On the Time Lash

Send us Fan Mail It's all been leading to this, sort of. Ben and Mark bring season 1 of OTTLXRTD2 to a close with a bumper episode diving deep into the much derided series finale, Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death. Was Ncuti Gatwa tuning a telly really worthy of the big screen treatment? Why is Sutekh such a big fan of Davina McCall's Long Lost Family?  And on the subject of abrupt c...

Send us Fan Mail After emerging relatively unscathed from a discussion about racism in Doctor Who, Ben and Mark tackle same sex relationships in Rogue and the representation of disability in Black Orchid. What could possibly go wrong? Also: Ben adds Janet Fielding to his repertoire of impressions and Matthew Waterhouse eats a soggy buffet, and a bunch of listeners have never seen Bridgerton. Suppo...

Send us Fan Mail Ben and Mark go On the Tightrope as they attempt to talk about the heavy themes and issues brought up by Dot and Bubble without getting cancelled or sounding like Legz Akimbo theatre company. But don't worry, there's some light relief in the form of the William Hartnell serial, The Savages, in which an underclass are brutally subjugated by their privileged masters. Ah. ...

Send us Fan Mail "Everyone gives Doctor Who shit for sticking some glasses on Millie Gibson but what about Amol Rajan?" Spooky women, sexual deviants and robot dogs abound as Ben and Mark tackle Russell T Davies' A24-lite thriller 73 Yards and Terence Dudley's occult oddity, K-9 & Company. Do either of these companion-centric Doctor Who stories actually have anything to say...

Send us Fan Mail Steven Moffat and Terry Nation return to Doctor Who after some time away, but are they all out of tricks? Ben and Mark find out as they discuss Boom from 2024 and Destiny of the Daleks from 1979.  How did Boom unite a divided Doctor Who fandom? Will Ben and Mark ever actually talk about what Destiny of the Daleks is rather than what it could have been? And why did Terry Nation vet...

Send us Fan Mail "...so I can maybe understand why the Beatles look a bit chubby..." Ben and Mark discuss two Doctor Who stories that make a virtue of the absence of The Beatles, to varying degrees of success; 2024's The Devil's Chord, and 2013's Fanfare for the Common Men. Over the course of the discussion, the Lash Lads ponder whether the Fifth Doctor is convincing as a...

Send us Fan Mail Ben and Mark begin the Ncuti Gatwa era proper with a discussion all about Space Babies. Was it really the best story to launch a big, bold, new global era on Disney+ or was it just same old, same old? And by way of contrast, they then turn to The Leisure Hive, the first story of the JN-T era and a bold new vision for Doctor Who. Or was it? Also: How did having an actual baby affec...

Send us Fan Mail Over two years on from his debut adventure, Ben and Mark return, drinks in hand, to discuss the Ncuti Gatwa era of Doctor Who. Pairing The Church on Ruby Road with State of Decay, the Lash Lads discuss crumbling institutions, rapacious kings and a revolting underclass, but that's enough about the RTD2 era, they also discuss a Christopher H Bidmead story! Also: The Degesestial...

Send us Fan Mail Ben and Mark throw open the doors of the On the Timelash bookshop for a boozy book launch with Dylan Rees, author of the fabulous book,  Myths and Legends: The Reeltime Pictures Story . The lads chat about how Keith Barnfather, Nicholas Briggs, and many more have created a massive people's history of Doctor Who, courtesy of the Myth Makers interviews, deep dive documentaries...

Send us Fan Mail "Have we learned nothing from Torchwood?" Mark is joined by Si Hart, host of The Library of Impossible Things , who submits his five choices for the tinsel tunnel. It's a wide-ranging discussion that often comes back to reminding us what it is to be a child watching Doctor Who. Under discussion: "Dark" Doctor Who, dodgy tea towels, Tom Baker being all teet...

Send us Fan Mail "Amazon Who? You Plonker!" Mark invites enigmatic artist and autograph hunter, @artfullyliam to submit his five choices for the tinsel tunnel. Their discussion takes in whether Doctor Who should be a prick, which fans ought to see an optician and explore why Sutekh, Omega and the Rani didn't work as well as the Daleks, Sarah Jane Smith and The Master. But which Doct...

Send us Fan Mail "Sexy Doctors" Mark and Ben(!) invite longtime friend of the show Richie Morgan to submit his five choices for the tinsel tunnel. While Richie insists he's not come to bury RTD, many of his choices force the boys to consider what has and hasn't worked over the past three years. They also force this Timelash trio to ponder the following questions: Why is Russell...

Send us Fan Mail "This was always the plan" Mark invites Iain Martin from We're All Stories in the End and All of Time and Space to submit his five Doctor Who gripes for the tinsel tunnel. Iain selects five aspects of the modern Doctor Who experience AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT'S AT NUMBER 2! Also: Why is Mark like Jack the Ripper? What happened when Russell T Davies went t...

Send us Fan Mail Another episode from the OTTL vault, recorded way back in 2014. "Episode #7 sees us discuss Steven Moffat’s debut story The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances which we compare with Robert Holmes’ first offering for Who, The Krotons . Does each story give us an idea of what to expect when both eventually graduate to the big role at the head of the series? And just how would the Tum...

Send us Fan Mail a.k.a. The Day (in the pub) of the Daleks Ben and Mark reach 2005's Dalek on their Nu-Who watchthrough and pair it with 1963's original serial The Mutants, a.k.a The Daleks. How have the Daleks changed in 40 years? And how quickly would a Dalek kill itself after downloading all of the internet nowadays? Support the show Follow us on Bluesky Like us on Facebook Buy us a p...

Send us Fan Mail In another retro On the Timelash, Ben and Mark from 11 years ago discuss how successfully both The Long Game and Vengeance on Varos skewer the media ecosystem in 2005 and 1985 respectively. "We're in a very similar period now" - Oh, Mark in 2014, just you wait, mate! Support the show Follow us on Bluesky Like us on Facebook Buy us a pint

Send us Fan Mail Ben and Mark explore the perils of fannying around with time as they discuss Paul Cornell's emotionally raw Father's Day and pair it up with the classic Jon Pertwee serial Day of the Daleks. Expect tears and wrong-voiced Daleks! Support the show Follow us on Bluesky Like us on Facebook Buy us a pint

Send us Fan Mail Only three episodes in and Ben and Mark are already forced to reconstruct a missing episode as they drink port and whisky while discussing Aliens of London/World War Three (twice) and pair it with another tale of intrigue and shapeshifters; Terror of the Zygons. Support the show Follow us on Bluesky Like us on Facebook Buy us a pint

Send us Fan Mail On the Time Lash is an archive podcast containing views that were of their time.  Now that's out the way, let's celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Unquiet Dead by revisiting Ben and Mark's chat all about Victoriana in Doctor Who when they paired it with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Is John Bennett really as bad as Matt Lucas? Support the show Follow us on Bluesky L...

Send us Fan Mail Continuing our celebrations of 20 years of "New" Doctor Who, we're re-releasing the first series of On the Time Lash on the 20th anniversary of each season 1 episode! First up, we celebrate 20 years of The End of the World with the very first episode of OTTL as a youthful Ben and Mark look back on Rose/The End of the World and compare their strengths as both pilot a...

Send us Fan Mail  To celebrate 20 years since the broadcast of Rose, Ben and Mark hosted a live YouTube stream featuring commentaries on A New Dimension, Rose and Doctor Who Confidential. In this podcast, Ben and Mark are joined by Lee McMenemy from The Polis Box and JR Southall from Strangers in Space for the audio commentary on the very first episode of Doctor Who Confidential; "Bringing Ba...

Send us Fan Mail To celebrate 20 years since the broadcast of Rose, Ben and Mark hosted a live YouTube stream featuring commentaries on A New Dimension, Rose and Doctor Who Confidential. In this podcast, Ben and Mark are joined by Lee McMenemy from The Polis Box and JR Southall from Strangers in Space for the audio commentary for "Rose", written by Russell T Davies and directed by Keith...

Send us Fan Mail  To celebrate 20 years since the broadcast of Rose, Ben and Mark hosted a live YouTube stream featuring commentaries on A New Dimension, Rose and Doctor Who Confidential. This podcast is the audio commentary for the "primer" documentary, Doctor Who: A New Dimension, which aired at 17:25 on BBC1 on 26th March 2005, narrated by up and coming star David Tennant.  Support th...

Send us Fan Mail In part two of OTTL's celebration of 40 years of EastEnders, Mark, Lee and Mark H discuss some classic crossovers with Doctor Who....and Dimensions in Time. They take a trip to an emotionally charged Doctor Who exhibition with Bradley and Stacey in an episode of EastEnders from 15th February 2008 . Then it's off to Albert Square with the Eleventh Doctor and Dermot O&apos...

Send us Fan Mail "Oh my dear Princess, you have been naive..." To celebrate 40 years of EastEnders, Mark convenes Mark Harrison and Lee McMenemy from The Polis Box in the Queen Vic to discuss whether or not Doctor Who is "too soapy". Beyond their statuses as institutions which rely heavily on cliffhangers, what else ties Doctor Who to EastEnders and other soaps like Coronation...