Krynoid PodCast

So you want to continue your successful show but need to recast your leading man. What do you do? Why you make it as difficult as possible for your bemused audience to accept him, of course! The Power of the Daleks sees impish impostor Pat Troughton cackling evilly, talking about himself in the third person and doing his very best to disingratiate himself with the good cop / bad cop companions, Po...

We start 2020 with an ending. Loathe him or hate him, Adric has been a big part (prat?) of 80s Who but all things must pass, however indigestible. Yes, this is Earthshock, which packed a couple of major bombshells back in the day (not counting Beryl Reid). It's a tale of pointless deaths, some equally pointless characters and gender fluid troopers (many of them genuinely fluid by the time the murd...

In our December episode, Jim and Martin ease themselves into Whuletide by settling down to watch The Black and White Guardian Show. It's something of a festive feast, featuring as it does Rudolph the Two-Nosed Shadow, a space Trotter on hols from ver Big Smoke and some props which look suspiciously like they've come out of a Christmas cracker (along with some of the jokes). The wicked Marshal gets...

"No, I shan't… you shan't take him!" Jenny Laird crashes out of the running for her own award in the arachnophobe's nightmare that is Planet of the Spiders . It's a tale of a tweedy traitor, yogic flying, mind-altering jewellery and more creepy crawlies than you can shake a rolled-up newspaper at. The Brig blushes, Sarah rushes (between two stories) and Mike Yates saves face while the Doctor loses...

"Mightiest of warriors, greatest in battle, humblest of your servants." Well they do say learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, Achilles, but this is tendon towards arrogance. Yes, this month it's the swords and sandals epic, The Myth Makers , in which Steven gets a new outfit, Vicki gets a new name and the Doctor gets out of a breezy solo flight into the big city. They meet a joll...

"Then die. That is the purpose of guards." It seems that the life of a vampire's chief henchman is no better than that of an Alzarian milkmaid. No wonder he turned to drink. This is 1980's State of Decay , eliciting the cheesiest ever episode of this podcast from The Two Who Fool (About). In a land where rubber bats wheel in an unrealistic green sky, the Doctor stops a door with his nose while Rom...

"I've had enough of experts!" Now there's a phrase with a familiar ring. And Britannicus Base's self-imposed brain drain and dislike of the unlike is sending the UK into chaos. You couldn't make it up.   But Brian Hayles did, in 1967's snowy saga The Ice Warriors - a tale of unripe tomatoes, dial-up food machines and a vibro-chair with a shake that brings all the boys to the Medi-Care Centre. The...

"If the rest of his presentation is as riveting as the first little epic, wake me when it's finished." The Trial of a Time Lord goes all meta with one of the riskiest lines in Doctor Who history. The "first little epic" is The Mysterious Planet , in which the Doctor is on remand, Peri (from Marble Arch, USA) is in demand and Joan Sims commands her ragged warriors to carry on dying. Two cockernee N...

"Nicholas only knows the most boring places." He's obviously not acquainted with the Doctor's wardrobe then, which contains... Who knows what? And there's plenty going on in the rest of 16th Century Paris, with a familiar-looking priestly weirdo, a companion's possible ancestor and man-hungry sectarian rats. The Doctor may or may not be in the house but Steven finds that Preslin, the King of germi...

"There should've been another way." Yup. But when you only have a couple of days, £37.50 and a two-man human centipede, you will inevitably end up with 1984's Warriors of the Deep. But the Doctor still manages to trade his cricket beiges for a daring new beige outfit and some temporal footwear, though Turlough misses out on an early airing of his budgie smugglers. Tegan's troubles are more practic...

"My legs! My legs!" Zero out of a million on the tact front from Ian, crowing about his pins when surrounded by legless Daleks. Actually, they haven't touched a drop but they have experimented with some freaky hallucinogens from their peacenik neighbours. So this is the TARDIS foursome's first awayday – The Daleks – and where better to visit than a quiet, pollen-free forest with nearby amenities,...

"Weirdos!" It's not often that a Doctor Who story reviews Jim and Martin but this is the topsy-turvy world of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy . It's all a bit of a circus as the Ringmaster puts the 'c' into 'rap', a foxy artiste blames it on the moonlight and the Chief Clown grins all the way to the emergency dentist. Ace is victim to some violent conducting and the Doctor prances, prestidigitates...

"I've lost my sonic screwdriver. I feel completely lost without it." Lost? Modern Doctors would need resuscitating. Yes, it's back to basics with The Sontaran Experiment , wherein hairy rock dwellers set traps, chuck rocks and threaten people with hot sticks. Undeterred, Sarah channels Margo Leadbetter, Harry tries out some mucus-based medicine and the Doctor whistles the Spitting Image classic "I...

"He says he's a frog doctor, sir." Let's have some fanfic where the Troughton and Whittaker Doctors combine forces to heal a lonely amphibian universe. Actually… let's not. No, this is The Highlanders, where you could be excused for thinking the Doctor's bizarre accent was French and that his hat was a Goth's traffic bollard. It's a second outing for the second Doctor but 18th Century Scotland far...

Merry Christmas! And let's hope it stays merry after listening to Jim and Martin discussing the Series 11 episodes not yet covered in the Krynoid PodCast, and then the series as a whole. We play out with John Gonzalez's Christmas-tinged rendition of the Doctor Who theme (find it on YouTube  https://youtu.be/6KVhSNS_xU8 ) Hearty thanks from the Green Cathedral to everyone who's listened, tweeted, r...

"There's your monster maker… Caught in the act." And lo… Barry Letts did advance upon him, spitting tacks and brandishing a rubber T-Rex, with insertion on his mind. Yes, this is yer actual Invasion of the Dinosaurs – a tale of double talk, double-crosses and double denim. The Doctor drives stuff, Sarah discovers stuff and Yates says "Stuff you!" to his UNIT family (and to everyone outside the cen...

"I'm bored." Well, if you can't stand the ennui, get out of the kitchen. Yes, we're in the strange and underfunded world of The Celestial Toymaker where the fun barely starts. The Doctor single-handedly plays the world's worst spectator sport, while Steven and Dodo are forced to tackle 'sighted-man's buff', 'spot the comfy chair' and 'hunt the dramatic tension'. And, if you think Strictly seems to...

"Boing! Boing!" The unmistakable sound of the bells of Seville (and nothing to do with Peri running down a hillside). So the JN-T holiday charabanc ends up in Spain in 1985 and his latest jaunt promises country yomps, moth collecting and acid sports, with dinner thrown in – several times over. The Two Doctors manage to keep out of each other's way for the most part as Sixie angles for centre stage...

"Now go on. Ben can catch his ship and become an Admiral and you, Polly, you can look after Ben." The Doctor reminds Ben and Polly they're back in 1966 – a time (and indeed date) menaced by War Machines, alien shape-shifters, Daleks and gender stereotyping. They also have to contend with dodgy pilots, aliens with zero personality, lethal haberdashery and a cross-dressing Beatles lookalike. The Doc...

"Is that finger loaded?" A good question because nothing is as it seems in Devesham-on-Oseidon. The horse-brasses are plastic, the dartboard has a functional bullseye and the ginger beer may not be The Real Thing (but its supply is inexhaustible). Then there's Guy Crayford, who has a spacesuit of vacuum-resistant denim, incomplete underpants and an eye-patch which is purely cosmetic. And, behind t...

"You've got some of it on your hands and you didn't tell us anything about it. It was very wrong of you, wasn't it?" The Doctor makes Barbara feel small with a little ticking off. Fair enough though - she had almost died from the stiffest of upper lips (and a dangerously unbathed ankle). Eco-whistleblower Arnold Farrow fares even worse with a slug in the chest and a ruined holiday, while his murde...

"What is this horrendous place?" Well, Nyssa, it's Terminus - a place to which Bor was presumably drawn by nominative determinism. It's a drab old hospital where the porters are metal, the doctors are Goths and the burglars are New Romantics. The Doctor wins a fight, Nyssa loses her skirt and Tegan draws the short straw, what with Turlough staring at her posterior and the extras revealing her uppe...

"No complications." That infamous moment when the first Ogron on the left accidentally reveals his MENSA potential to his masters but no-one bats a shiny eyelid. Yes, this is Day of the Daleks in which our intrepid TARDIS twosome wine, dine and enjoy a ride, while Yates pulls rank, Benton pulls out of a minor skirmish and the Brig pulls his hair out as he defends world peace from humans and aliens...

"The Doctor's almost as clever as I am." Zoe Heriot may be the Krotons' pet but she must have been expelled from modesty school. Yes, this is The Krotons , a saga of sub-standard scientists, snaky CCTV spies and shouty fridges from another world. The Doctor flunks, Jamie fights and Zoe infuriates while the Gonds lack the gonads to take on their reclusive rulers. Will Beta reveal the secret of tran...

"Never trust a man with dirty fingernails." ...Or a face like a Shar Pei's nether regions. Especially if he exacerbates London's rodent problem, takes advantage of young scrubbers and test-drives prototype orgasmatrons. Yes, this is The Talons of Weng-Chiang - a strange (Robert) Holmesian melodrama where people pop poison pills, ventriloquist dummies are hands-free and Birmingham has cornered the...