Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

Mankind looks to the stars because of Clara's disregard for democracy, but you can't make a human space exploration omelette without cracking a few moon eggs.

Doc and new companion Romana (I) are tasked by Colonel Sanders to find six horcruxes in this opener to the season-long ‘Key To Time’ arc * * * The Doctor is looking forward to some companion-less quality time with new pooch K-9 Mark II, when the whitest of galactic guardians puts the kibosh on their holiday plans and summons the Doctor for a secret, season-long mission to collect the Key To Time....

The Doctor butts heads with a somersaulting maths teacher at Coal Hill School while an alien threatens the future of humankind.

The Eighth Doc and Tamsin match wits with a felonious Monk and his baritone protégé * * * Oh Brother, Timothy has come a cropper, wing-boned by a Vortisaur, after hours in the library of Kells Abbey in 1006, as Norse King Sitric rides from Dublin to inspect the ornate Book of Kells, upon its long-awaited completion. Nary a moment has passed since the friar’s fatal frying when, out of a TARDIS glow...

Doc gets crowned president, Gallifrey gets invaded twice, and Leela and K-9 get no goodbye * * * The Doctor signs an agreement with some aliens in their cosy, egg-themed base but Leela hasn’t been invited to the party. She was left in the TARDIS with K9, who has a handle on what’s going on but isn’t being at all cooperative. The Doc’s agreement appears to involve becoming the president of Gallifre...

The Doctor and Clara assemble a team in order to Ocean’s-11 into a maximum security bank guarded by a telepathic space cow * * * Clara is fed up of The Doctor putting her on the shelf, so she colours in her face and is almost out of the door for her second date with world’s worst civilian-murdering flirt Danny Pink when the TARDIS phone starts ringing off the hook. The next thing they remember is...

Jackson and The Argonauts take Team TARDIS to a newly formed, largely green-screen'd planet * * * Leela is taking the TARDIS for a spin whilst the Doctor plays painter in his smock. They happen upon the gravitational pull of a brand new sun and thus cross paths with a similarly affected Minyan spaceship, who have been on a quest for one hundred, thousand, yeeeaaars. It seems the Time Lords royally...

A masterfully creepy chamber piece, in which Doc embroils Clara in his obsession to prove an unprovable theorem * * * Travelling around time and space on his own, The Doctor develops an obsession with finding a hypothetical species so incredibly furtive, their genetic predisposition to remain unproven apparently proves their existence. Meanwhile, Clara and Pink are finally having their first date...

The Eighth Doctor and Tamsin are drawn to a Poe-inspired prison on the planet Nevermore * * * Dear listener, pray abandon your customary taste for cheerful relaxation and peace of mind, for the tale we here commence to describe is played at such a pitch of depravity as would make those surest of their character and salvation by the true God buckle at the knees. The Doctor and his unsuspecting comp...

Doc, Leela and K-9 lead a proletarian revolution against space capitalists on Pluto who may be in the business of making suns * * * There are two things certain in life: death and taxes. And the people of Pluto decided to put those things together in the name of a more efficient corporate strategy. Unfortunately for Citizen Cordo, Plutonian taxes can be raised at the drop of a hat and he can no lo...

Series 12 came to our screens early in 2020 and we couldn’t wait to discuss its opening double-feature * * * In lieu of a Christmas or New Year's Special this time around, Series 12 instead arrived early, blasting through the gates with the Bond-inspired, inter-dimensional, trans-temporal, two-part, science-fiction espionage thriller, Spyfall. And we couldn't not have a little chat about it on the...

Feast your ears on these traditional holiday bloopies * * * Ahoy there! Hope you're all well and that the holiday season has been absolutely rocking! We're still on holiday ourselves here at WBW Studios, but since we're nearing the end of a decade and we didn't want to leave your earballs hangin', we thought we'd treat them to a traditional holiday season blooper reel. Thanks for making 2019 anoth...

Let this Trailer and Clip Show for Who Back When, a Doctor Who Podcast (or DocPast), whet your appetite. Then subscribe to the show! * * * Did you know that there's a marvellous Doctor Who Podcast (or DocPast™) called Who Back When, and that it's been going strong for over six years? In the event that that is news to you, fret not, this bonus episode will sort you right out. Behold, a Trailer and...

The Doctor, Clara and Robin Hood are caught in alien crossfire, while the Sheriff of Nottingham goes bonkers for bling. * * * The time has finally come for Twelve to let Clara choose her own adventure, so she contrives a hero hang with the merry manager himself, Robin Ha-ha-ha Ho-ho-Hood. Doc can’t believe his eyes; where he expected to teach Clara a sobering lesson with a blank patch of forest, i...

A loony old trout helps prevent a golden sun goddess sucking the life out of the world with her Gestalt band of space worms * * * A humanoid skull has been found by a small group of scientists and they’ve brought it to England to carry out some further research and to see if everything we know about our evolution needs to be thrown out of the window. As every scientist knows, you do your best work...

The Doctor, Clara and some Redshirts decide to Fantastic Voyage into the seemingly only good Dalek in existence * * * Human resistance forces have injured and captured the only good Dalek known to have ever existed, and are now in need of a Doctor with an eye for the most minute detail. Rescuing young soldier, Journey Blue, from the universe-subjugating lasers of the Daleks, The Twelfth Doctor is...

It'll take more than an anti-body pillow fight to defeat the universe-threatening ejaculate of a megalomaniac space shrimp * * * The Fourth Doctor and his companion Leela are drawn into a fight for the future of mankind when a sentient space virus called The Swarm begins to infect human settlers on Titan and a nearby hospital asteroid. Led by the Nucleus, The Swarm is intent on taking over humanoi...

A dinosaur appears in 1890's London, and that's not even the weirdest thing Capaldi must investigate in his debut adventure as the Twelfth Doctor * * * The grimy gawkers of 1890s London are aghast to see a dinosaur stumbling its way past the Palace of Westminster, but rather than heading into one of the Lords' bars as customary, it coughs from its throat a curious blue egg, and from this egg hatch...

Bow ties ARE cool. We discuss Matt Smith’s run as The Eleventh Doctor. * * * In just over two years, we've reviewed all of Matt Smith's episodes as The Doctor. Thus, as has become tradition here on Who Back When, before venturing on along the temporal road we sat down to pour one out for the departing Doc and discuss, debate, rank and rate some of the finest (and some of the most forgettable) of h...

An alien jellyfish hampers attempted insider trading in this legendary bottle episode * * * When an electric alien jellyfish crash lands its spaceship off the South coast of England near the lighthouse at Fang Rock, it signals the start of a rough night. Manning the lighthouse are three chaps, the superstitious Rueben who doesn’t make friends easily, the youngster, Vince, who’d have a different ca...

Eleven returns for a last hurrah replete with wooden Cybermen and naked Twister before his inevitable regeneration * * * The entire Whoniverse of belligerents is once again on tour, this time parked around a planet transmitting a cipher beam and being shielded by the Church of the Papal Mainframe, an organisation with absolutely nothing to hide and absolutely no clothes to hide it with. Doc is als...

A glorious melange of Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera, Dr Fu Manchu and so much more, and one of the most controversial Classic Doctor Who stories ever * * * The Fourth Doctor brings his companion Leela to Victorian London to give her a taste of who her human ancestors once were. It’s foggy in the almost perpetual night of Londontown and they wish to blend in, so Doc dons his finest Holm...

Feast your ear-balls on these Surprise October Bloopies! * * * What-ho! As we've been scattered across the world for the past couple of weeks, we don't have a review for you today. But never fear, dearest Podcastland, and instead feast your ear-balls on this surprise Blooper Reel! Seriously. There are some truly amazing bloops in this one. Who Back When will return in a week's time with another Cl...

An alien, a criminal, a vampire and an actress audition for the part of The Eighth Doctor's next companion * * * Doctor John Smith is in need of a new novitiate, pupil, trainee, or some other appropriate word, and has received videos from four applicants whom he’ll be reviewing at the conference at the Greenwich Cathcart hotel. Coinciding with this X-Factor / Apprentice / Charlie and the Chocolate...

Mark Gatiss' DOC-u-drama is a heartfelt glimpse at the origins of Doctor Who * * * With the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who in 2013, we were treated to a peek into the past and a glimpse behind the curtain with Mark Gatiss' biopic An Adventure in Space and Time. In 1963 Sydney Newman, a Canadian TV producer and Head of Drama at the BBC had an idea for a quirky new science fiction sh...