Two-minute Time Lord

From Gallifrey One , here’s my celebration of the 10th anniversary of the airing of “Rose.” Thanks to my friends at Radio Free Skaro for inviting me to share the stage once more for their Friday morning live show, “Behind the Magic” .

It’s been a LONG time since we’ve done a Throwback Review. So let’s pick up where we left off: with an insufferable TARDIS couple realizing that things are just a little bit complicated, and a heaping helping of nostalgia from the Archetypal Companion and the Shooty Dog Thing.

It’s still Christmas, darn it! And the Doctor Who series isn’t over yet! At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself, by inviting National Public Radio’s Petra Mayer and Doctor Who: Verity!’s Tansy Rayner Roberts over to 2MTL to talk one last time about Last Christmas, Steven Moffat and Clara Oswald.

Jolly old St. Nick? Radagast to the Doctor’s Gandalf. Dreamcrabs? Scary. Mystery North Pole outpost? More and less than it seems. “Last Christmas”? Several levels of delightful.

Sure, the Cybermen looked impressive in the Series 8 finale. But were they sufficiently Cybermenny? Is it time to rethink the Cybermen, or better yet, take a break and bring them back to first principles?

It’s a Time Dilation episode of 2MTL, in which the “Two-minute” part becomes a colossal lie! Joining me in reviewing Series 8 and predicting  Doctor Who ‘s future are: Lynne Thomas of Verity! and Uncanny Magazine ! Kyle Anderson of Doctor Who: The Writer’s Room and Nerdist.com ! Graeme Burk of Reality Bomb and Who’s 50: The 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before...

Best. Moffat. Finale. Ever. Best. Moffat. Series. Ever. And yet, somehow, I’m not sure how much more I can take!

Sometimes the BBC can’t help but spoil the surprise. Sometimes the reveals aren’t all that revealing. Sometimes you dismiss the obvious because it’s too obvious. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, because the episode is brilliant and even wickedly funny because  there’s no surprise.

Series 8’s more unhurried pacing reaches its apex with the “lyrical and beautiful,” per Steven Moffat, “In the Forest of the Night.” Did the episode hold interest? Did The Doctor and Clara resemble themselves from just a couple of episodes ago? Well….

Yes, yes and more yes, as this supposedly “Doctor-Lite” episode gives us both Clara-as-the-Doctor and The-Doctor-as-someone-who’s-thinking-he’s-doing-his-job-too-well.

“Mummy on the Orient Express” does what it says on the tin, and. while not a “romp” as such, it’s perfectly timed after last week’s angst and controversy.

Six things make a podcast: “Kill the Moon” defied my attempt to do a simple, cohesive review. So here’s an extended series of impressions the episode left on me. (Thanks to K and R for kibitzing.)

A rubbish brown coat (not the legendary Tennant overcoat, sadly, that would have been funny) is a paper-thin disguise for a Doctor who is a bit of a rubbish caretaker. While he endangers Coal Hill School to fire Jimmy Vee into space, Clara makes some rubbish attempts to keep her two worlds separate. The episode? Not at all rubbish. But it’s time to talk about Clara, and how the Doctor and sh...

As a bank robber, the Doctor makes a surprisingly good bank robber. And Stephen Thompson turns in a story that is no “Curse of the Black Spot.” I solemnly promise not to cite “Leverage” again this season.

The latest in Steven Moffat’s series of biological functionally-titled episodes, “Listen!” is entirely about hiding behind the sofa, and why we do that, and what greatness the fear that drives it might lead us to. And, to my great surprise, we get a profound look underneath the Doctor’s mask.

If Robin Hood had assaulted the Doctor with a quarterstaff, with a full-on “Ho! Ha Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!”, I perhaps would have bought in.

Spoiler : The Daleks are back. Spoiler : The Twelfth Doctor is not especially warm and fuzzy. Spoiler : There’s a lot of pew-pew-pew and boom-boom-boom . Spoiler : For the second week in a row, it’s not the A-plot that has me so excited about Series 8.

Peter Capaldi delivers. Of that, there was no doubt. What else does “Deep Breath” have going for it, and does it measure up to Steven Moffat’s first crack at introducing a Doctor?

So the tabloids think that season is Clara’s swan song. I’m not ready to see her go, but… Guess what haters – Clara is the best companion, second maybe only to Donna. — Kyle Anderson (@FunctionalNerd) August 16, 2014 … really , Kyle Anderson of Nerdist.com ? Let’s not go quite that far. Yet.

The Two-minute Time Lord Podcast will have no truck with the “so bad it’s good” notion. Instead, we celebrate the notion of “cleverdumb” storytelling: meticulous in certain aspects, and gleefully and purposefully washing its hands of others. Exhibit A: the US series Leverage . Exhibits that follow: certain episodes of our favorite family sci-fi drama–but why are...

A clickbait headline hurtles toward Ye Olde Compare-and-Contrast between the promised grim-‘n’-gritty Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the widely inferred darkness of the Twelfth Doctor.

Two thousand years! That’s how old The Doctor is now, as stated by the Twelfth in the latest trailer and as implied in his predecessor’s swan song, “The Time of the Doctor.” That’s a pretty huge leap from roughly 900 years old at the start of Steven Moffat’s showrunnership. Is it a fair leap when you consider the assumed ages of his predecessors? Or is “fa...

On the power of the (leaked) written word (and the importance of Wheaton’s Law)…

With apologies, the War Doctor just doesn’t seem “real” enough to warrant a space on my shelf among the ordinally-numbered Doctor action figures in my collection. As magnificent as John Hurt was, why am I reluctant to include him in the tribe?

Herewith, three reasons why old-school fandom is buzzing with such excitement for Peter Capaldi, when the historic pattern has been more guarded.