall, Marter co-starred in Samuel Beckett's play,

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 Toymaker, incidental music composed by Dudley Simpson. The closing music is "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa. We recorded this episode on 22 July 2024.

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 character like Ian again. The opening music is from "The Chase" soundtrack composed by Dudley Simpson and the closing music is from "The Aztecs" composed by Richard Rodney Bennett and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2021. We recorded this episode on 15 July 2024.

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 "Guitar" Wilson's 1977 song "A Real Mother For Ya". We recorded this episode on 25 June 2024.

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 in Ncuti Gatwa's first season. The opening music is "Hazy Shade of Winter," covered by The Bangles, and the closing music is "Walk Like an Egyptian," by The Bangles. We recorded this episode on 19 June 2024.

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 Gaga's "Poker Face." We recorded this episode on 12 June 2024.