Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

WhoBackWhen.com
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  • TV REVIEWS

There are hundreds of Doctor Who episodes and stories out there and we intend to watch them all! Not just that – We’ll watch, review, discuss, debate, rate and praise and/or poke holes in every episode of Doctor Who, starting with the 1963 pilot. That’s right; we’re beginning with William Hartnell and then working our way forward through time, episode by episode and Doctor by Doctor. In parallel, we’re also reviewing New Who, starting with Eccleston in the 2005 revival. At the time of writing this, we’re already well into the Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi eras! From comparing Dalek and Cybermen military strategems to ranking companions by hairstyle, we’ve got it covered.

  1. N191 The Well

    12 APR

    N191 The Well

    This episode should have been called “6 o’clock” * * * Doc and Belinda are still struggling to get back to Earth in 2025 because, maybe, there’s no Earth to go back to! Cue immediate action to solve that really rather large problem? Nope, let’s  jump forward 500,000 years and dress up as soldiers instead. Yes, Doc needs to drop the Vindicator somewhere to get a new reading but that’s not before he and Bell have been blasted down to an unknown planet as part of some future army’s troop deployment. A quick wave of the psychic paper though and Doc gets a briefing on what’s going on and a front-row seat for the events that follow. You see there was a colony base on this planet but no one’s heard from them for a while. It soon becomes pretty obvious why: they’re all dead. Well not quite all of them. There’s one survivor, Aliss, but it’s not clear if she got lucky or if she’s really a cold hearted killer beneath the surface. While Doc goes to find out just what the colonists dug up, Bell goes into full nurse mode to patch Aliss up and help her cope with the whole shitstorm of a situation. But when Bell spots something behind Aliss’s back the scene is set for violent deaths, jump scares and the return of a forgotten foe.

    1hr 21min
  2. N190 Lux

    10/08/2025

    N190 Lux

    The "God of Light" turns itself into a cartoon character that, umm, captures people in celluloid?! On rewatch, we offer RTD a lot of admittedly late rewrite options. * * * The TARDIS is still having problems landing back on earth in 2025 so Doc and Belinda are forced to land a tad off course – specifically, by a seemingly deserted Miami cinema in 1952, where unsurprisingly a mystery awaits. Fifteen people have vanished from this very picture house, yet the projector still hums to life each night.  Naturally, Doc and Belinda Scooby-Gang into action, and soon stumble upon the pre-credit reveal, namely, that cartoon menace "Mr. Ring-a-Ding" has Last-Action-Hero’d off the silver screen and trapped the poor cinema patrons within film reels. For he is no mere cartoon comic. He is Lux Imperator, God of Light and the latest addition to RTD’s incessant lineup of so-called Harbingers or Gods of Chaos. Who knows? The boundaries between fiction and fact begin to blur, and soon it becomes frighteningly clear that the whimsical antics of Lux put everyone at risk. But just as they're about to put together the puzzle pieces, Doc and Bells are themselves pulled onto the silver screen, where they must face the biggest plot twist of them all: nerds.

    1hr 40min
  3. N189 The Robot Revolution

    15/06/2025

    N189 The Robot Revolution

    We get a brand new companion, and meet a chap named Manny who wears his character arcs on his sleeves * * * 17 years ago, new companion Belinda was on a date with a chap called Alan and he bought her a star. Well, he bought her a bit of paper that says the star is hers. Young Belinda unfortunately doesn’t have world experience yet and thinks it’s kind of sweet. In fact, Alan is obviously a negging control freak who probably needs a swift kick in the nads to understand the word “no”. But they’re young and he doesn’t seem to fit into the picture back in the present day. Unfortunately, the thing that is crashing into the picture of Belinda’s life is a spaceship full of robots! They come, smash some walls, kill a cat, and then demand that Belinda comes to a planet with a very familiar name. It seems that star naming was worth a bit more than the paper it was written on because these Robby Robots are pretty set on bringing Bel back to be the rightful Queen of the planet named after her. It’s a good thing Doc was also looking for Bel. He’s just a little bit too late and has to take the long way round because of a timey-wimey rift thing between Earth and the planet currently known as Missbelindachandra. Six months later in Doc’s timeline and he’s nestled in nicely with the humanoid rebels trying to revolt against the robots. Bel might be a competent nurse, but a revolution on an alien planet is a pretty tough first day on the job for any companion. Especially when your shitty ex turns up to try and mind-meld with you!

    1hr 51min
  4. N188 Joy to the World

    11/05/2025

    N188 Joy to the World

    Doc takes a break from saving the world to read some lady's private correspondence * * * When Doc happens upon the delightful Time Hotel in Earth’s future, he’s in for a real treat. Every room offers a different historical period and plenty of plot potential. ere he can embark on a yuletide adventure, he embroils himself in a devious plan by the military industrial complex to blow up Earth and retroactively create a brand new star to power its future tech. No probs, enter stage left our companion of the week, Trev, a kind-hearted yet tragic hotel clerk with the best intentions. Together, they set about saving the day. Alas, Trev is not long for this world and soon succumbs to the sinister machinations of the AI-assisted star-in-waiting and our foe for this episode. No probs, enter stage left, our companion of the week, Joy, a kind-hearted yet tragic hotel guest who talks to flies, doesn’t fear lizard men, but assumes they get up to all sorts with other chaps in hotels. One thing leads to another, and now Joy’s about to die and she and Doc are separated. No probs, enter stage left, our companion of the week, Anita, a kind-hearted yet tragic hotelier. You get the idea…

    1hr 35min
  5. N187 Empire of Death

    01/09/2024

    N187 Empire of Death

    Myriad single tears later, an old man takes credit for the women doing all the work in this season finale * * * Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we? Susan Triad has turned into Sutekh’s puppet, along with Harriet Arbinger, and they’re threatening everyone with some death dust. Before you know it Sue is blowing kisses to the TV crew and they fall to the floor like grains of sand. Doc and Mel manage to escape the recording studio but UNIT’s approach of “fire first, run away later” doesn’t go to plan and their HQ now needs a good old spring clean after Ms Arbinger dusts the lot of them. While Doc and Mel outrun a dust cloud on a surprisingly speedy scooter, the rest of the planet is getting engulfed, including Ruby’s mum, grandma, and Mrs We’ll-Totally-Find-Out-All-About-Her-This-Week Flood. No time to care about that though, as Doc and Mel meet up with Ruby in the Time Window. There’s a handy memory of a TARDIS there that enigma Ruby can patch up a bit just by thinking about it, so they use it to escape into space. Sutekh’s dust of death touches every world and every time that Doc has ever visited. You see Sutekh’s been having a piggy-back ride on the TARDIS all this time and left little Susan Triad-like presents everywhere. Things look hopeless for Doc and co, but there’s one thing that might help them stop Sutekh: solve the riddle of who Ruby’s mum is. A riddle that’s so important it’s the last concern of Sutekh before wiping out all life in the universe. Surely only a time-wimey, ingeniously planned out explanation can be waiting for us as the conclusion to this whole season, right? Right?

    2h 11m
  6. N186 The Legend of Ruby Sunday

    11/08/2024

    N186 The Legend of Ruby Sunday

    Sutekh's back and Kate just had a flapjack, as RTD lines up a plethora of mysteries that surely all will be explained in the next and final episode of the series, surely * * * It’s mid-June and that can only mean one thing: it’s time for a Doctor Who Christmas Special! Thus, the Fifteenth Doctor brings legendarily mysterious companion Ruby Sunday to UNIT HQ and there poses three challenges to his uniformed chums: Can they identify the mysterious woman they have encountered across a series of Doctor Who and apparently a couple of adventures we really wish they could have aired; can they reach soaring new heights of flimsiness in the forming of anagrams; and do they have an overly complicated scifi wibbly wobbly, or maybe a phonebook, to identify Ruby’s mum? Don’t be daft. It’s Junemas 2024! No one has a phone book anymore, and so UNIT has no choice but to sacrifice a floor of their skyscraper to a VHS digitisation device. Plugging a grainy video tape and the power of memory into the so-called Time Window, and pulling in a series’ worth of ancillary characters for a day’s work, however, they make a tragic discovery: they’ve been giving an old foe a free ride to every Doctor Who adventure since the middle of Series 13. Stick around for one more paragraph to learn which foe it is.  Following the big reveal, Doc and companion-turned-undercover-agent Mel B head to a grand presentation by billionaire and Elon-Musk-but-kind, Sue Triad (S triad, get it?) who’s unveiling some new tech (Sue tech, get it?) and who happens to look like that intertemporal lady. She’s also the only person named Susan on the planet, so it stands to reason she might be Doc’s granddaughter. Alas, she is not. And the internet already predicted that the foe is Sutekh. Hilarity ensues.

    2h 2m
  7. N185 Rogue

    28/07/2024

    N185 Rogue

    Doc cranks the flirting up to Fifteen while some posh birds hatch a plan for homicidal Bridgerton cosplay * * * Oh, my Bridgerton, doesn’t 1813 Bath seem a wee bit familiar? With the dances, scandals and old-timey modern music, you might be mistaken for thinking you’ve fired up the wrong subscription service. But that’s our Doc on the dancefloor, about to cut a rug with that handsome chap from Mindhunter. So put the remote down, grab your hand-embroidered 13th Doc and Yaz cushion, and get ready for the most flirtatious ride of Doc’s life! You see, Doc and Ruby aren’t the only people out of place in this setting. First up, there’s the roguishly charming bounty hunter called, well, Rogue. 1 out of 10 for name choice but 10 out of 10 for looks, wit, and fancy spaceships. This debonair chap oozes such confidence you could cut the sexual tension twixt him and Doc with an ermine glove. And wait, he’s a nerd, too? Someone please change my seat cushion because I just wet myself in with excitement! Obviously, Rogue quickly turns Doc’s head, and their flirtatious banter is flying so fast you’ll have to duck to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Rogue’s bounty is some cosplaying birds, aka the Chuldur, who haven’t so much crashed this party as crashed a handful of the unwitting attendees. Once the drama of this soiree has run its course, these shapeshifters intend to take their body-snatching show to London, Europe, and the rest of the British-hating world. So, the question on everyone’s lips is, can Doc and Rogue tear their eyes away from each other long enough to stop them?

    1hr 43min
  8. B098 Eleventh (11th!!) Anniversary Bloopers

    04/07/2024

    B098 Eleventh (11th!!) Anniversary Bloopers

    Holy Bananas and Cheesecakes, how can we still be blooping after eleven years?! * * * Happy Polling Day, UK-based Podcastlanders! Happy Independence Day, Peeps in the US! And Happy Birthday to us!! Thank you for eleven years of travelling down that temporal road with us, dearest Podcastland. Fret not, regular programming will resume very soon. In the meantime, please enjoy our customary anniversary blooper reel. Huge, Hu-uge, HUGE HUGS, WBW

    10 min
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4.7
out of 5
58 Ratings

About

There are hundreds of Doctor Who episodes and stories out there and we intend to watch them all! Not just that – We’ll watch, review, discuss, debate, rate and praise and/or poke holes in every episode of Doctor Who, starting with the 1963 pilot. That’s right; we’re beginning with William Hartnell and then working our way forward through time, episode by episode and Doctor by Doctor. In parallel, we’re also reviewing New Who, starting with Eccleston in the 2005 revival. At the time of writing this, we’re already well into the Tom Baker and Peter Capaldi eras! From comparing Dalek and Cybermen military strategems to ranking companions by hairstyle, we’ve got it covered.

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