Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast

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Who Back When | A Doctor Who Podcast Podcast

There are hundreds of Doctor Who episodes and stories out there and we set out to watch them all! Not just that – We set out to 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 started with William Hartnell and worked our way forward through time, episode by episode and Doctor by Doctor. In parallel, we also reviewed New Who, starting with Eccleston in the 2005 revival. At the time of writing this we're reviewing Ncuti Gatwa's first series and are nearly caught up! From comparing Dalek and Cybermen military strategems to ranking companions by hairstyle, we’ve got it covered. And while you subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast fix, we’re populating WhoBackWhen.com with written reviews, episode statistics and an ever-growing Visual Index of aliens, creatures, historical figures and companions that the Doctor meets along the way. So join us! We'd love to travel down that temporal road with you!

  1. 1 SEPT

    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? * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

    2h 11m

  2. 11 AUG

    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, TARDIS, 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. * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

    2h 2m

  3. 28 JUL

    N185 Rogue

    Doc cranks the flirting up to Fifteen while some posh birds hatch a plan for fatal 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? * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

    1h 43m

  4. 4 JUL

    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 * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

    10 min

  5. 24 JUN

    N184 Dot and Bubble

    White-power walkers are too busy influencing to notice the epic slugfest around them * * * In the immaculate city of Finetime, Lindy hops out of bed for another day of two hours’ work on substack processing, before spending the rest of the time hanging out with her Close Friends in her head-orbiting bubble, an arrangement she might call piss-easy if she ever had to urinate. But the peppy Ms Pepper-Bean has been peppered with unsolicited requests from first a moustachioed rando, then some offensive Finetime Enterprises apparatchik asking her the most stupid and obvious questions, oh my gasp. It’s enough to make a bean-counter dyspeptic! Turns out that Finetime’s gardeners have been slack about putting down pellets, because an invasion of giant slugs is slowly munching through Lindy’s friends list. And Doc can’t perform his trick of dropping a line of salt in front of the bad guys because of a pesky mono-sealed door. Can Lindy direct her own legs without the aid of her personalised support drone, or will this orphan die in Plaza 55? Will Ricky September live to see October? Where were these slugs when Earth faced the Seeds of Doom? And will Ruby have to stand up at any point this week? * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

    1h 60m

  6. 9 JUN

    N183 73 Yards

    Yes! Wow! Finally! Wales! And, honey, Wales in 2024 has a lot going for it: fresh air, cliffs, hiking trails, fairy circles that can make people disappear and interfere with causality if you break their string boundary and/or read out messages folded up inside them. Wait, what? Yep, Doctor Who is diving into the supernatural side of things this week. Next you’ll tell me they even have contactless payments! Breaking just such a fairy circle inexplicably causes Doc to recuse himself into his TARDIS or disappear altogether, in turn triggering a Doctor-free episode of The Rube Show. That would be creepy on its own, but it’s not the half of it because a ghostly old lady is parked on the horizon, say, an inexplicably precise 73 yards away, gesticulating, mumbling and most importantly keeping her distance. How long will she do that this episode? Semper, that’s how long!  Said strange old lady develops a habit of turning anyone who notices her long enough to listen into Colonel Run-away wannabes. What could she possibly be saying or gesticulating to make people literally scream and run away? How could someone conceive of something so awful about Ruby that, no matter who hears it, they find it beyond comprehension and flee for their lives? What amazingly crafted ending could explain all of this? Hmm? So strap in for the mundane adventures of a companion with a socially distancing companion of her own who refuses to shout, buy a megaphone, or learn semaphore for an entire lifetime, as she goes on dates, makes an enemy out of Kegels and inexplicably goes all-in for an unnecessary career in government that could have been avoided had she just opened that app she doesn’t have in the future.

    1h 60m

  7. 2 JUN

    N182 Boom

    The military industrial complex doesn't stand a chance against the power of dad in this bottle episode * * * “Have you done your teeth?” asks literally named father John Fancis Vater as he blindly walks through a war-torn planet. No, he’s not just paying little attention, he’s a casualty of war and has been blinded in combat. So why would he be asking about dental hygiene? Because it’s bring your daughter to work week and what kind of father would forget his duties while he’s dying out on a battlefield? Of course, death isn’t certain for all warriors blinded by the atrocities of war, so why do things seem so bleak for John and the other soldier guiding him? Because this war is all about the “bang for your buck” rather than “bang, bang you’re dead” and the capitalist forces at work don’t take kindly to soldiers that are slacking in the killing machine department. And there are Ambulances on the prowl. Ambulances, you say, surely they’ll patch ol’ Johnny boy up and he’ll be fine and dandy from now on? Well, no, they’ll run the numbers and decide he’s not worth the resources and turn him into a death canister. War’s a bitch, am I right? Also Doc is there and he’s just stepped on a mine, so that’s the rest of this nail biting, tear squirting bottle episode. Unless you count all the anti-religious sentiment, the repetitive dialog, the repetitive dialog and the repetitive dialog. * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

  8. 31 MAY

    N181 The Devil’s Chord

    A musical-ish episode with an actually sonic screwdriver, but no real twist at the end * * * We co-launch into the soft reboot of Doctor Who with this second half of a re-premiere and the prospect of the long-awaited, Beatles-centric, musical extrava-gonzo. When Ruby asks to see The Beatles record their first ever album, Doc steers the TARDIS to London in 1963 — Ring any bells? — for a visit to EMI Studios. Something’s clearly amiss with the timeline, though, as Back in the USSR, there’s been an anachronistic attack on Finland, The Beatles are rubbish, and music overall appears to have left human hearts. And what is humanity or indeed history without a hum and a whistle, or indeed an entire song-and-dance number?  Turns out, back in 1925 no-name never-existed piano teacher and one-of-a-kind musical genius Timothy Drake has discovered the so-called lost chord that summons Maestro, son of The Toymaker (the one with the German accent), and sets off the chain reaction culminating in the destruction of London, mankind and mayhap some of the 60s science fiction fandoms in-between. Anyone so much as hum or tap their finger against the Bakelite and Maestro will show up and straight-up pop a capo in their bass cleft, yet oddly the music industry is still a thing. Presumably only The Beatles will be able to save the day, though, right? This is a Beatles episode after all, right? Or should we be dreading a twist at the end? * * * Check out WHOBACKWHEN.COM for more information, Doctor Who TV Serial and Audiobook reviews, ratings and ramblings, and loads more podcast episodes. WEB: WhoBackWhen.com FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/WhoBackWhen Instagram: Instagram.com/whobackwhen YOUTUBE: WhoBackWhen.com/YouTube TWITTER: @whobackwhen Toodle-Pip!

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4.7
out of 5
55 Ratings

About

There are hundreds of Doctor Who episodes and stories out there and we set out to watch them all! Not just that – We set out to 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 started with William Hartnell and worked our way forward through time, episode by episode and Doctor by Doctor. In parallel, we also reviewed New Who, starting with Eccleston in the 2005 revival. At the time of writing this we're reviewing Ncuti Gatwa's first series and are nearly caught up! From comparing Dalek and Cybermen military strategems to ranking companions by hairstyle, we’ve got it covered. And while you subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast fix, we’re populating WhoBackWhen.com with written reviews, episode statistics and an ever-growing Visual Index of aliens, creatures, historical figures and companions that the Doctor meets along the way. So join us! We'd love to travel down that temporal road with you!

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