Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

Identical cousins, rhino police and a little old lady from space. We review Martha Jones' debut as The Tenth Doctor's new companion. * * * It turns out there's such a thing as identical cousins. Freema Agyeman who played Adeola Oshodi in Army of Ghosts reappears here as her cousin – and The Doctor's next companion – Martha Jones. Let's set the stage: Martha is a Doctor in spe at the Royal Hope Hos...

A Karl Marx lookalike delivers spiffing technobabble while time travel goes straight down the drain in this senseless yet hugely compelling serial. * * * Ok, I'm going to bullet point this serial's blurb, because the plot of Evil of The Daleks makes so little sense to me, it actually hurts a little: • Two Victorian gentlemen, (father of future companion, Victoria) Edward Waterfield and (Karl Marx...

Cow bugs, loud noises and a thorough misinterpretation of the concept of race memory. * * * Right, it's finally here. Doc and Lucie are pulled into a full-scale war between a race of Wirrn cows (sort of) and what appears to be a grand total of three human soldiers. Add a splash of inconsistent plot logic and 50 minutes of non-stop loud noises, and you have Wirrn Dawn. We've been talking about how...

Fret not, we’re still here! In fact, take these Surprise January Bloopers as proof!

A pointless sidekick, an inconsistent robot and a massive get-out-of-jail-free card. Fun! * * * Ho-Ho-Ho, y'all! This time – slightly belatedly – we take a look at the 2015 Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song. This second Christmas Special with Peter Capaldi sees The Twelfth Doctor (re)unite with his future/past wife, River Song, as they race across space and time with the head of her pr...

We assemble to celebrate our 100th episode… on video! * * * Who Back When just turned 100 (episodes) and to commemorate the occasion we sat down – in front of a camera, no less – to talk about some of our favourite, and least favourite, moments of Doctor Who, as well as the of our glorious podcast to date. On top of that, we checked in with some of our regular listeners/contributors, aka The Super...

A Killer Christmas Star, a frustrated bride, and it turns out our world is just cosmic dirt wrapped around a spider nest * * * As we saw at the end of (N027) Doomsday, The Tenth Doctor is suddenly visited in his T.A.R.D.I.S. by a frustrated/frustrating bride. Meet Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, who was beamed out of the church on her wedding day in front of at least a hundred witnesses, wh...

Aliens commit identity theft and wield foreign stamps in Ben and Polly's final serial * * * Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor and his companions Polly, Ben and Jamie – aka "PB&J" – stay on Earth in this Doctor Who serial, more or less, as they arrive at Gatwick Airport in London, on the very same day that Ben and Polly left London at the end of (C027) The War Machines. (Spoilers: This serial marks...

It's Rose's last episode (sort of), with Sarcastic Daleks, a Doc who doesn't give a damn, and a Tyler family reunion * * * This is a big one. It's the continuation of proceedings laid out in N026 Army of Ghosts, the Season 2 finale, Rose's last episode (for a while), and as The Tenth Doctor, Rose and Jackie are caught between Cybermen and Daleks, we're primed for the inter-dimensional cage fight o...

Team building, space crabs and this one time at band camp * * * The Second Doctor and his companions, Polly, Ben and Jamie (aka PB&J) encounter some of the most content-to-be-slaving-away-their-lives workers ever in this serial of Classic Doctor Who, as they arrive on a human colony in outer space. The people there, albeit cheerful and musically inclined, are hiding a dark secret – to a degree eve...

For once, we review Doctor Who in TWO dimensions. * * * Hello Podcastland! A bit of a first for Who Back When here. Titan Comics, publishers of comic books pertaining to loads of different franchises, including Doctor Who, reached out and asked if we wanted to review two of their (at the time upcoming, now completely available) Doctor Who comics: • New Adventures with The Eighth Doctor 1.1 • The E...

Giant levers, office romance, and apparently everyone's OK with ghosts * * * Kablammo! This time we're reviewing Army of Ghosts, the first instalment of the two-part Series 2 finale that – spoilers – builds towards the farewell of the revival Doctor's first companion, Rose. Not that big a spoiler, actually, as the episode starts with Rose saying just that... Anyway, The Tenth Doctor and Rose are s...

Coffee breaks, national stereotypes and some classic 60s sexism are the cornerstones of this classic Cybermen serial * * * Kablammo, we've got another Cyberman adventure on our hands! This time, The Second Doctor and his companions Polly, Ben and Jamie (aka PB&J) arrive on the moon, just outside an international space base. The base, it transpires, houses the Gravitron, a device used to alter the...

Superfluous singing, the power of love and some of the worst parenting ever. * * * The Tenth Doctor and Rose arrive in London, just ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. They quickly deduce that something's amiss in Dame Kelly Holmes Close, though. Children have been going missing – not that it's worried the adults on the street in the slightest, no. Kids go missing all the time, rig...

ELO, an obese alien and a living cement fleshlight in possibly the most divisive episode of Doctor Who to date. * * * The Tenth Doctor and Rose stay out of this one almost entirely. In a first for Doctor Who, this week we're treated to a vlog by ELO-fan, Elton, as he talks us through how he joined "LINDA", London Investigative 'N' Detective Agency. Originally formed to track down The Doctor, LINDA...

The lost city of Atlantis, fish people, and a mad scientist who ISN’T The Doctor * * * The Second Doctor and his companions – Polly, Ben and Jamie – materialise on a volcanic island mere moments before, against all odds, they’re kidnapped. They’re brought down far below the surface to what turns out to be the lost city of Atlantis. Once a great civilisation, or so we’re lead to believe, Atlantis h...

An old foe, older friends and a creepy guy entirely made of snakes. • • • Doctor Who returned to our screens today with Series 9 and "The Magician's Apprentice", and along with the rest of the world, Who Back When sat down to watch it unfold. The Magician’s Apprentice treats us to the origins of the Doctor’s arch-nemesis (shhh, quiet Missy!) and the doctor is faced with a difficult choice: to chan...

It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard. Time to review the highlights and low-points of The First Doctor. * * * In the words of The First Doctor, 'it all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard,' and that's precisely where we kick off this bonus retrospective. Much like we did in our Ninth Doctor Retrospective when we’d reviewed Eccleston's series at the start of the Doctor Who...

Ass-shots, vent farts and a fire-breathing ethicist. * * * The concluding part of the satanic double-feature that also comprises (N022) The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit has gratuitous ass-shots, vent farts and rampaging Ood upstairs in Sanctuary Base 6, while downstairs The Doctor comes face to face with the devil himself. I'll leave it at that. Let the record show that I really wanted to re-r...

A moon dragon, a bush junkie and the Master who could have been. It’s our look back on Capaldi’s Series 8 (Part 2)

A dinosaur, an afterlife and a badass new Doctor. It’s our look back on Capaldi’s Series 8 (Part 1) * * * We've had a whole series of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, and now that we're on the precipice of Series 9, we thought we'd lean back in our armchairs and go through Series 8. Voilà, we give you the Series 8 Retrospective, in which we discuss how we felt about each individual episode and touch u...

The Doctor pretends to be German, disguises himself as an old lady and commits fraud in soon-to-be-a-companion Jamie's first ever serial * * * The Second Doctor and his (at this point total of) two companions, Polly and Ben, arrive in Scotland in 1746, just as the Battle of Culloden rages in the background. Unsurprisingly, they're drawn into the drama, as they stumble upon a group of Highlanders,...

What-ho, ladies and gentlemen! It’s (sort of) time for a (belated) 2nd anniversary blooper reel. That’s right. Our humble podcast had its second birthday about 2 and a half weeks ago. Apo-polly-logies for not dropping this year’s anniversary bloopers on time. Whatever, they’re here now! So enjoy this glimpse into the inner workings of Who Back When. Thanks for all your support these past two years...

Ood, Electric Brain YoYos, and demonic, temporary tattoos. * * * The Tenth Doctor and Rose materialise in a cupboard aboard a space base on an – dum-dum-duuuum – impossible planet. Why is it impossible? Glad you asked… It turns out this planet is suspended in space within sucking distance – yum – of an actual, straight-up black hole. The obviously human, more specifically English, crew of the spac...

Shazam! The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) has arrived, and he squares off against a familiar foe in his debut serial. Guess who. (Hint: It's in the title.) Doc, Polly and Ben materialise on the planet Vulcan (not the one you're thinking of)... (1) shortly after an ancient, crashed alien spaceship was discovered on the planet (2) moments before an examiner from Earth is shot dead Before Doc's E...