The Writers' Room

Whoa. We did it, everyone. With this month's episode, we conclude our quest to discuss the first 26 years of  Doctor Who via the writers and the stories they wrote. We're finishing the initial run with a bang, by talking about David Whitaker's two Dalek stories--"The Power of the Daleks" and "The Evil of the Daleks." Both are hailed as lost classics, and for good reason. Erik and Kyle break down a...

Whoa. We did it, everyone. With this month's episode, we conclude our quest to discuss the first 26 years of  Doctor Who via the writers and the stories they wrote. We're finishing the initial run with a bang, by talking about David Whitaker's two Dalek stories--"The Power of the Daleks" and "The Evil of the Daleks." Both are hailed as lost classics, and for good reason. Erik and Kyle break down a...

This month, Erik and Kyle continue their discussion of the  Doctor Who writing of David Whittaker with a story that was almost totally missing up until five years ago, and now it's fully back and available to watch in all its glory, "The Enemy of the World," one of the most atypical stories of the entire 1960s, and certainly of the Second Doctor's era. Erik had never listened to or watched this st...

It's nearly the end, but the moment has been prepared for. Except we're not talking about "Logopolis" in the least. It's our very final writer to cover from  Doctor Who 's classic series, David Whitaker, and incredibly important figure in the series' history and one that gave us many intriguing concepts. In this first of three episodes, Kyle and Erik are talking about the three stories Whitaker wr...

Can it be?! Kyle and Erik are talking about episodes of  Doctor Who from after 2005?! Yes indeed! For nearly 6 years, the fellas have talked about episodes of the 1963-1989 seasons, but this month is different. Anna Lynch, the raffle winner from the #WhoAgainstGuns initiative, has chosen three new/modern  Who episodes: "Partners in Crime," "The Doctor's Wife," and "Listen" and K & E get into thing...

Build high for happiness will prevail! This month, the fellas close out the Seventh Doctor's era with three stories all about dystopian futures and seemingly nice but secretly upsetting societies. Sort of like Britain in the '80s, really. We've got the two stories written by Stephen Wyatt ("Paradise Towers" and "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy") and the one story by Graeme Curry ("The Happiness Pa...

This month, 60 episodes in to their monthly journey into the writing and writers of Classic  Doctor Who , Kyle and Erik are joined by and honest to good writer of Classic  Doctor Who ! Andrew Smith bravely sits with us to talk about his 1980 script, "Full Circle," the beginning of the E-Space trilogy and the story that introduced Adric. In addition, Andrew talks about how he was brought on board,...

Hi friends! Erik and Kyle are pleased to join other Doctor Who podcasts, writers, and artists in the #WhoAgainstGuns movement to spread the message of peace and the call for ending gun violence in the U.S. and the rest of the world. We're happy to lend our voices to a special team-up commentary on a fan-favorite classic Doctor Who story, which can only be heard by donating $10.  More information c...

This month, Kyle and Erik talk about the work of script editor Anthony Read, who wrote one story under the pseudonym David Agnew (that one being season 15's "The Invasion of Time") and one under his own name (that being season 17's "The Horns of Nimon"). We find the merits (or demerits) in both of these stories, and talk about mazes both TARDIS and mythical & Greek. 

This month, Erik and Kyle begin the final year of the podcast (as you know it) by closing out yet another Doctor's era, that being Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. Yes, after not talking about any of his stories since the very first one, we've wrapped him up in a little under a year, and we're ending with Philip Martin, who wrote "Vengeance on Varos" and "Mindwarp," (aka "The Trial of a Time Lord" parts...

We've reached the end of another calendar year, which means it's been 5 years of Doctor Who: The Writers' Room! Can you even believe it? In honor of this, we've decided to go slightly outside of our usual parameters of the first 26 years of Doctor Who...all the way to 1996. That's right, we're talking about the TV Movie, written by Matthew Jacobs. The special has a fascinating backstory, and we ge...

Sorry for the delay this month, but we think you're in for a real treat (?) Erik, fresh off of becoming certified to teach English, and Kyle, fresh off of gallivanting and getting sick, discuss three poor old '80s stories that don't get much love. Is it because they're awful? We'll let you decide. But they talk about "The Twin Dilemma," "Timelash," and "Delta and the Bannermen." So there's that.

This month, we have another pair of stories that fall into the "well, they don't really fit anywhere else" category, in this instance both being surreal and fantastical stories from the same period of time. '60s Weirdos, we're calling it, and we're talking about "The Celestial Toymaker" and "The Mind Robber." Why? Because we like you. Also, this month marks Erik's last episode...recorded in the Un...

Break out the feather boas and start calling everything "Jimmy" because this month, Erik and Kyle are finishing their look at the Cybermen in Classic  Doctor Who with the 1968 story, "The Invasion." But, oh no, they are not taking on this eight-episode epic alone; they've got the added brilliance of Verity! Podcast's own Deb Stanish to help break down all the ins and outs, from Tobias Vaughn's arr...

This month, it's the end of a couple of things: First, the final episode in our Ice Warriors two-parter, focusing on the stories "The Curse of Peladon" and "The Monster of Peladon." Second, it's the last episode in which we have Third Doctor stories to discuss, so Kyle is clearly more sad about it than Erik. Oh, and a third one -- it's the last time we'll let people tell us one of these stories is...

Hello and good July to you, Whovian friends! This month, Erik and Kyle go Cyber-crazy. They start by talking about the Cybermen as portrayed in the recently concluded Series 10 (poor Bill) and then transition to this month's meat, the Cybermen's fourth appearance, "The Wheel in Space" from 1968 and their sixth appearance, "Revenge of the Cybermen" from 1974. These stories raise a number of questio...

It'sssssss June, friendsssssss, and that meanssssss Erik and Kyle are going to be talking about the firssssst two (of only four) ssssssstories having to do with the Iccccccccccce Warriorsssss. I'm really tired of writing it like that, so I'm gonna stop. Anyway, we talk about "The Ice Warriors" and "The Seeds of Death." That's the end.

Friends, it's Cyber-May! Or whatever. Anyway, it's our 50th episode, and for this one Erik and Kyle dive into talking about the Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis stories concerning those shiny shysters, the Cybermen. This time 'round, it's "The Moonbase" and "The Tomb of the Cybermen," because as the theme song to  The Facts of Life told us, "you take the good, you take the bad..."

Last month we looked at the two stories that began the 1980s, and this month we're looking at the two stories that began Season 4...but that also means they're the two stories that saw the end of the First Doctor, "The Smugglers" by Brian Hayles and "The Tenth Planet" by Kit Pedler (and Gerry Davis). These two stories couldn't be more different from each other, and it definitely doesn't feel like...

As our podcast begins to wind down (still have like a year, people, calm down a bit), we're forced to look at things that don't really have much correlation other than placement. As such, Erik and Kyle are spending this month talking about the beginning of the JNT and Christopher H. Bidmead era with our good friend David Fisher's "The Leisure Hive," and one-timers Andrew McCullough and John Flanag...

Hello and happy February, friends and listening public! This month, Erik and Kyle are in the same room (that's how you know it's Gallifrey One time) to discuss the three stories written in the '70s by David Fisher, who joined in season 16. His two Key to Time stories--"The Stones of Blood" and "The Androids of Tara"--are pretty roundly beloved, but his season 17 story, "The Creature from the Pit,"...

We haven't talked about this writer in a while, but it's almost hard to talk about Doctor Who without him -- Terry Nation, the inventor and most prolific writer of the Daleks. We've done all of those, of course, but he also wrote two stories with no Daleks in them whatsoever: from season 1, "The Keys of Marinus," and from season 13, "The Android Invasion." Nation fell into certain traps and narrat...

Happy end of the year, friends! As we draw the putrid cesspool that was 2016 to a close, Erik and Kyle thought they'd give you a fun(?) treat by talking about the two Dalek movies made in the mid-60s by Amicus Productions and starring the incomparable Peter Cushing. Interesting it will be to see how the same stories from the TV show are changed/truncated for the purposes of being very swiftly made...

We did it! Even as the country from which we hail goes to hell in a handbasket, we've managed to watch the final stories written by the Bristol Boys, aka Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Those three are "Underworld," "The Armageddon Factor," and the Bob Baker solo effort, "Nightmare of Eden." These writers have been a baffler thus far; how will we rate these three stories?

Oh....good. Erik and Kyle are back for the second part of their look at the so-called Bristol Boys, Bob Baker & Dave Martin. This time out, without the deft script editing hand of Terrance Dicks, we're left with off-the-wall stories "The Sontaran Experiment," "The Hand of Fear," and "The Invisible Enemy." Oh... oh gosh.