Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast - Details, episodes & analysis

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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast

Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Tv & Film

Frequency: 1 episode/11d. Total Eps: 227

There are many Doctor Who podcasts. Only one dares review the entire show... in entirely random order! Join journalists Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor as they summarize stories in record time, play the Whomoji game, enter the History Corner, answer the Four Questions to Doomsday, and cower in fear before the almighty Randomizer. New episode every Saturday!

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Last Jagaroth in Paris (Heisting "City of Death")

Season 7 · Episode 24

Saturday, November 7, 2026 • Duration 01:32:30

Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, blew himself into twelve pieces at the dawn of time, and he's spent the 400 million years since nudging humanity toward the one invention that can put him back together. Funding it means selling the Mona Lisa. Seven times. City of Death is Douglas Adams rewriting a whole serial over one whiskey-fuelled weekend, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward falling in love on the streets of Paris, Julian Glover in a white suit being the most charming villain the show ever had, a detective who answers every question with a punch, and John Cleese admiring a police box. It's also the story Doctor Who fans hold up as the best thing the classic series ever made. So is it? Better than Blink? Better than everything? Or does a 46-year-old chase through the Louvre finally have some explaining to do?

Give your own rating for City of Death on Spotify!

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Timeline:

Intro 00:00:00
Previously… 00:02:37
Whomoji Challenge 00:08:02
Poll to Open 00:15:32
Comment of the Week 00:17:47
TL;DW 00:21:21
Review: City of Death 00:27:19
History Corner 01:02:47
Four Questions to Doomsday 01:07:08
What If the Evil Plot Had Succeeded? 01:09:48
Where Is the Clara Splinter? 01:15:46
Final Judgment 01:21:22
Randomizer! 01:25:55

TikTok: @pulltoopen
Instagram: @pulltoopen63
Facebook: @pulltoopen63
X: @pulltoopen63
Threads: @pulltoopen63
Bluesky: @pulltoopen

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Story Essentials

Season 17, Serial 2
Story number: 104, per the Pull To Open Codex
Writer: David Agnew (Douglas Adams and Graham Williams, from a story by David Fisher)
Director: Michael Hayes
Script Editor: Douglas Adams
Producer: Graham Williams
Aired: 29 September–20 October 1979

Pull To Open: City of Death

Season 7
Episode 24

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Music: Martin West/Thinking Fish

©️AnyWho Media LLC 2026

Doctor Who ©️BBC 1963

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The Fast and the Furriest (Outlasting "Survival")

Season 7 · Episode 23

Saturday, October 24, 2026 • Duration 01:28:23

Classic Doctor Who went out not with a bang but with a cat. The Doctor takes Ace home to Perivale, where her old mates are being snatched off the street by a planet of Cheetah People, the Master is holding conversations with a cat, and the fate of two worlds comes down to a motorbike joust in a quarry. Survival is Rona Munro's three-part fable about primal violence versus self-control, and it might also be an off-Broadway production of Cats, in which Sylvester McCoy takes an undignified tumble, Anthony Ainley dons yellow contact lenses, and the Doctor delivers the "tea's getting cold" speech that closed 26 years of television. So is the last story of the original run a thoughtful send-off, a half-finished masterpiece, or an unintentional parody of itself?

Give your own rating for Survival on Spotify!

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Timeline:

Intro 00:00:00
Previously… 00:02:33

Big Helix Energy (Portending “The Masque of Mandragora”)

Season 7 · Episode 22

Saturday, October 10, 2026 • Duration 01:25:13

All the Doctor had to do was close the bloody TARDIS door. Instead, a sparkler from space hitches a ride to Renaissance Italy, recruits an astrologer, and sets out to stop humanity from ever getting too smart for its own good. The Masque of Mandragora looks like lavish BBC Shakespeare, sounds like a thesis on science vs. superstition, and somehow gives us skin-tight tights, cultists doing the Hokey Pokey and Tom Baker waving around a giant salami. Join us as we ask whether this gorgeous Hinchcliffe-era extravaganza is actually great Doctor Who — or just so gloriously camp that resistance is futile.

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Raiders of the Lost Cybermen (Thawing “The Tomb of the Cybermen”)

Season 7 · Episode 21

Saturday, September 26, 2026 • Duration 01:38:44

Some Doctor Who stories become legends because everyone has seen them. The Tomb of the Cybermen became one partly because, for decades, hardly anyone could. So when the long-lost Troughton classic finally busted out of cold storage, could the real thing possibly live up to the myth? Well… mostly. Patrick Troughton is at the height of his powers, the Cybermen have rarely sounded weirder or looked more iconic, and one quiet conversation with Victoria may be among the Second Doctor’s finest moments. Unfortunately, the tomb also contains some things better left buried: logic holes, 1960s sexism, and the deeply uncomfortable treatment of Toberman. Join us as we awaken the Cyber Controller, discover the Cybermen were apparently Banksy all along, and ask the most dangerous question on Telos: does this Doctor Who legend actually deserve its reputation?

Caveat Inventor (Ideating “Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror”)

Season 7 · Episode 20

Saturday, September 12, 2026 • Duration 01:25:06

Nikola Tesla invented our world. So why does Doctor Who keep trying to give him credit for WiFi? Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror has everything a great historical needs on paper: one of history’s weirdest geniuses, Thomas Edison as his foil, a terrific Goran Višnjić performance, and alien scavengers who could have been the cosmic extension of the Edison-Tesla rivalry. Instead, the sparks never quite make the jump. Join us as we investigate fan service without a payoff, a suspiciously Racnoss-y queen, Wardenclyffe science that probably never would have worked, Edison’s alleged elephant snuff film, Tesla’s belief in female supremacy, and the Douglas Adams-level idea hiding inside an episode that never quite realizes it. Alternating current? More like alternating quality.

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The Myth Fakers (Burying “Underworld”)

Season 7 · Episode 19

Saturday, August 29, 2026 • Duration 01:19:13

There are Doctor Who stories that look cheap, and then there’s Underworld: the story so broke it couldn’t afford a cave. Its vast underground world was instead conjured with experimental CSO, earning the serial a reputation that has survived for nearly half a century. But hold the fumigation! Beneath those wobbly electronic rocks lurk some genuinely huge ideas: the Time Lords’ disastrous first attempt at interference, regeneration as immortality, a 100,000-year cosmic quest and K9 saving everybody with what appear to be telephone wires. Grab your Golden Fleece and join us as we ask the forbidden question: does Underworld actually… not suck?

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Eye Rule (Preserving “The Ark”)

Season 7 · Episode 17

Saturday, August 15, 2026 • Duration 01:19:30

Achoo! Humanity may have survived millions of years into the future, but apparently the common cold is still an extinction-level threat. The Ark sends the First Doctor, Steven and brand-new companion Dodo aboard an enormous generation ship packed with humans, Monoids, miniature criminals and one very real elephant—then delivers one of the greatest cliffhangers in Doctor Who history. Shame about what happens next. Join us as we jump 700 years into the future to investigate Beatles-wigged cyclopes, the galaxy’s biggest miniaturization plot hole, suspiciously accommodating invisible aliens, and a tale of colonial anxiety that looks very different through 2026 eyes. Just remember: if your mouth is also your eye, maybe don’t order the chicken.

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Warrior's Fate (De-escalating "Cold War")

Season 7 · Episode 17

Saturday, August 1, 2026 • Duration 01:29:55

Doctor Who’s ⁠Cold War⁠ has the perfect pitch: an Ice Warrior wakes up aboard a Soviet nuclear submarine in 1983, with Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Liam Cunningham, Tobias Menzies and David Warner trapped beneath the Arctic ice. So why does it feel less like The Hunt for Red October with a Martian and more like an ordinary Doctor Who episode that happens to be wet? Join us as we crack open Skaldak’s armor, question whether submerged missiles can actually launch, salute the man who may have saved the real world in 1983, and prosecute Mark Gatiss for choosing the wrong Ultravox song. The sets are drenched, the cast is stacked and the premise is nuclear—but the payoff? This means nothing to us. Oh, Vienna.

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Tactical Magic (Banishing “The Dæmons”)

Season 7 · Episode 15

Saturday, July 18, 2026 • Duration 01:27:02

Doctor Who meets the Devil! No, wait—sorry, the Doctor insists it’s actually science. The Dæmons brings the UNIT era to full folk-horror boil, complete with white witches, heat barriers, Morris dancers, one extremely patient gargoyle, and Roger Delgado’s Master hiding in plain sight with the diabolical alias “Mr. Magister.” But is this beloved Pertwee classic a perfect fusion of rationalism and vibes, or does its “all magic is science” sermon accidentally sneak magic into Doctor Who through the church crypt? Join us as we summon Azal, praise Bok, admire the Brigadier’s five rounds rapid, and ask the only question that matters: has the Master ever looked better in glasses?

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Extreme Delays (Tunneling “The Web of Fear”)

Season 7 · Episode 15

Saturday, July 4, 2026 • Duration 01:23:32

Mind the gap—and the homicidal fungus. The Web of Fear takes Doctor Who underground for a six-part siege featuring eerily convincing Tube tunnels, bulletproof Yeti and, halfway through, one highly suspicious Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. But is this rediscovered classic genuinely terrifying, or an overextended web of tunnel shenanigans, magical foam and comedy accents? Join us as we investigate the mystery of the still-missing Brigadier debut, defend Patrick Troughton’s right to say “graunched,” and ask whether the Great Intelligence’s master plan can withstand even a little constructive thinking. Next stop: Yeti.

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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast - Details, episodes & analysis

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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast - Details, episodes & analysis

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