Two-minute Time Lord

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.

A Mail on Sunday article previews Christopher Eccleston's revelation in his new book I Love the Bones of You: he lived with mental health issues while launching Doctor Who as the Ninth Doctor.

"Like all truly great writers, Terrance Dicks is a moralist." So begins Erik Stadnik of The Writers' Room: The Outer Limits and The Real McCoy podcast, the week after the legendary Doctor Who script editor and writer passed away.

Shannon Sudderth, podcasting partner and co-habitationist of your humble host, returned to Doctor Who with Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker. She shares her joy about reconnecting with Doctor Who fandom in ways large, small, and totally accidental. Find Shannon on Twitter @Starfury10, on The Incomparable Network, and as one third of The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 (with Chip and Erika Ensign).

I loved Series 11 but one of its areas of improvement is emphatically Yaz. What needs to happen to give this underused character her turn in the spotlight?

Den of Geek US's Kayti Burt saw herself in Rose Tyler, and watched as the TARDIS changed Rose just as Kayti's experiences--and her slowly growing distance from her working-class background--changed her. (You can listen to Kayti and Chip every week, along with Jen Burt and Warren Frey from Radio Free Skaro, on the new THE EXPANSE rewatch podcast, "A Legitimate Salvage" on The Incomparable Network.)

While Doctor Who will never become so obscure that it can only be found with a hunting dog and a Ouija board, Chip is definitely on the pessmistic side when it comes to Doctor Who's next streaming home: HBO Max.

If you're searching for a Significant Other, how important is it that they be into the same things you are? If you're as immersed in Doctor Who fandom as Reality Bomb co-producer Joy Piedmont is, should a potential partner get into Doctor Who as well? The answer is more complicated than you might think.

Fans of every other franchise in the world seemed to have a lot to celebrate at San Diego Comic Con. Doctor Who wasn't part of the hype machine--so how IS our beloved time-travelling show doing these days?

Welcome to our first guest essayist of the new 2MTL! I met Nicole Hill in person for the first time at the 2019 Gallifrey One convention. It was a pleasure to talk with her then, and soon after I followed her on Twitter only soon after to read a couple of epic threads she wrote about one Danny Pink. Nicole is the voice behind Black TARDIS. She writes about the show from her Black, queer, female perspective. You can follow her @BlackTARDIS on Twitter and visit her at blackinspaceandti.me

Welcome to the new Two-minute Time Lord Podcast: alternating essays by Chip and--hopefully!--a constellation of new perspectives from the Doctor Who community.

We're back, and we're picking up where we left off... ...sort of! Join us next week for a glimpse at the new 2MTL!

A Christmas Eve reflection on what it means to let go of even a beloved Doctor, in order to embrace the future. (I now podcast about Doctor Who every week with Alyssa Franke at This Week in Time Travel on The Incomparable podcast network. Please follow us on Twitter or Facebook!)

The balloon's going up. Sunday after Wimbledon, we'll know who the Thirteenth Doctor is. Here are 120 seconds (more or less) of thoughts as fandom holds its breath. I now podcast about Doctor Who every week with Alyssa Franke at This Week in Time Travel on The Incomparable podcast network. Please check us out!

Originally aired on This Week in Time Travel 5: Chip was recently asked why he gravitated toward/obsesses over Doctor Who above all other fandoms. Turns out, it's personal.

OK, so Chip has a new podcast that he's spending more time on, and yet he can't wait until next Tuesday to respond to this Guardian column: "How Can Smug, Stale Doctor Who Get Back to its Glory Days?" Here we go...

Joining The Incomparable podcast network on March 28, Alyssa Franke, I, and some of our friends and (dare we say) Companions will take a look at the week that was--and the week that will be--in the worlds of Doctor Who. New episodes of This Week in Time Travel will drop every Tuesday. I'm super excited to get to talk about Doctor Who with other people on a regular basis, but I'm not planning to abandon 2MTL entirely. Whenever there's a short essay on This Week in Time Travel, we'll share it right here as well. Our first episodes will include interviews with good folks like Titan Comics Twelfth Doctor artist Rachael Stott, Doctor Who alum and Chalk author Paul Cornell, and Kim Rogers and Sage Young of the influential Head Over Feels. Join us, won't you? We're at thisweekintimetravel.com or you can find us at The Incomparable. Follow us on Twitter at @drwhothisweek and visit our Facebook page. And subscribe to This Week in Time Travel on your podcatcher of choice!

Yeah, this is worth breaking a hiatus again. We've had just two years with him, and then a whole Wilderness Year without him (save an appearance on Class), and now we've found out that Series 10 and the following Christmas special will mark the end of Peter Capaldi's too-short run. Alyssa "@WhovianFeminism" Franke and I celebrate his time on the show, speculate on his final series, and prognosticate about what may follow.

2MTL pops up its head like a prairie dog to weigh in on "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" and the end of the Wilderness Year, then retreats back into its burrow. But watch this space for news of a potential new podcasting project...

2MTL may or may not return with the new season of Doctor Who, but I couldn't say goodbye without tipping my hat to the community of fans and podcasters that gave my life meaning during rough times and encouraged my creativity. What better way to do that, than by rerunning The Ood Cast's classic every-podcaster-and-the-kitchen-sink parody from Series 6, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"? Look for me on The Audio Guide to Babylon 5, occasional panels on The Incomparable Network, and...who knows? Who...nose...?

One last Throwback Review before 2MTL falls into a black hole: "The Impossible Planet" is great for exactly the reason I missed. (NOTE: The ending of the podcast is an intentional nod...)

It's been a while since we did a Throwback Review, so let's look back at Mark Gatiss's second episode of New Who, which feel surprisingly like a mashup of the classic series and 1966's Batman TV show.

Alyssa, author of the Whovian Feminism blog (whovianfeminism.tumblr.com), wrote an essay called "A Love Letter to My Problematic Favs." In it, she said: I try to let myself love my favorite characters as much as I can, even when they can sometimes make me so uncomfortable I can’t bear to watch them onscreen. I try to defend them against criticism I think is unfair (after all, female characters come in for a disproportionate amount of sexist criticism), while at the same time trying to keep my mind open to new critical perspectives. Maintaining a healthy perspective is tough, and we don’t always strike the right balance. But ultimately, that challenge can be a rewarding experience. In struggling to come to terms with all the ways I love and have been let down by my problematic favs, I think I’ve become a better feminist and fangirl. Chip invited Alyssa to reflect a month later on what she wrote. As fate would have it, that turned out to be the same time that representation and fan entitlement became a hot topic.

Is it "entitlement" to advocate for change in the media you consume? Are you a bad fan, or even a bully, if you want to see something different in Doctor Who? Maybe there's a difference between having an opinion on the internet and being a threat. Maybe we can do something about the latter without trying to shame the former.

Peoples of the Universe, please attend carefully.

Let's get this right out of the way: Big Finish's "Technophobia" is a triumphant return for the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble, almost as though Tennant and Tate never left. And that weirded me the heck out.

The news last week wasn't so much "news" as "tantalizing or terrifying hints of what might be in Doctor Who's future," including a possible writers room experiment and yet more machinations against the BBC itself.

Pearl Mackie is the new companion, Bill, introduced during a really big football game. I like what I see--both in the companion, and in the way the BBC brought her to us.

The BBC's press announcement of its Doctor Who spinoff Class's cast--and more crucially its concept and plot hints--draws Chip out of his hiatus...

At long last, 2MTL's interview from the Long Island Who stage with Noel Clarke in November 2015. Noel talks about his career outside Doctor Who, including his comic The Troop from Titan Comics and his upcoming film Brotherhood, as well as his evolution from "buffoon" to "badass" as Mickey Smith.

Recorded at Long Island Who in November 2015, here's Strax himself: Dan Starkey! Dan talks about his journey from murderous soldier in "The Sontaran Stratagem" to the medical hero we have come to know and love and fear.

Mikayla, one of the hosts of The Web of Queer (Twitter), provides a great guest commentary (clocking in at an increasingly rare ACTUAL TWO MINUTES) about what you may be inadvertently communicating when you discuss whether the Doctor is, or should be, asexual or aromantic.

Today the news broke that Steven Moffat's next series will be his last, and that Chris Chibnall is waiting in the wings...

The Management would like to apologize for the delay in this review. There was a holiday thing. Speaking of holiday things, how about the last Christmas special?

Thanks to the holidays, this huge Time Dilation edition of the podcast was almost literally 404. Thanks so much to Kyle Anderson and Erik Stadnik of Doctor Who: The Writers' Room for joining me for an in-depth (believe me, once they get wound up about "Sleep No More"...) examination of Series 9. This podcast was recorded before "The Husbands of River Song" aired, about which more next time.

Series 9 is over, and with it is Chip's fidelity to his podcast format: It's time for a series of longer Time Dilation episodes! First up, the first of two year-in-review episodes, this time with NPR's Petra Meyer and Hockey Feels co-host Rachel Donner.

Chip gets reflective as Doctor Who Series 9's year-long meditation on the dangers of emotional attachment comes to a close.

After millions of years of chipping away at a diamond wall, getting zapped by a creature from nightmares, and crawling to a teleporter to restart the cycle, I've released a podcast about "Heaven Sent."

The 400th episode of 2MTL coincides with the swan song of one Clara Oswald (and Chip is blissfully unaware of spoilers or synopses for the next two episodes, so he's going to hold to that position for now). And as modern companion departures go, there's been no equal. Check out Chip on The Incomparable Network's TeeVee podcast episode 118 for a longer conversation about "Face the Raven" with host Jason Snell.

From Professor Rasmussen speaking to camera and the complete lack of opening titles to a barely present score and unusual "resolution" to the episode, "Sleep No More" broke all the rules of Doctor Who. Now I'm afraid it'll be harder to break them again.

The last man on Earth to watch "The Zygon Inversion" finally watches "The Zygon Inversion."

Just over halfway through Series 9, some fans have come to terms with the Sonic Sunglasses, and some are totally over them. Steven Moffat wouldn't have it any other way.

Your host's earlier fears about Osgood's fate and portrayal have been for the moment assuaged, and, oh by the way, this episode rocked.

A belated look at Maisie Williams's second turn of the season, featuring gratuitous Rufus Hound Fu.

For a change, I'm not reserving judgment on a story until its conclusion airs. I'm praising a story because it's not finished yet.

I really enjoyed "Before the Flood"--except for one thing that seems to be coming dangerously close to a trend in Doctor Who. And in this episode, as the Radio Times revealed, it was no accident.

Far beyond wishing everyone at home a Merry Christmas, Toby Whithouse's "Before the Flood" opens with the show's most Fourth Wall-breaking moment yet, revealing once again how subversive the Moffat Era really is.

Archetype, trope or formula? As we return to the "base under siege" style of Doctor Who storytelling, does writer Toby Whithouse do something fresh with it? And is it time for a serious talk about Clara?

The universes are collapsing: Reality Bomb has invaded 2MTL to explore just what happened when the BBC made its much-hyped-on-social-media announcement about the new Doctor Who spinoff, Class. Written by Graeme Burk; performed by Graeme Burk, Chip Sudderth, Bill Evenson and Kim Rogers; lovingly balanced and tweaked by Alex Kennard.

Why do fans who don't like what's happening in Doctor Who keep watching?

An acting tour de force for three of our four lead actors, but I don't know what to make of the Poo Daleks...

Our Series 9 reviews begin with a confession, a pre-credits turnaround, a comparison to "The End of Time" (That'll enrage my friends at Radio Free Skaro!), and a bit of bet-hedging!

The Titan Comics summer Doctor Who event, Four Doctors, is not only a rousing adventure tale, but also an insightful look at what happens when the Doctor is forced to face...himself.

Graeme Burk and Robert Smith? (his question mark is canon) are back to talk about The Doctors are In from ECW Press, their exhaustive yet reader-friendly guide to each of the Doctors' incarnations. Once in a while, they even agree with each other.

It's time for a post-Sasquan look at the 2015 Hugo Awards and Doctor Who's place in them...

OK, so that was a great second trailer for Series 9, with loads and loads of Daleks. Except for those guys introduced in "Victory of the Daleks." Alas, the New Paradigm.

It's been a couple weeks of highs (Doctor Who) and lows (politics) for the BBC. Last time I dwelled on the lows. Let's turn it around this time.

Should the BBC give up on popular commercial programming like, oh, I don't know, Doctor Who? A "green paper" to be released today reportedly calls for reconsidering the British Broadcasting Corporation's purpose, while the government plans to force the BBC to dig deep into its own pockets to fund license fees for citizens over 75. Is this the darkest timeline? 2MTL gets a little uncharacteristically political as I talk with friend of the show Toby Hadoke about what's behind these moves and whether Strictly and Sherlock and our favorite television show might be at risk. (Also, check out Toby's play on BBC Radio Four, The Dad Who Fell to Earth.)

The Doctor and companions were threatened with maximum deletion last time, which I suppose is worse than simple deletion. I bet the Doctor had a clever way out of this one that had absolutely no deus ex machina involved, right? Well, at least "The Age of Steel" is a cool name.

If you were a classic fan who was on Team Cyberman rather than Team Dalek, this episode was long overdue. But was "Rise of the Cybermen" a proper re-introduction of the classic villains? Or were there too many stompy missteps out of the gate?

2MTL comes out of a weeks-long retirement at a time when it would appear it would be easy enough to bring back the Third Doctor...

Why would a man-child geek culture hound, who has immersed himself in your Star Treks and Star Wars and Jason of Star Commands as a child, dreaming of being those characters and living in those worlds, become obsessed to the point of podcasting about a character, the Doctor, whom he absolutely cannot imagine being? Asking for a friend.

It was big news, even for Big Finish: Torchwood and Captain Jack Harkness are back. The producers are holding their cards close, so you know what that means: rampant speculation and bucket-listing from your humble host!

There was a time, you know. A time when Jack Harkness had never died. Let's go back to the time of the Forgotten Doctor, courtesy of Titan Comics.

My The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 cohost, occasional 2MTL contributor and spouse, Shannon, returns with a review of the recently reissued The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner -- but does she do so with Rose-colored glasses? David Tennant's appearance on Colin Murray

"The Girl in the Fireplace" is a glimpse into the future: Steven Moffat's second Doctor Who story pretty much establishes the format that the show will follow when he takes over as showrunner and casts Smith, Gillan and Darvill. Plus, we revisit a 2MTL topic from 2009 and marvel at the entire cast's relational flexibility, and talk about the other John Byrne.

Paul Cornell has a dream project with Titan Comics: a crossover event with all three stars of their ongoing DOCTOR WHO series! It's early yet, so Paul is circumspect about the plot, but you can find out who his artistic collaborator will be and discover the tone of this highly anticipated team-up of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. PLUS an update on Paul's SHADOW POLICE series of novels! Want to buy the miniseries at your local comics shop? Here's a proper Calendar of Events: May 2 (Free Comic Book Day): Titan will present a free comic featuring three Doctor Who stories and a teaser for the miniseries including an interview with Paul. May 20: PREVIEWS, the Diamond Comic Distributors ordering catalog, goes online . You can fill out the order form and take it to your comics shop. May 27: Paper copies of PREVIEWS arrive at your shop. June 24: This is your last chance to tell your shop to order an extra copy for you! August 12: Issue 1! August 15: Doctor Who Comics Day, with Paul and other creators making store appearances around the world. August 19-September 9: Issues 2-5!

Reflections on conventions in general and Gallifrey One in particular: why they matter and how I hope to make the most of them this year. Special thanks to all of the people with positive feedback on my segment for Radio Free Skaro Live!

From Gallifrey One, here's my celebration of the 10th anniversary of the airing of "Rose." Thanks to my friends at Radio Free Skaro for inviting me to share the stage once more for their Friday morning live show, "Behind the Magic".

It's been a LONG time since we've done a Throwback Review. So let's pick up where we left off: with an insufferable TARDIS couple realizing that things are just a little bit complicated, and a heaping helping of nostalgia from the Archetypal Companion and the Shooty Dog Thing.

It's still Christmas, darn it! And the Doctor Who series isn't over yet! At least that's what I'm trying to convince myself, by inviting National Public Radio's Petra Mayer and Doctor Who: Verity!'s Tansy Rayner Roberts over to 2MTL to talk one last time about Last Christmas, Steven Moffat and Clara Oswald.

Jolly old St. Nick? Radagast to the Doctor's Gandalf. Dreamcrabs? Scary. Mystery North Pole outpost? More and less than it seems. "Last Christmas"? Several levels of delightful.

Sure, the Cybermen looked impressive in the Series 8 finale. But were they sufficiently Cybermenny? Is it time to rethink the Cybermen, or better yet, take a break and bring them back to first principles?

It's a Time Dilation episode of 2MTL, in which the "Two-minute" part becomes a colossal lie! Joining me in reviewing Series 8 and predicting Doctor Who's future are: Lynne Thomas of Verity! and Uncanny Magazine! Kyle Anderson of Doctor Who: The Writer's Room and Nerdist.com! Graeme Burk of Reality Bomb and Who's 50: The 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before You Die! Mark Goodacre of the NT Pod and one of my favorite 2MTL episodes ever, 2MTL 316: What IS "Doctor Who Canon" Anyway???

Best. Moffat. Finale. Ever. Best. Moffat. Series. Ever. And yet, somehow, I'm not sure how much more I can take!

Sometimes the BBC can't help but spoil the surprise. Sometimes the reveals aren't all that revealing. Sometimes you dismiss the obvious because it's too obvious. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because the episode is brilliant and even wickedly funny because there's no surprise.

Series 8's more unhurried pacing reaches its apex with the "lyrical and beautiful," per Steven Moffat, "In the Forest of the Night." Did the episode hold interest? Did The Doctor and Clara resemble themselves from just a couple of episodes ago? Well....

Yes, yes and more yes, as this supposedly "Doctor-Lite" episode gives us both Clara-as-the-Doctor and The-Doctor-as-someone-who's-thinking-he's-doing-his-job-too-well.

"Mummy on the Orient Express" does what it says on the tin, and. while not a "romp" as such, it's perfectly timed after last week's angst and controversy.

Six things make a podcast: "Kill the Moon" defied my attempt to do a simple, cohesive review. So here's an extended series of impressions the episode left on me. (Thanks to K and R for kibitzing.)

A rubbish brown coat (not the legendary Tennant overcoat, sadly, that would have been funny) is a paper-thin disguise for a Doctor who is a bit of a rubbish caretaker. While he endangers Coal Hill School to fire Jimmy Vee into space, Clara makes some rubbish attempts to keep her two worlds separate. The episode? Not at all rubbish. But it's time to talk about Clara, and how the Doctor and showrunner are treating her.

As a bank robber, the Doctor makes a surprisingly good bank robber. And Stephen Thompson turns in a story that is no "Curse of the Black Spot." I solemnly promise not to cite "Leverage" again this season.

The latest in Steven Moffat's series of biological functionally-titled episodes, "Listen!" is entirely about hiding behind the sofa, and why we do that, and what greatness the fear that drives it might lead us to. And, to my great surprise, we get a profound look underneath the Doctor's mask.

If Robin Hood had assaulted the Doctor with a quarterstaff, with a full-on "Ho! Ha Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!", I perhaps would have bought in.

Spoiler: The Daleks are back. Spoiler: The Twelfth Doctor is not especially warm and fuzzy. Spoiler: There's a lot of pew-pew-pew and boom-boom-boom. Spoiler: For the second week in a row, it's not the A-plot that has me so excited about Series 8.

Peter Capaldi delivers. Of that, there was no doubt. What else does "Deep Breath" have going for it, and does it measure up to Steven Moffat's first crack at introducing a Doctor?

So the tabloids think that season is Clara's swan song. I'm not ready to see her go, but... Guess what haters - Clara is the best companion, second maybe only to Donna.— Kyle Anderson (@FunctionalNerd) August 16, 2014 ...really, Kyle Anderson of Nerdist.com? Let's not go quite that far. Yet.

The Two-minute Time Lord Podcast will have no truck with the "so bad it's good" notion. Instead, we celebrate the notion of "cleverdumb" storytelling: meticulous in certain aspects, and gleefully and purposefully washing its hands of others. Exhibit A: the US series Leverage. Exhibits that follow: certain episodes of our favorite family sci-fi drama--but why are there so few "cleverdumb" Doctor Whos? (One guess who inspired the title for this podcast.)

A clickbait headline hurtles toward Ye Olde Compare-and-Contrast between the promised grim-'n'-gritty Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the widely inferred darkness of the Twelfth Doctor.

Two thousand years! That's how old The Doctor is now, as stated by the Twelfth in the latest trailer and as implied in his predecessor's swan song, "The Time of the Doctor." That's a pretty huge leap from roughly 900 years old at the start of Steven Moffat's showrunnership. Is it a fair leap when you consider the assumed ages of his predecessors? Or is "fairness" even a fair issue?

On the power of the (leaked) written word (and the importance of Wheaton's Law)...

With apologies, the War Doctor just doesn't seem "real" enough to warrant a space on my shelf among the ordinally-numbered Doctor action figures in my collection. As magnificent as John Hurt was, why am I reluctant to include him in the tribe?

Herewith, three reasons why old-school fandom is buzzing with such excitement for Peter Capaldi, when the historic pattern has been more guarded.

Rebecca Moore and her fellow undergraduates at BYU-Idaho did a little study this year about female characters' representation in post-2005 DOCTOR WHO. You might have heard about it! I talk with Rebecca about what prompted the study, and what happened when her teammate Joseph Struhs's infographic got noticed on Tumblr and by The Guardian and went viral. For other takes on the study, check out Verity! episode 43 and Charlie Jane Anders's io9 article, "Why the Bechdel Test is More Important Than You Realize."

At the Hay Festival, showrunner Steven Moffat promised that the new season of Doctor Who will be radically different. Does casting Peter Capaldi alone make that true?