Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

It’s been a tough year for mankind, but we got through it together and a lot of laughs made it all the more bearable

Method-acting LARPers seek inspiration in Zardoz’ growing crack

The Genius Twins are the least of Bill's and Doc's worries in this highly divisive episode

Die Hard meets Jurassic Park meets Johnny Mnemonic in this Underwater Base Under Siege

Despite body horror and mild Brexit propaganda, we fall head over heels for the Seeeeeeeeventh Doctor as he squares off against Euro-Combine Harvesters In the distant future of October 2021, Dr Farrer is up on the not-at-all-suspicious high-security thirty-first floor of St Gart’s Hospital in central London, performing not-at-all-suspicious complex recarnative surgery on a not-at-all-suspicious pa...

Too much action, too little plot, or exactly the right measure of either? And what did we think of the Full Metal Jacket Potato? We react instant(ish)ly! Doctor Who is back!! On the first day after Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor made her first appearance in her last season during her penultimate year before the three specials of next year which for the first time ever will be her last year, w...

Four-and-a-bit Doctors battle Cybers, a chap in silver spandex and a Time Lord conspiracy in the 20th Anniversary Special * * * When a malevolent force uses the Time Scoop to abduct four and a half Doctors and an array of companions, and plonk them in The Death Zone, Time Lord President Borusa sees no choice but to employ the services of The Master to Snake Plisken to the rescue. Sounds straightfo...

Bill swaps chips for microchips in the first instalment of a very clever two-parter. * * * Missy has made such a roaring success of rescuing The Doctor’s crew from Mars, being his live-in mechanic, and tearing up suggestively that now she’s being granted her own adventure, complete with reluctant disposables Thing One and The Other One. Doc has selected a practice scenario worthy of her iniquitous...

Far too much jousting, jesting and luting * * * It’s a quarter past lunchtime, or the year 1215 as some would have it, and the not-so-good King John has rocked up at some Lord’s castle to squeeze a bit more tax out of him. The Lord politely declines, the King’s champion gets pissed off (well he is a hot-blooded Frenchman, allegedly) and, before you can say “I hope this doesn’t turn into a boring j...

Doc & Co are happy to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of half a dozen childlike primitives with a very limited musical repertoire * * * When Bill challenges The Doctor on his knowledge of Roman Britain, he transports her and Nardole to a desolate Aberdeenshire hillside so that he can establish his credentials on the fate of the famous lost Ninth Legion as a former Roman farmer, governor, j...

Who set up this boat race? What happened to any of the participants? Did Doc know all along? We require enlightenment!

Noisy Victorian males find sweet Fanny Adams on Mars, until the Ice Queen has a hissy fit * * * Thank goodness the people over at NASA are running such a lackadaisical operation, or the marvellous Twelfth Doctor, Bill Potts and divisive additional companion Nardole might not have snuck into the control room just in time for a countdown to a message on the surface of Mars, reading “God Save The Que...

Who might The Fourteenth Doctor and next showrunner be? We sit down for some in-depth speculation and dream casting * * * With the recent announcement that Jodie Whittaker is passing on the role of The Doctor after the next season of Doctor Who, and that Chris Chibnall will be stepping down as showrunner in the process, we sat down for a good couple of hours to discuss a huge list of candidates, d...

Three wasted pincers, not how levers work, and Splinter King-Kongs Nyssa before she inexplicably exits the show * * * When professional arse-hat, Turlough, sabotages the TARDIS, The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan — and Turlough — materialise aboard a plague ship bound for Terminus, a mysterious space station at the centre of the known universe. What a coinky-dink, you might say, but we’re not done yet becau...

Doc needlessly spreads propaganda for the enemy, performs a regeneration fake-out and kills innocent dock workers in the last part of the Monk trilogy. * * * It’s just another ordinary day on the tranquil streets of mind-foggy Monkdon Town. Crowds of sheeple goggle through the window of Magpie Electricals, drinking in Doctor-narrated visual soma in blissful acquiescence to Priti Patel’s totalitari...

Save all of time and space with the Doctor in this immersive theatrical adventure! * * * Time Fracture is the first ever immersive theatrical adventure set in the Whoniverse, and probably the closest thing to being in an episode of Doctor Who.  Here's how the creative geniuses behind the event describe it: The Doctor needs you! The Universe as we know it is at stake – now is the time to step up an...

Two Bagels, one moustache. Doc and his friends are split across time in the first part of the Black Guardian Trilogy. * * * On a luxury cruiser, eight mutated space chaps dressed like Björk are deeply regretting their crimes. Centuries prior, they stole a metamorphic symbiosis regenerator from Gallifrey with the intention of turning themselves into Time Lords. Alas, it only served to give their br...

Love enslaves the day as decomposing despots educate unelected representatives on the merits of consent * * * Bill is trying to get the Penny to finally drop her trousers before Doc’s nightmarish monk simulation of the Earth’s takeover catches up with them, when the UN Secretary General crashes their date, looking for the President of The World. An allegedly 5,000-year-old pyramid has just appeare...

Holy Moly, Who Back When just turned Eight years young! * * * What-ho! On this, the Eighth Anniversary of Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast (or DocPast), and after a really rather challenging year on Planet Earth, we couldn’t be more grateful to be speaking with you, dearest Podcastland. Thanks for being such a marvellous bunch. Fret not, there’s plenty of Doctor Who left to discuss, so we’ll r...

Tegan is possessed by a slithering bonehead and Doc and Nyssa must face off against an old foe in this sequel to Kinda * * * An old guy wants to be alone in a desert, Nyssa wants Doc to notice her new outfit and Tegan’s having nightmares. Nightmares that are strong and weird enough to bring them to a new world, Manussa, whose former inhabitants — or so legends say — vanquished the Mara from their...

Doc joins the world’s most depressing bookclub, and where are these scientists getting their dynamite?! * * * Doc is being given a tour of Middle Earth, sorry, the Fatality Index’s latest in termination tech, an orgy of overkill which even a Time Lord’s peskily persistent cells can’t regenerate around. Right on cue, Missy is brought out for the execution, but whose two hearts and three brainstems...

Lord Buckethead attempts to bond with Doc’s molecules, but a surprise Colin Baker totally steals the show * * * A Time Lord with a voice that would make John Hurt jealous is having a nice little traitorous chat with a character that’s having trouble developing in our dimension (negative image, get it?). Who might they be? Never you mind, buddy; you’ll find out soon enough. What’s important, though...

Doc & Co want to breathe new life into space workers rights, but the puffed-up airheads running the head office may disagree * * * The future has cranked capitalism up to eleven in this twelve-heavy story that has Capaldi putting on airs at Bristol University whilst gasping for another inspiring adventure in space. You can’t keep a good Doctor down, though, and when a serendipitous distress signal...

The Master wants to steal an ancient, omniscient space race to use it as an engine for his TARDIS * * * Adric’s dead. Yay! Ahem, sorry... Adric has just died and the remaining TARDIS team are mourning the loss of such a worthwhile companion. Doc thinks they could do with cheering up so puts the TARDIS on track for The Great Exhibition, Hyde Park, London, Earth, 1851. Alas, that little adventure wi...

Space woodlice should really get their Poirorities straight * * * Unnoticed in the leafy suburbs of Bristol, a common family tragedy is unfolding as an ill mother has taken to her bed, seemingly beyond all medical help. Her doting young son stoically puts on a brave face, while looking in the garden for objects that might amuse his beloved parent. The boy happens upon some peculiar insects, coiled...