This week, we’re huddling with Toby Hadoke in a tent in a cave set somewhere on Mars, wondering what that massive gun is for and trying to decide which terrifying Imperial Majesty to give our fealty to. It’s Empress of Mars. Notes and links Lucifer Box is the protagonist of three spy novels by Mark Gatiss set in the early twentieth century, The Ves…

The Earth has once again fallen under the thrall of some wizened cadaverous monsters, who demand our love, our loyalty, and our uncritical acceptance of the Great Monk theory of history. And the only way to throw off their yoke is with a lot of laborious exposition. It’s The Lie of the Land. Notes and links Simon quotes from the Yes, Prime Minister…

This week, Tom Salinsky joins us for a World War III–adjacent chat in Madeupistan, while a global apocalypse is self-organising somewhere in Yorkshire. Also, some scary people keep trying to invite us to a free Bible study. It’s The Pyramid at the End of the World. Notes and links Brendan compares Extremis to Star Trek: Voyager’s Course: Oblivion, …

This week, Brendan, Nathan, Steven B and Johnny Spandrell penetrate the heart of the Vatican, only to discover that behind its dusty and arcane lore lies an eldritch horror that threatens the very idea of existence itself. It’s Extremis. Notes and links The most important inspiration here is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003), a massively popular…

Did you know that if we had a nickel for every Doctor Who episode in which you have to pay the Company for the right to breathe, we’d have ten American cents? Which still wouldn’t be enough — even with Kate Orman’s help — to pay for today’s supply of Oxygen. Notes and links A clear inspiration for this episode, and for the opening scene in particul…

This week, six millennials are astonishingly successful finding a large house to rent — the power points don’t work, there’s no mobile reception and the walls are quite literally made of alien woodlice. Oh, and it collapses into dust on their first night. It’s Knock Knock. Notes and links Brendan quickly identifies two of the film antecedents of th…

This week, we’re joined by Melvin Peña for a day trip to the Thames Frost Fair in 1814, expecting a jolly afternoon of daydrinking, sword swallowers and juicy sheep hearts, only to find ourselves tied to a bomb and engaged in an intriguing discussion about race, class, death and the ethics of killing. It’s Thin Ice. Notes and links Once again, Frie…

In a distant future where all life has been destroyed by technology, Brendan, James and Nathan sit down with their friend Bjay from The Bjay BJ Game Show to record a podcast about a Doctor Who episode called Smile. Notes and links Anticipating with relish the final demise of X, we have decided to preserve here for posterity the Twitter exchange bet…

We’re back for the first episode of Peter Capaldi’s final year — a simple, well-told tale of Girl Meets Girl, Girl Becomes Puddle, Girl Loses Girl and, finally, Girl Goes off with Her Tutor on a Series of Adventures in Time and Space. Welcome aboard, Bill Potts. It’s The Pilot. Notes and links Friend from the Future was a promotional short designed…

This Christmas in July, we are joined by Adam Richard on a sleigh ride that flies right past the Marvel Cinematic Universe and lands on Margot Kidder’s rooftop in 1978. Which is, it turns out, not a bad place to be. It’s The Return of Doctor Mysterio. Notes and links Steven Moffat’s clear inspiration here is Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie (19…

A big week for beginnings this week, with a new Doctor, a new origin story for the Daleks, and a whole new approach to defeating the bad guys. Oh, and a new podcast to discuss them all on. So let’s welcome Patrick Troughton to the studio floor, as we discuss The Power of the Daleks. Notes and links The most recent Blu-ray release of The Power of th…

No, you can’t. They’ve been there for millions of years, through storms and floods and wars and time. Nobody really understands where the music comes from. It’s probably something to do with the precise positions, the distance between both towers. Even the locals aren’t sure. All anyone will ever tell you is that when the wind stands fair and the n…

From Skaro to Gallifrey, twelve episodes of one of the strangest seasons in Doctor Who’s history. What did we think, what did we learn, and what are we most looking forward to? And, as always, who would we snog, marry or avoid? Notes and links Thanks to Bob Gilbey (@bobgilbey), Bryan says… (@bryan1981) and DJ Alpha-T (@DJ_AlphaT) for contributing t…

This week, the Doctor learns that mere relentless persistence is no match for the inevitability of loss, and a Doctor Who spinoff is created which we will never get to see. It’s Hell Bent. Notes and links According to Todd, the old woman in the barn is either Leela or Aunt Adah from the Star Trek: Voyager pilot episode Caretaker — a hologram create…

If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you’re not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I’m coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop. This week, Rob Valentine drops by to spend four-and-a-half billion…

This week, we’re hanging out in a mystical London street full of Sontarans, Judoon and Cybermen, investigating a murder with Johnny Spandrell — only to find, to our horror, that the murder hasn’t happened yet. And, of course, that it’s time for Clara Oswald to Face the Raven. Notes and links Fridging or Women in Refrigerators is a trope in which a …

This week, in orbit of the planet Neptune, a Doctor Who story is created which kills literally everyone who watches it. Which is why we should probably have thought twice before inviting the lovely Jeremy Radick to discuss it with us. Notes and links Steven Moffat’s version of Dracula (2020) is actually Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s version of Dr…

This week, we’re all enjoying bombing and threatening one another, until the Doctor comes along and delivers a long speech about New Cruel People, which starts making us feel bad about ourselves. And fair enough. It’s The Zygon Inversion. Notes and links The Decimas were tiny squeaky-voiced aliens, who looked like nothing so much as miniature Zygon…

This week, we’ve invited twenty million Zygons over for cocktails, and now we’re starting to feel self-conscious about cooking up all that salt-and-pepper squid. And so soon we’re involved in an international political thriller that takes us from Fake New Mexico all the way to Madeupistan. It’s The Zygon Invasion. Notes and links Sister Lamont from…

It’s been a mere 900 years since last week’s episode, and it’s time to check in with Ashildr to see if she’s still the naive and loving young girl she was back in her Viking village days. Or — like the rest of us — has she simply turned into Peter Capaldi’s Doctor? It’s The Woman Who Lived. Notes and links Nathan refers to the Blackadder the Third …

This week, we remind ourselves of what the Doctor stands for, as we watch him train up some very silly Vikings to be sweet and funny enough to see off an invasion by big stupid monsters with mouths full of teeth. Stacey Smith? joins us to discuss the story of The Girl Who Died. Notes and links Stacey discovered how much she liked this episode while…

This week, a bone Vervoid joins in the fun as we travel back in time to Wales in 2015 pretending to be Scotland in 1980 pretending to be somewhere in the Soviet Union. And it’s hard to say which time paradox is the most annoying, the bootstrap one or the predestination one. Thank goodness Frazer Gregory is here to help us sort it all out — it’s Bef…

This week, we’re playing Doctor Who madlibs — cowering in an UNDERWATER BASE, waiting for the ELECTROMAGNETIC GHOSTS to pick us off one by one. Fortunately, Peter Capaldi and some attractive young people are here to keep us entertained. We’re Under the Lake. Notes and links The CEO of this base under siege is apparently called Richard Pritchard, a …

This week, the Doctor chats with Davros, Missy chats with Clara, and the four of us wonder if those chats are fun enough to sustain forty-five minutes of television. All while actually having quite a fun chat ourselves. It’s The Witch’s Familiar. Notes and links Quite a few mentions are made of the 60-minute LP of Genesis of the Daleks. This was re…

So Doctor Who is back, doing the same old thing for another year, but this time we’re relitigating the main moral question of a thirty-year-old episode: can we kill a genocidal dictator even though he’s just a small child with a dirty face lost on a battlefield somewhere? Tom Spilsbury joins us to discuss The Magician’s Apprentice. Notes and Links …

It’s Christmas in July, and what could be more Christmassy than having your brains sucked out by predatory alien crabs? Why, Nick Frost as Santa, of course! So welcome, everyone, to your Last Christmas. Notes and Links We often use an episode’s show notes to enumerate a story’s influences, but Mr Moffat has already done it for us. Towards the end o…

Peter Capaldi’s Doctor might not be sure if he’s a good man, but can Nathan, Todd, Peter and Simon be sure if his first series is a good series? Let’s find out (while determining who to snog, marry and avoid on the way). Notes and links Thank you to Steven B for his question about the ratings during the Capaldi era. Fans of tables of numbers (like …

It’s happened again: it’s the end of the season, and all our long-dead relatives have come back as Cybermen. Only this time, instead of hanging around the kitchen reeking of tobacco, they’re wandering through graveyards and — well, that’s it really, wandering through graveyards. Fortunately, Missy is here to liven things up a bit. It’s Death in Hea…

This week, Danny’s death is somehow made up for by the culmination of a season-long arc which finally brings Michelle Gomez properly into the limelight. It’s Dark Water. Notes and links This week’s evil corporation is 3W, which gets it’s name from the three words Don’t cremate me. But, as Brendan points out, it’s also the production code for Invasi…

It’s like the New Forest only newer, as well as more sudden and completely worldwide. But is it here for revenge, or to provide us with some much-needed help? Let’s find out as Mathew Hounsell and Kevin Burnard join us to discuss In the Forest of the Night. Notes and links Here’s an article on William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’, from which this episode ge…

This week, we’re doing some judicially-mandated cleaning up around a council estate in Bristol when we make some terrifying discoveries about the source and nature of the graffiti we’re painting over, and some even more terrifying discoveries about our own and our friends’ moral characters. Also, someone left the TARDIS prop from Logopolis Part 3 l…

This week, a technologically-augmented interdimensional mummy runs amok on a replica of the Orient Express in space under the control of a terrifying alien intelligence or something. It’s a day at the office for Doctor Who, in Mummy on the Orient Express. Notes and links Mummy on the Orient Express marks the triumphant return of Janet Henfrey to Do…

This week, Nathan, Brendan, Simon and Colin are trapped in a room with only forty-five minutes to decide whether Kill the Moon is terrible or a towering work of genius. It goes quite well, surprisingly. Notes and links Brendan suggests that Kill the Moon addresses the Guns versus Frocks, um, disagreement, which reached its peak during the heyday of…

This week, Pete Lambert and Hannah Cooper join us for a particularly embarrassing Coal Hill School parents’ evening, which goes horribly wrong when a Mechanoid is found roaming the premises. It’s The Caretaker. Notes and links Pete has a dim memory of something similar happening during his childhood, but mere months before Series 8 aired, the Troop…

Nathan, James, Peter and Simon come to in a bare darkened room full of mid-range sound recording equipment with no memory at all of how they got there, only to find — to their horror — that they have agreed to podcast about our next Doctor Who episode, Time Heist. Notes and links In a discussion of this very straightforward episode, there’s nothing…

This week, we’re joined under the Doctor’s bed by Fiona Tomney, to discuss whether monsters are real or imaginary or both, and to squee repeatedly over the Capaldi performance. It’s Listen. Notes and links We don’t actually talk about the Missy Reveal in our episode on The Time Meddler. The Missy Reveal at the end of Dark Water was first broadcast …

This week, Nathan, Richard, Todd and Adrian Phoon leave the peasants of Worksop to their mud-eating and get together to ask themselves the questions Is the Doctor as big a hero as Robin Hood? and Is Robin Hood even real?, only to come up with some very surprising answers. It’s Robot of Sherwood. Notes and links There have been any number of film ve…

This week, we’re joined by Adam Richard, shrunk to a microscopic size, and sent on a mission consisting mostly of ruthless moral self-examination. Meanwhile, somewhere else completely, a romcom is taking place. It’s Into the Dalek. Notes and links Some of us are old enough to remember the constant television repeats of Fantastic Voyage (1966), in w…

After half a lifetime of waiting, the time has come for Peter Capaldi to finally take on the role he was born to play. But is twenty-first century Who ready for this spiky and unpredictable leading man and his sexy and unhinged mortal enemy? We’re about to find out — but first, let’s take a Deep Breath. Notes and links The new “bees in a theremin” …

From Amy’s imaginary friend to the Hero of Trenzalore, Matt Smith spent four years and more than a few centuries as the Doctor. So now that he’s gone, how do we think he did? Notes and links Thank you very much to the listeners who contributed their questions to this episode: DJ Alpha-T, Frazer Gregory and Nathan Bottomley. Nathan claims to enjoy t…

Doctor, listen to me. You can’t die, you’re too — you’re too nice, too brave, too kind and far, far too silly. You’re like Father Christmas, the Wizard of Oz, Scooby Doo. And I love you very much. And we all need you, and you simply cannot die. While Clara undergoes a gruelling Christmas lunch with her family, on Trenzalore, in a town called Christ…

After a whole week of anniversary celebrations on Flight Through Entirety, it’s time for us to acknowledge how ridiculous it all is, and who better to take charge of that than our very own Peter Davison, who lovingly chronicles his own utterly fictional attempts to shoehorn himself into the Anniversary Special in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Watch…

To celebrate Doctor Who’s fiftieth and fifty-ninth anniversaries, Brendan, Nathan, Richard and Todd are reunited at last for the first of two panels discussing The Day of the Doctor. We squealed, we laughed, we wept, we injured Brendan, and we spent quite a bit of time fangirling about Ingrid Oliver. Happy birthday, everyone! Notes and links First …

The original FTE team has already spent an hour discussing The Day of the Doctor, but it wouldn’t be a fiftieth anniversary celebration without James, Peter and Simon on the couch toasting everyone’s health. There will be cocktails, as we convene just one more time to discuss The Day of the Doctor. Notes and links You’ve already had your fair share…

A wise man once said, “You can do loads in twelve minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath.” Tonight, Brendan, Nathan, James and canonical friend-of-the-podcast Conrad Westmaas find out just what Paul McGann can do in just seven minutes and nine seconds. Turns out, quite a lot. It’s The Night of the Doctor. Watch the story! The Night of…

When a spatio-temporal hyperlink connects 1963, 2013 and 2022, we find ourselves joined by Greg Miller for a conversation about our little fanboy hearts, the anniversary special An Adventure in Space and Time, and the brave, clever and difficult people who created the show that brought us all together. Notes and links Coronation Street got here fir…

Matt Smith’s last full season as the Doctor is a game of two halves — two costumes, two console rooms, two title sequences (or six, whatever) and two sets of companions over two consecutive years. And we’re in two minds about it. Welcome to the Series 7 retrospective. Notes and links Thank you to all the lovely people who sent us questions, particu…

This week, we’re spending a relaxing afternoon on sunny Trenzalore, chatting with friends, visiting people we’ve lost, solving a mystery, bringing up an age-old question, and generally getting everything neatly squared away before the fireworks start this November. It’s The Name of the Doctor. Notes and links Nathan’s rant about giving the Doctor u…

In a far-off galaxy in a distant future, a band of misfit soldiers in a comical castle await the arrival of an enemy long thought dead — thousands upon thousands of killer Cybermen. Angie and Archie don’t seem particularly impressed, though, and neither do Nathan, Richard, James and Peter. It’s Nightmare in Silver. Notes and links Richard is remind…

This week we’re joined by Steven from New to Who to discuss one of the great loves of our lives — Dame Diana Rigg, whose astonishing performance makes The Crimson Horror one of the best episodes of the era. Notes and links So, Diana Rigg. As we all know, her breakout role was as Mrs Peel in The Avengers from 1966 to 1968. And so this is not her fir…