Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

Some months after the first and possibly only series of the Doctor Who spin-off, Class, aired, our review of this young-adult take on the Whoniverse — previously thought (a) lost (cause) — has resurfaced to whisper sweet nothings into your hungry ear-balls. Yep, that's right. It took some doing, but this review actually came together against all odds, despite it having been recorded on a very dodg...

A tense, psychological thriller and some terrifically high-concept sci-fi, this is RTD's Reservoir Dogs in space * * * We’re finally treated to a bottle episode when companion Donna Noble decides to get a tan and Tenant's Tenth Doctor embarks on an eight-hour school trip across the deadly, diamond landscape of Planet Midnight. When the school bus breaks down, however, and an alien force seemingly...

More astronaut-cosplaying aliens, palpably inappropriate music, and foreign conspirators from foreign countries * * * Three astronauts have been out of contact for 7 months, and the rescue astronaut sent after them also goes incommunicado. Bingo. In step UNIT and THE DOCTOR, who quickly dispatch the latter into space to rescue the chap who was sent to rescue the chaps. Meanwhile, three astronauts...

The Runaway Bride finally gets herself a husband and takes care of cookie-cutter kids in Star Trek Generation's "Nexus". * * * The Tenth Doctor, River Song & Co clearly survived last week’s cliffhanger, but Donna is stuck in a world of her own. It seems she’s in a hospital run by Dr Moon, who’s part psychologist, part match-maker, and soon she's set up with an eligible mute. In the library, howeve...

A tonne of foreshadowing and a very common courtesy unit, plus the very first appearance of Professor River Song (on our timeline) * * * The Doctor and Donna are summoned via Psychic Paper to The Library, a planet-wide library in the distant future, full of actual, bound, printed-on-paper books, but oddly devoid of people. Meanwhile a mysterious young girl in present-day England, with inexplicable...

U.N.I.T. can't decide whether to battle Global Warming, a flesh-eating virus, nuclear holocaust, dinosaurs or planet-usurping man-geckos. * * * Pertwee’s Third Doctor and Miss/Doctor Liz Shaw are persuaded to join Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart (aka "Bagels") and investigate some happenings at a local nuclear power research facility, perched atop a labyrinth of caves. Recently, odd p...

Doc and Donna crash a party with Agatha Christie, the full cast of Cluedo, a giant wasp and no unicorn * * * The Tenth Doctor and companion Donna Noble rock up in 1920s landed gentry England, to gatecrash a party hosted by Lady Clemency-Edison and hosting a veritable Who’s Who of the cast-list of Cluedo. Among the guests is none other than Agatha Christie herself, and appropriately the house soon...

We get space quaffles, the mannequin challenge and some good old-fashioned tentacle porn in Pertwee's first go as The Third Doctor * * * Jon Pertwee excels in his first jab at playing The Third Doctor in this iconic 4-part serial. The first serial to be shot in full colour – and coincidentally on film – and the first to feature not only Pertwee, but Autons and the Nestene Consciousness, Spearhead...

We sit down to speculate on the reasons for Peter Capaldi’s departure from Doctor Who in 2017, and pick some of our favourite candidates for the role of The Thirteenth Doctor. * * * A couple of days ago, Peter Capaldi announced to Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2 that his time as the Twelfth Doctor would come to an end in 2017. At the time of writing this, he's destined to appear in one more, third, seaso...

The Tenth Doctor mothers the short-lived fruit of his loins following his arm being raped by newborn soldiers fighting fish people without a backstory. * * * Written by Stephen Greenhorn of ‘The Lazarus Experiment’ fame, ‘The Doctor's Daughter’ sees The Tenth Doctor, Martha and, sadly, Donna materialise in the middle of a war that's been ravaging for ages. The Doc’s arm gets raped muy pronto, spaw...

Having seen (or heard) all of Patrick Troughton's Doctor Who serials, we sat down for the traditional PostDoc rankings and ramblings. * * * We finished yet another Doctor's run on Who Back When a couple of weeks ago, and thus 'tis time for our traditional PostDoc ranking and rambling. The topic of the day: the Second Doctor, as portrayed by Patrick Troughton. Quick note before going on: We will of...

It's The Clone Wars but with a baked potato planet and a nuclear weapons Tinder app. * * * Martha’s back again— Again! And now there are two of her as the weird bath-time clone is keeping a side-eye on the Doctor, as he does his best to foil the Sontaran plan for world domination and keeps a trigger-happy UNIT in check. Donna, meanwhile, is trapped in the TARDIS, and the TARDIS is trapped aboard G...

The Second Doctor and his companions Interrail through some of humanity’s greatest conflicts in Patrick Troughton's final serial. * * * Take a seat, Ladies and Gentlemen of Podcastland. We've arrived at the very last Patrick Troughton serial. In The War Games, The Second Doctor regenerates, albeit not quite into The Third Doctor just yet, and Patrick Troughton certainly goes out with a bang. In fa...

Brains in jars, a squeaky interrogation toy and the DC and Marvel Universes collide in this Doctor Who Christmas Special * * * Ho-Ho-Ho! Yarp, last year, back in 2016, we got exactly one new Doctor Who episode, namely, The 2016 Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio. What's it about? Glad you asked. Here, have a Bite-Size Chunk Of Who: 10-year-old Grant loves swallowing. Good thing the D...

As per tradition, ecce the Who Back When Xmas Bloopers! * * * What-ho, Podcastland! Due to travelling arrangements and bumping into Nick Frost’s Santa from the Doctor Who Christmas Special a couple of years ago, this bonus episode is dropping a tiny bit late. Apols for that… Fret not, however, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure that you were in our hearts at Christmas, on the first day of Chanukah, et...

A maniacal not-quite-Zuckerberg-or-Hugo-Drax-clone creates killer TomToms and hotboxes the elderly * * * A journalist investigating billionaire wunderkind Luke Rattigan and another 49 (!) people around the world simultaneously meet an untimely demise at the hands of Rattigan’s lean, mean, carbon-reducing killing machine. This gets the attention of UNIT, specifically of Martha Jones, now a real-lif...

The Doctor is aided by a space yokel from the Wild West while a pirate in a medieval spacesuit and a lady in a metal wig try to trap him * * * The Doctor and his companions, Jamie and Zoe (aka JayZ), materialise aboard a satellite, or a space beacon, just as space pirates space blow it up. They survive, of course, locked inside one of the isolated compartments of the beacon. In the future, you see...

Slavery, Overacting and some Seriously Good Writing in this Cerebral New Who Episode * * * The Tenth Doctor unknowingly takes Donna Noble to the Planet of the Ood, where a it transpires that a major conglomerate has been churning out Ood slaves for two centuries. Having left the Ood to their fate when he last encountered them in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit, The Doc decides to free them...

Another alien invasion, killer foam, moon base, homing beacon, elderly professor, space museum and aristocrat representing the UN. Basically, it’s great. * * * Good News, Planet Earth, we've invented the magic cupboard. It's T-Mat, the most boring way to describe transporter technology. And, like other future tech, it's controlled from a moon base. Holy Smokes, are those Ice Warriors? Why, yes, Ji...

It’s Volcano Day in Pompeii and Peter Capaldi appears as the pater familiar of the Cambridge Latin course while Karen Gillan worships freaking lava monsters!! * * * The Tenth Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before Volcano Day. A local chancer sells the TARDIS behind their backs to, of all people, Peter Capaldi, who’s hosting the city augur later that afternoon. Seeking out their time ma...

A society comprising myriad chaps with matching axes and one single woman faces off against homicidal moka pots who secretly attempt to mate with their brain waves. * * * Doc and JayZ arrive on the planet of the Gonds, where the cleverest members of society are Logan's Run'd to become companions of the titular Krotons. We soon learn that these companions are merely drained of their mental energy a...

Donna’s years of waiting for her beloved, genocidal maniac finally come to an end, and half of us rejoice. * * * We've finally arrived at the point where the views of this podcast's hosts on the Doctor's current companion may drastically diverge from one another. That's right, herewith, Donna Noble, whom he and we last encountered in The Runaway Bride, is a series regular. Cue either standing ovat...

Raunchy photoshoots, the return of UNIT and a Cyberman plan as epic as it is absurd * * * The Second Doctor and his companions, Zoe and Jamie, materialise in the TARDIS on the wrong side of the moon, only to discover an alien presence that they’ll ignore for four episodes and then head off to the 1970s and (less) swinging London. There they encounter the perfectly reasonable conglomerate of Intern...

A little further along the fourth dimension, we return to Doctor Who as presented in TWO dimensions. * * * In this follow-up to (B020) Doctor Who Comic Book Reviews #1, we delve deeper into the world of comics and graphic novels, and review: • A Matter of Life and Death (The Eighth Doctor, Year 1, Vol 1) • The Then and The Now (The Eleventh Doctor, Year 2, Vol 4) • The One (Eleventh Doctor, Year 2...

Angelic Oddjobs, Kylie and handicap shaming. It must be Christmas! * * * What-ho, Podcastland! Christmas comes early this year, and this time Kylie Minogue herself joins The Doctor. Picking up with the cliffhanger that ended the previous episode — Spoilers — the Titanic has just smashed into the TARDIS. No problemo, Doc grabs some Gallifreyan plaster, patches the whole in his ship and boards the i...