Explore every episode of the podcast Two-minute Time Lord

In case you missed me on The Incomparable's Doctor Who Flashcast, here are some last-minute thoughts about TLoRS and where it fell down prior to the season finale.

This is a double edition of 2MTL covering "Dot and Bubble" and "Rogue," two episodes that were absolutely tonally identical and left you feeling exactly the same way after each of them, amirite?

We're catching up on the Discourse about a loved and hated mysterious episode. I'm still on Team Love.

Finally, I catch up on "The Devil's Chord" and hold two opinions at once.

"Pace and energy" and high concepts give way to a man with a foot on a landmine for the duration of the story. Tension-filled bottle episodes are rare for Doctor Who, although there are a lot of parallels between this one and 2009's "Midnight." How does Steven Moffat's return to Doctor Who fit with his showrunner's current experiment?

"Would you like to see the baby?" Your answer probably had a lot to do with how you received "Space Babies," but the first-or-second episode of new Series 1 had a LOT to cram into a too-small container, and that was an issue as well.

The first episodes of Series 1 (not counting the Christmas Special) have finally launched, and there's RTD upon RTD on top of more RTD in "Space Babies" and "The Devil's Chord." We'll look at these episodes individually soon, but going that hard was a gutsy, even necessary choice.

In which your interlocutor admits that he wishes to hear less of a composer he loves. A graphics whiz, Chip was not, when he shared this on social media years ago

After "The Church on Ruby Road," there should be no question that Ncuti Gatwa will master the role of The Doctor. However, we do need to address the fact that this is now a show with goblins and flying wooden ships....

Celebrating a regeneration, a retirement, and a renewal of the whole darn series. On to Christmas!

How do you make a special episode "special" when you only have two actors and a big spaceship? Russell T Davies has a pretty good answer.

Meep? What I wouldn't have given for the Meep to give an order to "reticulate the splines." (Oh, yeah: I loved this one.)

You can't expect David Tennant to not be David Tennant, but I really want the Fourteenth Doctor to be meaningfully different from the Tenth. I have my hopes, but the Fourteenth Doc comic in Doctor Who Magazine and even the Children in Need short didn't offer any clues....

The hiatus between Doctors is near an end, and a podcast born out of a love of David Tennant and Russell T Davies comes out of its own hiatus for their return.

On great last words, blossomest blossoms, emotional truth, and whether the plot is king.

Bringing the podcast out of mothballs on The Eve of The Power of the Doctor...

Is RTD2 a nostalgia trip? Some thoughts on last week's announcement of Ncuti Gatwa, today's announcement of Catherine Tate and David Tennant, and the merits of old mistakes vs. new mistakes.

Jason Snell, co-host of Downstream on Relay FM and head of The Incomparable network of pop culture podcasts, joins me for a look at Doctor Who's future in a world where TV networks struggle to stay relevant and Netflix is losing a bunch of subscribers. The conversation is a "follow-out" from recent discussions on Radio Free Skaro. (Apologies to Jason because I overprocessed his audio.)

When you're the sort of person for whom the meaning of "fine" turns from "good enough" to not so much, and maybe you start surrendering to pessimism, even after an honestly revolutionary conversation between Yaz and the Doctor.

The most tortured podcast episode title I've ever created, plus my Thasmin wishlist for "Legend of the Sea Devils."

Thoughts from the heart about a New Year's special that was a small story, coming at a time when I was struggling to come to terms with the last two years--and how I hope to look at Doctor Who anew following a return to Gallifrey One.

Sometimes the best TARDISes are crowded I'm not entirely sure who "The Vanquishers" applies to, TBH. Anyhoo, I took a little extra time to think about Chapter 6, and Flux as a whole, and why I ultimately think this effort to put eight pounds of plot into a six-pound bag succeeded despite itself.

Tomorrow's the finale. Has the moment been prepared for? Chapter 5 left me a little worried.

Recapture the essense of the Weeping Angels from "Blink"? Chibnall and Alderton understood the assignment.

Space opera? Narrative connections and context emerging? Yes, please: this is the episode that gave me faith in Chris Chibnall's arc. (This episode dedicated to the memory of NPR Books editor Petra Mayer.)

In which the laudable advancement of the Doctor Who: Flux story and the "rehabilitation" of the Sontarans as villains bumps straight into how I feel about war movies.

Now this is a story all about how. My life got flipped turned upside down. Big, bold, and entirely un-self-contained, Doctor Who: Flux's first chapter may not have been the most welcoming to new viewers but is a very proper lead-off to the show's first modern miniseries.

Nicole Hill of @BlackTARDIS and @blkgirlscreate stops by for a conversation about their hopes and cautions for the new/old showrunner.

No one saw that coming. Russell T Davies's first era of Doctor Who is my favorite. What are some of the traps to avoid with his upcoming return as showrunner?

From the April 29, 2021, Guardian (UK): ‘Sexual predator’: actor Noel Clarke accused of groping, harassment and bullying by 20 women You can enjoy Mickey Smith the character in Doctor Who Series 1-4. But don’t defend Noel Clarke the actor. In an article for the UK Guardian on April 29, 2021, journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne painstakingly gathered and reported 20 allegations from women of being abused by actor, producer, and one-time Doctor Who recurring cast member Noel Clarke. The women stepped forward following the announcement that he would receive an award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema that month from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In breaking their silence, Kale and Osborne write, the women “allege Clarke is a serial abuser of women, using his power in the industry to prey on and harass female colleagues, and sometimes bully those who fall out of favour.” Following the article’s publication, BAFTA suspended the award and Clarke’s membership. Any Doctor Who fans who want to venture an opinion about Noel Clarke should read this article first. I’ve linked it on social and it’s in the show notes. The article is damning. You have 20 women, either anonymously for their protection or on the record, sharing their stories of being groped, harassed, and humiliated. A reputable news organization simply does not go there without dotting every I and crossing every T, not when they’d be the likely target of a libel suit. I once shared a stage with Clarke, interviewing him at Long Island Who. I would never have picked up on him being predatory. But that’s how patriarchy works, hiding in plain sight. Since then, longstanding stories of other Doctor Who actors’ behavior on set have surfaced. Some of them, I didn’t want to believe. I’d read an account of an actress colleague giving one of them a pass for being a lad, or something like that, and maybe I’d tell myself that they all thought that it was in harmless fun, and when that actor returned in a guest role, I’d put the uncomfortable thought away. Easy for me to do, of course. Women, BIPoC people, queer people, they know better than me. They routinely do the work of distinguishing the art from the artist, and judging what to keep and what to throw away, because they don’t have the privilege of living in a world where the worst thing that happens to them when a popular actor is revealed as a predator is that their enjoyment of a TV show is reduced. My favorite pop culture properties, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, all have an expressly idealistic point of view. They’re humanistic, pro-freedom. They’re about being freaking kind. And in the last couple of years, there have been far too many examples, within these fandoms and even within these franchises, of people who supposedly identify with these ideals failing to walk the walk. I don’t always live up to those ideals myself, but I’m trying to do it today. You can enjoy Mickey Smith the character in Doctor Who Series 1-4. But don’t defend Noel Clarke the actor. And especially, don’t focus on how his actions affect Doctor Who the franchise, or Doctor Who the fandom. That’s centering your own feelings. There are 20 women—at least—who deserve greater consideration. And we have fandom cultures, and convention spaces, and writers’ rooms, and soundstages, where predatory behavior, patriarchy, racism, and anti-queer bias continue to reign. I’m going to try to put better focus on challenging those wrongs—and less on my own comfort.

Ten months of silence--ten months of waiting and coping--for Yaz, Ryan, and Graham: When "Revolution of the Daleks" was made BEFORE the pandemic, who knew how relevant it would be DURING it?

"Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Chloe Webber?" After a couple of months away to recharge the batteries, there's no more jarring compare-and-contrast to Doctor Who of 2020 than Doctor Who of 2006's "Fear Her."

Why is it difficult for so many fans to engage with Doctor Who's politics? Constance Gibbs: "For Black Doctor Who fans, the TARDIS is a legendary, loaded image"

There's been a lot of great Doctor Who content that speaks to the global pandemic thanks to creators recruited and organized by folks such as Chris Chibnall and Emily Cook. But 2015's "Heaven Sent" seems particularly relevant as well...

Graeme Burk, co-author with Robert Smith? of WHO IS THE DOCTOR 2, stops by to talk about slow-cooker episode criticism in a time of lightning-fast hot takes (not that I'm familiar with that at all) and staying connected with Doctor Who in a stay-at-home world. (An earlier audio glitch has been fixed!)

Suddenly, there's much, much more to the Doctor--and yet this new "retcon" to the Doctor's past winds up being staggeringly respectful to everything that's gone before on television. Let's talk about a challenge to The Master--and to Doctor Who fans themselves.

Execution: pretty darn good! Cybermen: terrifying! Confidence that Part Two will stick the landing: (flailing gestures)?

On emotional Cybermen and erstwhile flat team structures.

Sometimes, the plot isn't the point and the bad guys are a side issue. Sometimes, the point is how humans treat other humans.

A mostly solid story by McTighe and Chibnall, but I'm REALLY here for a Doctor-ish Yaz and a Doctor-ish Ryan. Joy Piedmont on representation in "Praxeus" (Twitter thread) Sage Young's recap at Head Over Feels

That sound you heard was a podcaster's brain exploding, trying to figure out how to compress everything from "Fugitive of the Judoon" into roughly two minutes. Listener, this episode was A LOT.

Would you believe, Nikola Tesla in the TARDIS? Now that's just nuts. (See also theincomparable.com/radio)

It took longer than two minutes to explain--heck, longer than six days to figure out--why "Orphan 55" confounded me.

"Spyfall Part Two" was a strong conclusion to the opening Series 12 two-parter, but there was one creative decision I'm wary of, and another that really should have been done differently.

Chris Chibnall and company knocked the first episode of Series 12 out of the park but there's a caution: where there is a Part One, there must always be a Part Two. Here are three things to look for in the conclusion of "Spyfall" on January 5. Sacha Dhawan as You-Know-Who

Celebrating the impending advent of Series 12, and also the best fandom advent calendar ever: Radio Free Skaro's Fluid Links on YouTube.

Behold, The Dr Who Annual 1977 in all its bonkers glory.

There's not a lot of distance between covering ELO songs with a band of Tenth Doctor investigators, and enjoying Doctor Who fandom culture. You just have to watch out for the Abzorbaloffs in both places. Check out Reality Bomb Live in New York for 2019, occasionally invaded by me.

Are you stuck with me in the between-series Doctor Who doldrums? Check out the now-complete first year of Thirteenth Doctor stories by the top-notch creative team of Jody Houser, Rachael Stott, Roberta Ingranata, and Enrica Erin Angiolini! ALSO: Please join me in supporting Who For Schools! (TWITT's interview with Houser and Stott)

Prompted by Erik's remembrance of Terrance Dicks in 2MTL 435, some thoughts about the modern moral character of the Doctor: how Doctors 9-12 changed the game from Terrance Dicks's model, and how the Thirteenth Doctor changes the game again.