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In honor of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary, I’ve rewritten my 2018 episode about Doctor Who with updates on how the series has evolved, and new insights I’ve had about Doctor Who since I made this episode -- and since The Doctor has become one of my favorite characters. Media critic Emmet Asher-Perrin discusses how the history of The Doctor’s regenerations over 60 years is a story about an alien being who is striving to be better but keeps overshooting the mark. I talk with Emmet’s partner Sylas K. Barrett and comedian Riley Silverman about how The Doctor’s gender transitions have been an apt metaphor for the transgender experience. Also, Nick Randall of the BBC and SNS Online, historian Robin Bunce, and playwright Mac Rogers talk about the show’s significance culturally, and what it means to them as fans.
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One Piece is one of the biggest franchises in the world. The manga and anime have broken records in sales and viewership. The live action adaptation on Netflix was a hit. And the series holds a special place among fans who feel like they’re part of the Straw Hat pirate crew. But it may be the tragic backstories of the characters which tie it all together. I talk with co-host of the One Piece podcast Shannon Strucci, YouTuber Jordan Silva, artist Steve Yurko and Crunchyroll writer Daniel Dockery about how One Piece’s creator Eiichiro Oda is able to combine zany humor with emotional gut punches, and why so many fans identify with aspects of the characters’ backstories, even when the storylines are completely fantastical.
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My guests from the previous episode, Carolyne Larrington and Ada Palmer, had so many interesting things to say about Norse mythology and how much of it is still a mystery to us, I decided to compile sections of their interviews in this bonus episode of outtakes.
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Thor and Loki have become pop culture icons thanks to Marvel. But the influence of Norse mythology on contemporary fantasy runs through Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and so much more. University of Chicago professor and author Ada Palmer explains how people misunderstood Norse mythology for centuries, and why it’s so hard to capture the mindset of the Vikings in pop culture. And I talk with University of Oxford professor Carolyne Larrington, author of The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think, about how a light Marvel movie and a grimdark fantasy film like The Northman each capture aspects of the mythology in their own ways.
Ada Palmer's a capella album is Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarök by Sassafrass.
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Kritika H. Rao, Shveta Thakrar, Roshani Chokshi, and Ram V are helping to create a new genre. They use elements of their Hindu backgrounds to write fantasy books primarily aimed at a Western marketplace. I talked with them about the challenge of drawing on a diverse religion of beliefs and gods that many Western readers and publishers might be unfamiliar with. Our panel discussion also turned out to be an opportunity for the authors to bond over their favorite deities, the Hindu comics they grew up reading, and the questions they’ve faced about who gets to tell their stories. 
Roshani Chokshi writes the middle-grade series, Aru Shah, and she’s the author of The Star-Touched Queen trilogy of YA novels.
Kritika H. Rao is the author of The Surviving Sky, which will be part of The Rages Trilogy.
Shveta Thakrar is the author of Star Daughter and The Dream Runners. 
Ram V is a comic book writer, and the author of the graphic novel, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
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We all know the scenario. A nice young family moves into a new house. It’s haunted by an evil spirit. Mayhem ensues. These movies have been reliable box office hits for decades, but they might also be telling us something about the real anxieties of home ownership. I talk with Alexandra West, co-host of the podcast Faculty of Horror, and Dahlia Schweitzer, author of Haunted Homes, about how the history of the American suburbs made their mark on movies like The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist. George R. Olson, showrunner of the Syfy series SurrealEstate, discusses why the heroes of his show are ghost whispering real estate agents. And realtor Cindi Hagley explains how she became an expert in selling stigmatized properties with haunted pasts. 
Also check out the Faculty of Horror episode House Warning.
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