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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast3 Days in the Gally (Scenes from Gallifrey One 2026)Pull To Open goes on location! Pete and Chris hit Gallifrey One in Los Angeles as total Gally virgins, gawping at “chemicals on fire” sunsets, accidentally learning how expensive fandom can be, and collecting hot takes like they’re limited-edition prints. Along the way: Peter Davison (and the Tom Baker advice he still can’t hear), Millie Gibson popping in like it’s no big deal, and a convention floor vibe check that can best be summarized by one hoodie: “I told you Disney was a bad idea.” Plus: fans tell us where Doctor Who goes next… including the boldest pitch of...
2026-02-211h 12Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastIsland Chat (Interviews from Long Island Who 2025)What’s it like to work on Doctor Who and Torchwood when you’re not in the spotlight—but still right there among the monsters, costumes, and chaos? In this very special live episode recorded at Long Island Who, Pete and Chris chat with two veterans of the Whoniverse: Mickey Lewis, a monster actor and novelist with stories to spare (including some very punk-rock prose the BBC might not approve of), and Amy Benedict, a Hollywood mainstay whose time on Torchwood: Miracle Day gave her a fresh outsider’s perspective on the show’s darker corners. From Dalek mishaps to John Ba...
2025-09-1456 min
The Revenue Room™, by H2K LabsBranded or Buried: Pete Pachal on Why AI Will Expose the Real Value of MediaIn this episode of The Revenue Room™, Pete Pachal, founder of The Media Copilot and longtime tech journalist, joins Heather Holst-Knudsen for a sharp, future-forward conversation on how AI is reshaping the media landscape. From the decline of brand trust to the rise of zero-click content, Pete unpacks the brutal clarity that AI brings—and why it may force media companies to finally prove their real value.Key Topics Discussed:Why AI’s biggest disruption isn’t productivity—it’s radical transparency.How zero-click content is changing content discovery and engagement.Why media brands must differentiate or risk bein...
2025-07-2956 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastTwist and Doubt (HOT TAKE: “Wish World”)The Doctor’s stuck in a surreal 1950s fever dream, UNIT’s been rebranded as a life insurance agency, and wish-granting gods are running amok. What is even happening in Wish World?! Pete and Chris dive headfirst into RTD’s mind-bending, logic-challenged spectacle that dares to connect the Rani, Poppy, Conrad, and possibly Susan through some extremely wishful thinking. Is this the Doctor’s most confusing domestic life yet? Are Mastodon skeletons the new Macra? Is this what happens when RTD binges The Prisoner, WandaVision, and a box of Target novels? This one’s more ride than story — but oh, what a ri...
2025-05-2440 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastBigeneration Gap (HOT TAKE 2: "The Interstellar Song Contest" Post-Credits Scene)It turns out our dress rehearsal of The Interstellar Song Contest was missing one extremely important reveal! In this emergency analysis of the post-credits scene, we tackle the surprise regeneration of Mrs. Flood into a new Time Lady villain—Archie Panjabi’s take on the classic Rani. Is this just a nostalgia throwback, or are we in for a legit cosmic power play? And what does this say about bigeneration, the show’s new favorite toy? Tune in for rants, theories, and your favorite meta-commentary on meta-commentary — plus Pete accidentally hot-takes his way into agreeing with Steven Moffat. For some rea...
2025-05-1829 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastRightful Hair (HOT TAKE: "The Story & the Engine")In The Story & the Engine, the Doctor finds himself in a Nigerian barbershop… on a spaceship… on the back of a spider… in the realm of living stories. You with us so far? Good — because the story’s just getting started. Join Pete and Chris as they dissect one of the most surreal, ambitious episodes in Doctor Who history, from map headgames to moral metaphysics. Come for the cosmic barbershop, stay for the existential vibes.Tell us what you think of The Story & the Engine on Spotify!Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and become a True Companion of the podcast to get new episodes before everyone else!Subscribe to our newsletter at pu...
2025-05-1046 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastFright of Your Life (HOT TAKE: "The Well")Doctor Who has plunged into The Well — and trust us, you’ll want to keep your back covered. Pete and Chris tackle the chills, thrills, and high-stakes mystery of Season 2’s most intense episode yet. How does the Doctor face the unknown when it stares right back at him? How is the future of humanity suddenly more fragile than ever? And what clever callbacks to classic sci-fi storytelling are hidden just below the surface? Grab your spacesuit (and maybe smash a few mirrors) — it's about to get real.Tell us what you think of The Well on ...
2025-04-2642 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastHeavy Meta (HOT TAKE: “Lux”)RTD just gave us Alan Cumming as a cartoon god named Mr. Ring-a-Ding, and that’s not even the weirdest part of “Lux.” This episode has 2D-animated monsters, film reel body horror, meta commentary on fandom, and the Doctor using regeneration energy to treat a boo-boo. Pete and Chris are here to unwrap it all — from Mrs. Flood’s nuclear foreboding to the Doctor’s best mini-speech in years. Also discussed: How to acknowledge the racist past without getting lost in it, whether “Lux” secretly out-Blinks “Blink,” and what happens when you trap Doctor Who fans in a movie… and they love it.
2025-04-1940 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDay of the Nurse (HOT TAKE: "The Robot Revolution")It's the future, and your star registry gift just triggered a robotic uprising. Welcome to Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution, where RTD goes hard on visuals, soft on substance, and maybe too far on consent. The Pull To Open crew picks apart everything from glitchy AI metaphors to Belinda Chandra’s underbaked debut — and Pete almost expected a Robots of Death sequel. But hey, at least the Doctor's rocking pajamas and historian credentials now.Tell us what you think of The Robot Revolution on Spotify!Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and become a True Companion of the podcast to get new episodes before everyone else!Subscribe to our newsletter at pulltoopen.net for extended notes on our randomized episodes.Support the...
2025-04-1246 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDoctor Who 'Season 1' PREVIEW: Countdown to RTD2The first two episodes of Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the Doctor — Space Babies and The Devil's Chord — are just days away. And here at Pull To Open, we've already seen them. And we say "we," we mean Chris. There's only so much he can say about the stories, however, so it's up to Pete to carefully probe the limits of his forbidden knowledge without revealing too much. Did The Church on Ruby Road properly prepare us for what's to come? Does the Disney money stick? And just how many nappy jokes are in Space Babies? We dive into all of...
2024-05-0641 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastRed Con (Recovering “The Ambassadors of Death”)If you want hard evidence that the UNIT era — when Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was exiled to Earth after being put on trial by the Time Lords — was set in the “near future,” look no further than The Ambassadors of Death. With routine missions to Mars, nuclear fuel available in factories on the British countryside, and space capsules that can land on solid ground no less, this is a version of the future that the 20th century never delivered on, and much of the advances are still stubbornly out of reach. That doesn’t mean Ambassadors fails, of course. On the contr...
2023-09-301h 51Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastImpending Boom (Diffusing “Kerblam!”)Doctor Who has its share of metaphors, but perhaps none so naked as the eponymous company featured in Kerblam! (the only TV story so excited to feature an exclamation point in the title). With its motivational corporatespeak, closely monitored warehouse workers, and super-efficient delivery robots (that may or may not be homicidal), Kerblam is an obvious stand-in for Amazon — just projected out several thousand years. As you’d expect, Kerblam! certainly has some things to say about Bit Tech, automation, and the future of work, though how those themes land probably depends greatly on your existing opinions of those thin...
2023-09-161h 39Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe 5 Best Classic Doctor Who Stories for NuWho FansWhen your show goes on hiatus for 15 years, the result is a literal generation gap of fandom. If you happen to be one of the many fans who have grown up on the series “Doctor Who” that began in 2005, you’re certainly aware of the Classic series but you may also be intimidated by just how much of it there is. Twenty-six seasons comprises a whole hell of a lot of television, so it’s difficult to know where to start. Well, we’ve got you covered: Chris and Pete have picked out the five stories from the Classic era that a...
2023-08-2627 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastSphere of Fear (Plundering “The Pirate Planet”)The hottest sci-fi writer on the planet in 1978 was Douglas Adams. Not only was he about to bestow upon the world the original radio plays of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he also wrote his first Doctor Who adventure, The Pirate Planet. There are so many similarities — in tone, plotting, and effortlessly clever dialogue — that it’s easy to tell this story came out of the same creative spigot as Hitch Hiker’s, but the recycling doesn’t detract from this incredibly ambitious story about a planet-size genocide machine commanded by a cybernetic pirate captain. But is it still as...
2023-06-102h 06Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastIn Dickens and in Gelth (Reanimating “The Unquiet Dead”)How does a family show like Doctor Who do a zombie horror story? You start by subtracting (most of) the gore, then add a sci-fi twist. That’s good, but what would really make it stand out is if you take a real person from history and cast the best possible actor to play the role. The Unquiet Dead ticks all those eerie boxes, deftly telling a tale of walking corpses, teasing the show’s (then) new mythology of the Time War, and showcasing the show’s central premise of time travel by involving Charles Dickens himself. It’s all than...
2023-06-031h 51Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastBig Trouble in Ancient China (Traversing “Marco Polo”)Often when Doctor Who visits Earth’s past, a lot is made of whether the characters can “change” history or not. Outcomes vary, but it’s oddly refreshing to look back on the series’ first historical, Marco Polo, where the question never comes up. Instead, the story creates stakes by thrusting the TARDIS team smack in the middle of the rivalries, duplicity and politics of quasi-real events in history, and letting the drama naturally unfold. At seven episodes, it’s a gradual unfolding — and some accounting for the time it was made is a given — but even if you don’t grade on a...
2023-05-271h 59Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastUltimate Fighting Championship (Disarming “The War Games”)The Doctor tends to find himself thrust in the middle of many battles throughout history, but what if he landed in the middle of all of them? That may well have been the inspiration for The War Games, the epic-length finale of the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who. By taking the idea of multiple wars — each a live-action board game played for the amusement of powerful aliens — with the soldiers eventually realizing the deception and resisting, the story puts forward one of the most powerful anti-war messages of the series. To top it off, The War Games concludes with...
2023-05-202h 22Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Trouble With GallifreyThe original revelation of the Doctor’s origins was a slow burn: It took Doctor Who six seasons to finally give concrete answers to who he was and where he came from. But after the landmark reveal at the end of The War Games, going back to Gallifrey seemed to be an exercise in diminishing returns for the show. True, The Deadly Assassin gave a compelling new perspective on Time Lord society, though if you look at what came after — Arc of Infinity, The Trial of a Time Lord, and even Hell Bent — the Time Lords get blander and weirde...
2023-05-131h 10Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastRage-Quitting Doctor Who: A HistoryWhether you’re a fan of a TV show, movie series or comic book, it’s almost guaranteed your fandom will be tested at some point. As creative teams come and go, as changes in direction stack up, as the medium evolves, the flavor of something can change radically. And if you don’t like the taste, it can be a rapid progression from disappointment to hate-watching to quitting in disgust.
Doctor Who is no exception to this, and it probably goes double given its built-in reboot device of regeneration. Beyond the normal creative churn, there have been s...
2023-05-061h 04Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastHospital Food (Regurgitating “The Tsuranga Conundrum”)If you’re going to attempt a tense thriller in Doctor Who, sometimes the horror can get really intense, such as in The Waters of Mars. And sometimes it can go 100% in the other direction and serve up an unexpected monster in the form of a baby-faced cartoon character, such as here, in The Tsuranga Conundrum. Is one approach superior to the other? We’re here to say, definitively, yes. Yep, the Pting’s bad — there’s no way around it — but as long as we have Brett Goldstein’s eyebrows to lose ourselves in, we should be fine.
2023-04-291h 46Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastJones and Smith (Courting “The Doctor’s Wife,” with guest Dave Kitchen)When is a TARDIS not a TARDIS? When it’s a bitey mad lady, of course. Yes, The Doctor's Wife shows a side of the show’s signature blue box that we’ve never seen before, personifying the Doctor’s “ship” in a way that’s unexpected, insanely quirky and… well, sexy. That’s thanks in large part to Suranne Jones’ pitch-perfect performance as Idris, a woman possessed with the essence of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s longest-running companion. Neil Gamian’s clever script wisely gives her a lot of time opposite Matt Smith — at his madcap best — and fans will delight in seeing t...
2023-04-221h 46Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastInvasion Inception (Thwarting “The Invasion of Time”)You’ve got to hand it to the Doctor — he’s single-handedly saved Gallifrey almost as many times as the Earth, and The Invasion of Time even lets him double dip! Rescuing the Time Lords from the Vardans was just a warm-up, with the Sontarans laying in wait to have their crack at the planet once the production runs out of tinfoil. The story is a bizarro Russian doll of invasions, seemingly orchestrated by a borderline-megalomaniacal Doctor, set against the backdrop of Robert Holmes’ delightfully dysfunctional Gallifrey. Thank Rassilon there’s a robot dog here to make sense of it all.
2023-04-152h 04Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWho Counts as a True Companion?It’s a long-debated subject among Doctor Who fans: Who counts as a companion? It used to be that traveling in the TARDS, typically across different stories, meant you made the list — and might even end up in a support group years later with Kate Stewart et al. But a mere TARDIS ride is too low a bar: Does that mean the policemen in Black Orchid are companions? You could say you need to be in more than one story, but then Astrid and Sara Kingdom are out. And what about “bad” TARDIS passengers like Turlough and Adam Mitchell?
Wha...
2023-04-0846 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastTreasure Flap (Pillaging “The Smugglers”)In the new series, it’s customary to offer freshly onboarded TARDIS crewmembers a choice: Would you like to go to the future or the past? Back in the ’60s, there was no choice involved — the Doctor didn’t have the first clue how to steer his time machine, something he states explicitly in The Smugglers to accidental companions Ben and Polly. But if he had the goal of showing them just how brutally violent traveling through time can be, he couldn’t do much better than this mostly forgotten “pure historical” about pirates plotting to ransack large parts of Cornwall whi...
2023-04-011h 26Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastOne Really Small Step (Eclipsing “Kill the Moon”)“Fearlessly bonkers” is how director Paul Wilmshurst described Kill the Moon, a — shall we say ambitious? — episode of Doctor Who that presumes the moon we see shining in the sky every night is actually an enormous egg. Yes. Hold on… how did we not notice it’s made of eggshell? How does the moon “put on weight” so quickly that it has the same gravity of Earth? Why would the “bacteria” protecting it look and behave exactly like giant spiders? Best not to ask such questions and simply run down the needlessly exploding moonbase corridor with everybody else. If you can get past the...
2023-03-251h 53Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDecoding the Codex (A Pull To Open Short Trip)The question of what constitutes a complete story in Doctor Who isn't a straightforward as it may seem. The issue actually first reared its rubber-masked head fairly early on, when, in the third season, the show decided to "tease" its most epic adventure yet, The Daleks' Masterplan, with a single one-off episode called Mission to the Unknown. It even gave Mission a unique production code that tied it to that 12-part(!) adventure. So... is it its own story, or what? Years later, The Trial of a Time Lord scrambled things even more, giving its four sort-of-separate stories individual production...
2023-03-1832 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastBitter Dregs (Stranding “Orphan 55”)Orphan 55 stands apart from the rest of Doctor Who canon in two key ways: First, its idea of an indeterminate always-in-flux future is at odds with virtually every other adventure set in the future. And second, probably no other episode has ever dared to spell out its message so explicitly, ending with an ominous speech from Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor about the terrible consequences of neglecting our planet. To be fair, the story is much more fun than that sounds, with jokes about speedos and bats, a three-layer cake of mysteries, and plenty of creepy monsters with big teeth. Th...
2023-03-111h 38Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastRobot Roll Call (Fulfilling “Destiny of the Daleks”)Is there a story that gets the Daleks wrong more than Destiny of the Daleks? While Douglas Adams’ run on Doctor Who as script editor is revered for many reasons (mostly the story immediately following this one), his first outing is arguably a misstep. Bringing back the Daleks after a five-year absence isn’t a bad idea, but shoehorning the show’s most crowd-pleasing monsters into a story about two rival races of “robots” in a galactic military stalemate robs them of the essence of their terror. You can’t deny the story is memorable — Davros awakes! Romana regenerates! The Movellans...
2023-03-042h 08Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastUNIT on the Brain (Rethinking “The Mind of Evil”)If you tuned into Doctor Who in the early ’70s, chances are you saw Jon Pertwee in a colorful tuxedo arguing with the Brigadier and UNIT on the best way to take down some inhuman menace whose strings are being pulled by Roger Delgado’s Master. You get that in spades in The Mind of Evil, which makes it a 100% proof 1970s Who adventure, though at times the bloated story feels like they decided to coast almost entirely on the formula, without much attention given to whether any of the multiplying plot threads made sense on their own. Pay no m...
2023-02-251h 36Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastJurassic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Rerouting “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”)Time travel and dinosaurs — they go together like teeth and curls. Strange, then, that Doctor Who has only ventured on a rousing adventure with these colossal prehistoric monsters twice, in stories about 40 years apart. At least in the latter outing, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, the special effects are leveled-up from stop motion to CGI. The TARDIS crew also gets enhanced, recruiting a pair of fish-out-of-water historical figures to help the Doctor solve the immediate problem: a Canada-size space ark is hurtling toward Earth with an evil black marketeer in tow. Plus Rory’s dad comes along. Throw in some funny...
2023-02-181h 39Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastLast Time Lord Standing (Flooding “The Waters of Mars,” with guests from The Cloister Bell podcast)When the Doctor travels to the past he obviously has a great deal of foreknowledge about what’s taken place and, moreover, what must take place in order for history as we know it to be preserved. It’s refreshing, then, to see that same idea applied to future history in The Waters of Mars, a thrilling story that uses that device to amplify its impact by an order of magnitude above your typical base-under-siege adventure. When you add a healthy helping of zombie horror and a dark twist at the end, the result is one of the most adul...
2023-02-112h 05Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastPresent Danger (Unwrapping “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe”)Matt Smith’s Doctor is known for being a few notches higher on the Bonkers Scale than his predecessors, a measure that arguably reaches its peak in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. His captivating antics early in this story — where he takes a London family on a tour of a country manor that he’s upgraded with with playrooms, hammocks and taps that spout lemonade — underscore the 11th Doctor’s “mad man in a box” appeal, and set the stage for a emotional story with surprising weight. The script almost blows it, though, but, as we discuss, showrunner Ste...
2023-02-041h 58Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastLast Faction Hero (Quelling “Revolution of the Daleks”)As Doctor Who’s ultimate monsters, the Daleks have been rebooted more times than a MacBook doing a janky system update. The most recent revamp came via Revolution of the Daleks, where the children of Davros got a new look inspired by the previous holiday special, Resolution, complete with sleek black casing and his and hers colored LEDs. But Dalek design isn’t the only thing up for revision here: we also get new takes on a pair of Jacks — Harkness and Robertson — who both try on something different as they return to the familiar. That’s basically the new Daleks...
2023-01-282h 26Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThreat Gala (Fertilizing “Black Orchid”)The Fifth Doctor’s cricket outfit seemed a bit random at first, but Black Orchid is the story that shows it’s more than just a signature look. In an unusual twist, the Doctor isn’t the mysterious stranger seemingly come to save the day — he’s completely expected, and the thing he’s expected to do is play cricket. Of course, he does so like a boss who’s had centuries to hone his bowling skills, and then serves up an encore by solving a double murder at the estate of an aristocratic English family right out of Downton Abbey...
2023-01-211h 57Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastGame Controller (Pwning “The Celestial Toymaker”)Entering the pocket reality of a powerful entity that loves to play games isn’t something that happens every day, but if you’re a character on Doctor Who, it’s an occupational hazard. The Celestial Toymaker is the first realization of that idea onscreen, made more interesting by the revelation that it’s not the first time the Doctor has met this potentially problematic villain. In Who canon, the story is well-remembered if not revered — for the implied history between the two characters, for the clever morphing of kids’ games into deathtraps, and, if we’re being honest, the tumultuous...
2023-01-141h 44Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Retcon Episode (Amending Our Story Ratings, Seasons 1-3)When Pull To Open debuted three years ago, we didn’t even have a rating system — just a sound of drums in our heads, convincing us to bring thoughtful commentary about Doctor Who stories from the perspective of longtime fans who are also journalists. As we went deeper into the show and installed the key component in our journey — the Pull To Open Randomizer — we developed a shorthand for signaling if we considered an episode good (a Dalek) or not so good (an Ogron). Eventually we created ratings for unsuccessful stories that were instructive (a Professor Hayter) and the absolute...
2023-01-071h 09Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastBullet Time (Lassoing “The Gunfighters”)If you’re a time-traveling alien with a toothache, obviously your first stop is going to be the Old West. It’s not just because of the oddly easy-to-find dentistry services, but the chance of getting mixed up in a farcical case of mistaken identity with lots of gunplay is quite high. Doctor Who’s first (and for a long time, only) attempt at a western is arguably a bold experiment and unquestionably a high-quality production, but like the gunslinging Clantons themselves, The Gunfighters has become infamous over the years. Is it really as bad as its reputation? Or could...
2022-12-311h 27Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastOpposite Day (Relishing “Utopia,” “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords”)By Series 3 of NuWho, showrunner Russell T. Davies was two-for-two at successfully re-introducing classic bad guys in the Daleks and the Cybermen. To complete the trifecta, Davies naturally turned to the Doctor’s ideological opposite, the Master, and he raised the stakes with the new series’ first three-parter in Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords — a story that sees the Earth not just threatened, but conquered and subjugated. That’s a lot to work with when your job is to craft some epic Doctor Who, but did Davies give himself too much rope? We dare to...
2022-12-242h 29Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWar Is for Suckers (Impersonating “The Zygon Invasion” and “The Zygon Inversion”)As alien baddies go, the Zygons are one of the more nuanced races that have tried to take over the Earth. Turns out they want to just live in peace and chill, man — just like the rest of us. That’s some nice background for The Zygon Invasion/Inversion, a story that focuses on the extremists among us who are determined to stir up animosity to further their own idealized vision of how society should be. Kinda sounds relevant, but it’s going to take a speech for the ages, delivered by a leading actor in top form, to really...
2022-12-171h 42Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWings of Glory (Observing “Blink”)Is there a better episode to introduce new viewers to Doctor Who than Blink? Sure, it’s a little unrepresentative of the show considering the Doctor is barely in it, but the essential elements are there: a fantastical world, a normal person pulled slowly into it, and a monster for the ages. Blink had both hardcore Whovians and casual fans buzzing when it debuted in 2007, but has it been long enough that cracks are starting to show in the stone facade? We dare to climb the pedestal where Blink stands to look closely at whether it’s just as epic...
2022-12-101h 54Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastSmall World (Reducing “Planet of Giants”)What is so fascinating about the micro world that almost every sci-fi franchise has been inspired to include an episode where the characters shrink to the size of insects? The Doctor’s first foray into diminished circumstances came pretty early: William Hartnell’s second-season opener, Planet of Giants, sees the original TARDIS crew taking on giant bugs, deadly water faucets, and a ruthless killer indifferent to a looming environmental catastrophe. Seen through a magnifying glass, Doctor Who feels like an entirely different show. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s hard to see that “less is more” in t...
2022-12-031h 14Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWhy Did “The Power of the Doctor” Regenerate the Doctor’s Clothes? (A Pull To Open Short Trip)Jodie Whittaker’s regeneration wasn’t just unusual for — spoiler alert — marking the first “repeat” Doctor when she morphed into David Tennant at the end of “The Power of the Doctor.” It was also one of the only regenerations to also regenerate the Doctor’s clothes. The in-show reason for this will likely be revealed in next year’s 60th anniversary special, but incoming showrunner Russell T. Davies discussed in the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine why he was “absolutely certain” the clothes would regenerate. Was it the right call? Pete and Chris take a break from their random journey to debate...
2022-11-2644 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastFrail Whale (Baiting “The Beast Below”)Why did it take Doctor Who so long to do the “star whale” concept? If the show was waiting for a particularly strong script, it probably should have sailed right on by The Beast Below, which doesn’t exactly bestow the idea with a lot of dignity: it could be the only time Doctor Who has introduced a creature by showing it barfing. Even though the show is mostly using this cosmic cetacean as a metaphor for an ancient semi-god who just wants to be nice to children and help out when they’re crying, you can’t help but feel l...
2022-11-191h 35Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastIs "The Power of the Doctor" the Best Regeneration Episode? (A Pull To Open Short Trip)Regeneration. It's been a pivotal part of Doctor Who for almost 60 years, but let's face it: Some regenerations have been better than others. When a new Doctor takes over, it's always dramatic, but there are several more boxes to tick to make the episode a classic. The story should be epic in impact if not in stakes, the incumbent Doctor should have apt and memorable final lines, and the regeneration itself should tickle both the eyes and the mind. So where does The Power of the Doctor — the series' most recent addition to the Doctor's (infinite?) regeneration cycle — rank? We t...
2022-11-1243 minPull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDeath Becomes Him (Exalting "Dalek")The simple, straightforward title of Dalek belies so much: This story doesn’t just re-introduce the Daleks for a new generation of Doctor Who viewers — it makes them interesting, upgraded, and scary in ways they always deserved to be but never quite achieved in the classic series. Stellar performances from the cast — including an arguably best-of-his-run showstopper from Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor overcome by his hatred for these machine-creatures — certainly hep to make Dalek both an unexpected epic as well as the beginning of an incredible run in the back half of Series 1 of NuWho. I think maybe we liked i...
2022-11-052h 13Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastAbyss of the Spider Woman (Chasing “The Runaway Bride”)When companions go, sometimes it’s sad (brave heart, Tegan), sometimes it’s bittersweet (London, 1965!), and sometimes it’s a nonevent (Dodo who?). But the heartbreaking departure of Rose in Doomsday is on another level altogether, and it simply requires repercussions. Those shockwaves are front and center in The Runaway Bride, yet somehow the story ends up being one of the most fun in the entire series. That’s thanks in no small part to the brilliant comedic banter between David Tennant and Catherine Tate — a pairing that works so well that the duo will return as series leads full time i...
2022-10-291h 52Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastMile-High Flub (Piloting “Time-Flight,” with guest Christopher Burgess)When you hear “a Doctor Who story set in the Jurassic period,” the picture you conjure in your head probably looks quite a bit different from Time-Flight. That’s not necessarily a strike against it: The finale of Season 19 is notorious for being light on budget, so it’s probably a blessing that they didn’t even try to show a single allosaurus stomping around the barren plains of prehistoric London. Instead we get the Xeraphin, a telepathic race of morally conflicted humanoids that are almost interesting — at least until the Master uses them as the winner-take-all prize in his technobab...
2022-10-222h 11Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastBad Weed (Drenching “Fury From the Deep”)Is there any Doctor Who format as reliable as the base under siege? You can see why: All you need is one set, an excuse to keep the TARDIS out of reach, and one illogically obstinate person in charge, and you’re about 90% there. The key ingredient, of course, is a convincing and creepy monster, and though mutant seaweed might not be your first choice to fill that role, it’s what Fury From the Deep has to work with. Nonetheless, even in animation, “the weed” produces more scares than any hostile plantlife has a right to, so we don’t bl...
2022-10-081h 52Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThat Witch You Seek (Exposing “The Witchfinders”)Jodie Whittaker’s first season as the Doctor took the show in a new direction, but The Witchfinders is almost a return to a very old format: the pure historical. True, this outing to the witch-obsessed England of the 17th century doesn’t quite qualify — what with alien mud creatures reanimating left and right in the final act — but the most interesting thing about this story is certainly the dramatization of the horrific witch trials of the era. An excellent guest cast helps, made all the more entertaining when Alan Cumming arrives playing King James I. Could someone chop down that...
2022-10-011h 43Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastPast Sins (Witnessing “Rosa”)Often Doctor Who travels to the past to showcase historical events, but it rarely shows what life in those eras was like for the less privileged. Rosa is a jarring exception to the rule, with its lens pointed directly at the racist past of the American South. While there is an antagonist from the future present, the real evil force here is state-sanctioned segregation. And the hero who must confront it isn’t the title character we tune in to see from week to week, but Rosa Parks, the black woman who changed history by refusing to give up he...
2022-09-241h 58Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastGold Turkey (Transmuting “Revenge of the Cybermen”)If you lack emotions, can you seek revenge? It’s the burden of Doctor Who fans to ponder questions like this, since Revenge of the Cybermen attributes emotion to the show’s notoriously unfeeling monsters right there in the title. More likely, we suspect some future historian did their best to characterize the Cybermen’s incursion on Nerva Beacon in the 29th century with some fanciful language to give the whole episode some gravitas. Heaven knows the story could use it — unless you’re talking about the single biggest plot hole in Doctor Who history, one so massive it threatens...
2022-09-172h 07Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastPair o’ Docs (Devouring “The Two Doctors”)When more than one Doctor is present, you know something’s gone disastrously wrong. While that usually applies to something within the show, in the case of The Two Doctors, you might be talking about the show itself. In some ways, it’s not the story’s fault — the production was famously plagued with problems behind the scenes — but a misfired location shoot can’t explain away the script’s icky obsession with carnivorism or those utterly extraneous Sontarans. At least we can all agree that we’d watch Patrick Troughton do anything, including wolf down an insanely huge meal in a top ha...
2022-09-031h 37Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Once and Future Doctor (Mythologizing “Battlefield”)Summer is peak season for action romps, we’re told, so that must be why the Randomzier plopped us in the middle of Battlefield, the opening story of Classic Doctor Who’s final year, and one that seems to continuously feature guns shooting, swords clashing, and all manner of things blowing up. I mean, you’d expect nothing less from the last official appearance of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but is it all just smokescreen to keep us from realizing the story — ostensibly about transdimensional Arthurian knights fighting over a magic sword at the bottom of a lake — is complete nonsense? Probably...
2022-08-271h 43Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastInvading Earth for Dummies (Waxing "Spearhead From Space")Rebooting Doctor Who is a feature of the show, not a bug, but it was still uncertain territory when Jon Pertwee took over in 1970. Sure, Patrick Troughton had taken over from William Hartnell a few years before, but it was very much the same show, following the adventures of a mysterious traveler and his human companions throughout all of time and space. Spearhead From Space boldly tosses out that formula, centers the show on contemporary Earth, and recasts the Doctor as a flamboyant action hero. OK, yes, those choices were made more out of budget necessity than bold storytelling...
2022-08-201h 39Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastAll Creatures Great and Small (Magnifying “Carnival of Monsters”)Doctor Who can be dramatic, captivating, and even epic, but some of the most memorable episodes are just plain fun! Carnival of Monsters definitely qualifies as one of the fun ones, made all the more interesting with an intriguing first-episode mystery and some subversive messaging in Robert Holmes’s almost-too-clever script. Come for the fearsome drashigs, stay for the brilliant political satire on Inter Minor. And, as ever, don’t blink, lest you miss the surprising backstory about the Doctor’s past as a Gallifreyan activist. Grab your popcorn — this one’s definitely a crowd-pleaser.
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2022-07-231h 44Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastA Logical End (Mastering “Logopolis”)If a regeneration story means the end of an era in Doctor Who, Logopolis is an extinction-level event. It bears the extra weight of being the final story in the epic run of Tom Baker, who, to many, was the definitive actor to play the Doctor. Christopher H. Bidmead’s script doesn’t shy away from this impossible task, with the premise, the villain, and the stakes all appropriately elevated. You’d be forgiven for thinking this might not have been the best time to stuff the TARDIS full of new companions, but somehow Logopolis still holds up (yes, even t...
2022-07-161h 46Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastIndustrial Devolution (Blemishing “The Mark of the Rani”)Time Lords come and Time Lords go, but what about Time Ladies? The Rani is a peculiar case among Gallifrey’s ruling class: an amoral cosmic elitist who just wants to be left alone and occasionally perform horrible experiments on various folks — and isn’t the slightest bit interested in the Doctor. That’s a refreshing change, made even more memorable by holding it right up against the status-quo opposite: the Master himself. Before Missy, before Time Lord gender-flops, and before the Master stopped needlessly messing around with Earth history, The Mark of the Rani is one of the more crea...
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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastTractator Pull (Bombarding “Frontios”)When Doctor Who takes us to the far future, it’s often with a dystopian view. That’s certainly the case with Frontios, which isn’t content to simply plunge a scrappy group of refugees from a doomed Earth into a harrowing fight for survival. It also adds to the mix the twin horrors of giant insects bent on recreating the ugliest parts of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and some of the worst spiked hair the universe has ever seen. (One of those things was powerful enough to destroy the TARDIS, but the jury's still out on which.) Let’s not le...
2022-05-141h 43Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastOne Moor Time (Illuminating “The Eaters of Light”)Ever been to Scotland? Doctor Who sure has, and if you’re ever looking for the ultimate proof of that look no further than The Eaters of Light, an episode that seems designed entirely to showcase bad weather, Pict history, and very cross people. Of course, it doesn’t get much more cross than the 12th Doctor, but just how effective will a pair of epic eyebrows be against a squad of Roman centurions, a pack of star-eating transdimensional creatures, and Nardole’s constant scolding? More than you’d think, obviously, though it’s hard to tell with all the incomp...
2022-04-301h 32Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDead Center (Skirting “Terminus”)Doctor Who explains the Big Bang! That’s an ambitious idea, and not one you’d expect to be shoehorned into an episode about space lepers journeying to a vast space station that promises not just a cure for their disease but also the opportunity to play with the biggest dog you’ve ever seen. Still, Terminus goes for it, soldiering on through plot holes the size of a supercluster to explain how all of creation came into existence, plus how Tegan and Turlough can somehow command tons of screen time yet do absolutely nothing. Other conundrums include: Why does N...
2022-04-231h 31Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastTelos Another One (Converting "Attack of the Cybermen")When you're looking to literally change history to save your race, it's smart to stay focused. This really isn't the time for convoluted plans, extraneous plot threads that go nowhere, and long conversations with captured prisoners. But the Cybermen can't help themselves, it seems, and neither can Attack of the Cybermen, which seems utterly confused about which previous story it's a sequel to. It's almost inevitable that things get messy pretty quickly in Colin Baker's second adventure, but the script still manages to keep the pace up, the body count high, and the fan service at maximum. Could at...
2022-04-022h 16Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWasting Time (Embalming “State of Decay”)If you’re a powerful vampire running from the Time Lords, it’s easy to see why you’d pick E-space for your hideout. It’s small, it's full of delicious humanoids, it's hidden behind a CVE — not to mention bat-populated planets are seemingly a dime a dozen in this green-hued pocket universe. It's really just bad luck that the Doctor wandered in, but all the better for us since we get to see a traditional vampire horror story done through the lens of Doctor Who. The result is State of Decay, and it delivers on blending gothic fantasy with Who's...
2022-03-261h 39Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastZings and Arrows (Lionizing "Robot of Sherwood")Hard to believe, but it took Doctor Who more than 50 years to get around to doing a TV adventure centered on Robin Hood. And like a speeding arrow splitting the shaft of another, Robot of Sherwood cracks your usual story assumptions: Instead of presenting an alien explanation for a mythical historical figure, the myth is offered up as historical fact. That raises a couple of notable eyebrows, leading the Doctor to take on a persona that's more cantankerous antihero than otherworldly savior, and his bickering with Robin creates some of the biggest laughs of the series. It's all fun...
2022-03-121h 30Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastGrin Reaper (Enlivening "Smile")When you first start traveling with the Doctor, you've got to get your basics down, and a key item to tick off the list is traveling to the far future. Bill Potts got her future-events cred via a visit to the troubled human colony depicted in Smile, one of the most gorgeous episodes of the Capaldi era. Besides a wide-eyed new companion, the story features one of Doctor Who's most reliable antagonists: servant robots that have for some reason gone homicidal. Throw in a massive colony ship and some end-of-the-world vibes and we might really have something — just as lo...
2022-03-051h 34Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastCourting Disaster (Unearthing "The Mysterious Planet")When Doctor Who returned after a forced hiatus in the mid '80s, the show had big plans for its return: The entire season would be a single arc that would see the Time Lords subject the Doctor to an epic trial for his meddling. The Trial of a Time Lord was an ambitious and compelling idea, and years before its time considering how serialized modern franchises have become. Trial's first story has a lot going for it — an interesting mystery, a rebooted Sixth Doctor, and the delight of Tony Selby as Sabalom Glitz — plus it sets the table for a...
2022-02-191h 42Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe French Connection (Serenading "The Girl in the Fireplace")We know the Doctor has a family, but does he date? That's a bit inconclusive. Putting aside the numerous individuals he's invited into his, uh… box to explore the universe, some of the strongest evidence that the Doctor might have those feelings about someone is The Girl in the Fireplace. It's a mystery, it's a horror story, and it's a history lesson, but most of all this episode is a romance. It's rightfully remembered as a classic, but is it because it dared to touch on the question of the Doctor's sexuality, or is it the expertly crafted timey-wimey pl...
2022-02-051h 37Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastGame of Shadows (Cataloging "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead")When is a shadow not a shadow? When it's in a Doctor Who story determined to reimagine a feature of ordinary life as a homicidal creature, of course. The team of Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat created their fair share of everyday monsters, and the Vashta Nerada are one of the most memorable: Sentient shadows that consume the flesh of the living. That alone makes the one-two punch of Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead memorable, and when you add in the first appearance of River Song, you have all the ingredients of a NuWho...
2022-01-291h 30Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastSafe Arbor (Cultivating "In the Forest of the Night")What do trees, the end of human civilization, and the psychological trauma of losing a family member all have in common? They're all ostensibly what In the Forest of the Night is about — one of the more epic-in-scale episodes of Peter Capaldi's first series as the Doctor. It's not well remembered, a pretty clear case study of a story's reach exceeding its grasp. But it does grasp something, and with some compelling ideas and the series regulars giving it their all, it may be time to re-examine its place in Who canon. Let's venture back into the forest, and ma...
2022-01-221h 33Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastTrouble in Store (Reopening "Closing Time")If there was ever a companion who wasn't a companion, it's Craig. He might not have ever traveled in the TARDIS, but he still somehow made his way into the Doctor's hearts — thanks in large part to the against-type performance of James Corden. Seeing him played against Matt Smith's Doctor at his most bonkers is one of the huge treats of Closing Time, the other being the return of a classic monster, the Cybermen... though that one doesn't go over nearly so well. Is the double act enough to hold this one together, or does it ultimately collapse into a...
2022-01-151h 22Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastKingdom of the Insidious Skull (Exorcising "Image of the Fendahl")An ancient evil. Misguided scientists. If you're thinking, "Oh, we simply have to get these guys together," you might be a Doctor Who writer from the '70s. But if you're going to go ahead and mix this pair of volatile ingredients, it's probably best to throw in at least one wisecracking supporting character, a few paper-mâché monsters, and some ambitious ideas about the true nature of human evolution. Put it all into a delightfully sinister horror-movie backdrop on the English countryside, and you've got Image of the Fendahl, the last stab of Tom Baker's "scary" era. It's we...
2022-01-081h 18Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastCopy That (Echoing "Midnight")When either the Doctor or his companion takes a break for an episode, you know you're in for something unusual. That's what you get with Midnight, an outing of Doctor Who that feels more like an Agatha Christie tale than the one with Agatha Christie. But beyond the mystery, what makes the episode so unexpected is the Doctor's usual toolbox of cleverness and a little bit of sonic doesn't help him one bit. It's a compelling premise, but does it work as anything other than a thought exercise? Let's just put this one on repeat…
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2021-12-251h 08Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThis Is Maggot Country (Sanitizing "The Green Death")If you were looking for a single Doctor Who serial that encapsulates virtually all of the sci-fi tropes of the '70s — giant bugs, an evil sentient computer, mind-altering crystals — it'd be hard to find one that filled the bingo card as well as The Green Death. Of course, these are the tropes before they were tropes, and you can't help but admire how the story leans into them all with satisfying confidence, even when it's grossing us out with slimy maggots. But is it a worthy send-off for Jo Grant? Better check with the BOSS…
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2021-12-111h 43Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastCreep of Faith (Divining "The God Complex")Doctor Who has a reputation for frightening its audience, but is it just as good if it creeps the hell out of them instead? That might be the most apt take on The God Complex: It's Doctor Who, but something about it is a little off, and we're not sure if we like it. An '80s hotel that seems strangely smaller on the inside, a guest cast curated to deadly perfection, and a monster that seems familiar, yet… not. The time has come for us to check into this very odd Matt Smith episode. We're sure we'll have no...
2021-11-281h 26Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastHybrid Theory (Disentangling "Hell Bent")When a show like Doctor Who starts talking about a hybrid, you can bet it's not talking about the latest Prius. Peter Capaldi's second season cooked up a perplexing mystery around this vaguely defined being with a bifurcated background, which came to a head in the series finale, "Hell Bent." The episode pays off a lot of plotlines — the return of Gallifrey and Clara's journey, primarily — but it also throws in a bunch of extras for… fun, I guess? In any case, it's nice to see Ashildr, Ohlia and the General of the War Council of Gallifrey again, not to men...
2021-11-131h 23Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastAll Thirteen (Honoring "The Day of the Doctor," with guest Alisa Stern)Is "The Day of the Doctor" a great Doctor Who episode or the greatest Doctor Who episode? It sounds like a tongue-in-cheek question, but in the case of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, we're as serious as UNIT nuclear protocols in the event of a Zygon invasion. Luckily, Pete and Chris have some help to find the answer: Alisa Stern, creator of Doctor Puppet, joins the podcast as we build toward a final verdict on the timeline-altering world-record-setting special. The Whoniverse may have changed since those time-locked events of 2013, but we're revisiting them not a Moment too soon.
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Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastMust Flee TV (Binging "The Idiot's Lantern")A TV show that turns television itself into a monster? That's got potential. But if you're waiting for "The Idiot's Lantern" to deliver on that potential, you should probably just switch the damn thing off already. Or... dial back your expectations! This may not be the ultraclever send-up of TV culture you wanted, but as a period piece set against the backdrop of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, it convinces you to have some fun cruising on mopeds and pursuing faceless people through 1953 London. Is that enough to mark it as an overlooked gem, or is this outing pure filler? Adjust...
2021-10-161h 13Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastA Little Bird Killed Me (Facing "Face the Raven")Companions come and companions go, but very few companions die. At least, death tends not to be the preferred exit from traveling with the Doctor, but it does happen, and Face the Raven is maybe the most dramatic companion death on record. It's perhaps a fitting end (but not really) to the arc of Clara Oswald, who was always more than your typical wayward-girl-who-stumbled-on-board-the-TARDIS. But does the story support the emotional weight of such an impactful moment? And what does "remember 82" mean? Let's get this bird on our brains — just as soon as we get of our chests our fi...
2021-10-041h 13Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe China Sin (Inspecting "The Talons of Weng-Chiang")Doctor Who is sometimes notable for the wrong reasons, and sometimes it's legendary for the right ones. But what about when it's both, and in the same story? That's the case for The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which is rightly praised as a true classic Doctor Who story in every sense of the word, the culmination of producer Philip Hinchcliffe's ambitious era and the peak of Tom Baker's run of gothic horror stories. It's also an example of casually racist attitudes — not just of the Victorian era where the story's set, but also of 1977, when the story was made. Given Ta...
2021-09-191h 13Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastOn Air (Inhaling "Oxygen")If you're going to make an anticapitalist statement through a Doctor Who story, you've got your work cut out for you in making it distinct enough from all the previous stories that made the same statement. Good thing, then, that Oxygen subverts the show's entire sci-fi canvas by showing us a grittily realistic outer-space scenario where the title molecule is in short supply. Add elements of zombie horror and a compelling mystery, and you almost have a Who classic in the making. Just don't get too blinded by your clever premise.
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2021-09-051h 07Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastAntimatters of the Heart (Excavating "Planet of Evil")Got antimatter? If you don't, swing by Zeta Minor on the outskirts of the known universe, and Professor Sorenson can hook you up. Never mind the invisible monster that will stalk you until you return any and all of the (oddly stable) particles that you remove from the planet — that's just the cost of doing business. It's not how this stuff is supposed to work, but if the Doctor and Sarah are going with it, why can't you? Let's book a one-way trip to the misnamed Planet of Evil to see if there's anything redeeming about this literal edge ca...
2021-08-101h 26Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe High Brain Revolution (Crystalizing "The Krotons")When you hear the words, "a Doctor Who monster created to succeed the Daleks," you know the chances of a train wreck are high. Sometimes you get something so bad it's good (hello, Mechanoids!), and sometimes you get The Krotons. The Krotons don't always attempt to influence primitive civilizations, but when they do, they're obsessed with finding high brains — which makes them a lot like today's Big Tech CEOs, just made of crystal and with a propensity to "disperse" those who don't meet the bar. They might be hard to take seriously, but at least Patrick Troughton is here to...
2021-07-301h 21Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Strange Future World of 1986 (Defrosting "The Tenth Planet")The Tenth Planet is a big deal in the Doctor Who universe — remembered for the first appearance of the Cybermen and William Hartnell's Doctor regenerating into Patrick Troughton. What it's not remembered for is its depiction of 1986, a world where space exploration is managed internationally, American generals are walking stereotypes, and the South Pole is considered a good place to store a world-destroying bomb. It's still a promising plot, but perhaps it could do with… an upgrade? Chris and Pete are here with some spare parts to help.
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2021-07-111h 17Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastA Master Class in Plastics (Repackaging "Terror of the Autons")Be sure to follow us on TikTok at @pulltoopen, and listen to this week's podcast to find out the prize for being our 1,000th follower!
We all know there's a great future in plastics, but what about the past? The Randomizer brings us back to 1970s(-ish) Britain, where the Doctor is still in exile and those pesky store-window dummies are coming to life again. But retreading the same monster as last season's premiere isn't why we remember Terror of the Autons — it's the introduction of the Master that makes the story such a landmark. Roger Delgado na...
2021-06-271h 31Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Ex Factor (Attending "School Reunion")To many, Sarah Jane Smith is the best Doctor Who companion of all time — smart, feisty, kind, and loyal to the Doctor, almost to a fault. Kind of weird, then, that the guy kicked her out of the TARDIS and left her on Earth years ago, never visiting her again. At least that's what School Reunion says happened (presumably erasing The Five Doctors with some kind of memory wipe). We'll go with it because it finally lets the series zero in on the Doctor's relationships with his closest companions, inevitably leading to a lot of feels: longing, regret, happiness, je...
2021-06-121h 00Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastSense and Sensorites (Exhausting "The Sensorites")The very first season of Doctor Who is a landmark for many reasons — the introduction of the mysterious Doctor and his granddaughter, the original story to feature the Daleks, and historical adventures involving the Aztecs and the French Revolution. The Sensorites, not so much. Still, there must be a reason the Randomizer sent Pete and Chris here — could this story about a race of telepathic weirdos with dad bods actually be a hidden gem? With some of the first references to Gallifrey's orange sky and silver trees and Ian's odd choice of turtleneck, The Sensorites can't be ignored, and migh...
2021-05-301h 28Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastA Quiet Little Genocide (Liberating "The Rescue")A crashed ship. An innocent girl. And an insectoid alien with its own hidden agenda. Naps. Yep, The Rescue packs a lot into two short episodes, not the least of which is the first "new" companion of the classic series. When William Hartnell's Doctor invites Vicki to join the TARDIS as the ostensible replacement for Susan, it's hard not to draw a parallel with where the Randomizer last took the podcast, since Mawdryn Undead had similar vibes with Turlough succeeding Adric. In this case, though, there's genuine evil afoot as well as some literally eye-popping costumes. Somebody save Pete...
2021-05-101h 17Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who Podcast2 Brigadiers 2 Furious (Exhuming "Mawdryn Undead")It has the Brigadier, a mysterious new companion, and a lot to say about regeneration — if Mawdryn Undead is anything, it's first-class fan service that's meant to appeal to longtime fans of Doctor Who. Strange, then, it's episode that long ago sparked one of our host's decades-long journey through time and space, ultimately leading to the podcast you're listening to now. Maybe that's why the randomizer took Pete and Chris here: to look at our own origins, a metaphorical "meeting of ourselves" that shorts out the time differential, leading to a massive burst of creativity and growth. Or maybe it...
2021-04-261h 33Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastPyramids, Lies, and Audiotape (Visiting "The Pyramid at the End of the World" and "The Lie of the Land")Another pyramid? Another fascist Earth? How could the same podcast happen to the same guys twice? Turns out it's not Osiran mummies or jackbooted thugs from someplace "sideways in time" — it's the Monks, and their plot to rule Earth naturally involves applying some corpse makeup just after they've parked their pyramid-shaped spaceship in a Central Asian country so remote it defies geography. But you could see how Chris and Pete could make that mistake, seeing as the Capaldi two-parter, The Pyramid at the End of the World and The Lie of the Land, revisits some well-trodden territory (and the pre...
2021-04-141h 47Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThat Fascist '70s Show (Deconstructing "Inferno")Any science-fiction show that runs long enough will inevitably have its "parallel Earth" episode. Doctor Who hit that milestone in 1970 with Inferno, an action thriller that sees the Doctor "slip sideways in time" to an Earth with a taste for fascism and clean-shaven blokes. The series' last seven-part story is fondly remembered, but does it still hold up? And more important: Is it better than Pyramids of Mars? Ignoring all safety protocols, Chris and Pete accelerate the drilling into this episode to find out.
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2021-04-021h 36Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastAre You My Mummies? (Disturbing "Pyramids of Mars")Doctor Who doesn't reference ancient Egypt often. But when it does, the result is Pyramids of Mars, cited as classic by many for its chilling villain and additions to the show's lore (like the Doctor's age and the coordinates of Gallifrey). With brutish robots disguised as mummies, a powerful evil mastermind, and Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen at the top of their game, there's much to like. But does the story really stand on its own merits, or does it over-rely on its creepy Egyptian motif, something that probably resonated more with a 1970s audience primed by "Chariots of...
2021-03-221h 19Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastDon't Listen to This Podcast (Reviving "Sleep No More")You've been warned. We're still trying to make sense of the discussion that ensued when Chris and Pete revisited Sleep No More, the only episode in Doctor Who history that tosses out the opening credits and relies entirely on "found footage" to tell the story. We searched for rational explanations for how eye boogers could turn into carnivorous monsters or sleep dust could shoot in 4K, but instead found parallels to early '90s sci-fi literature and some of the best (and only) Peter Capaldi turn-to-camera moments ever filmed. Perhaps this is all just the twisted fantasy of a...
2021-03-021h 08Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastThe Best Master Reveal of All Time (Eulogizing "Dark Water" and "Death in Heaven")We didn't want to go dark, but the TARDIS Randomizer forced our hand, bringing us to the two-part finale of Peter Capaldi's first season, Dark Water and Death in Heaven. With the return of the Cybermen and UNIT, the story already sets a high bar for itself, but the ambition keeps ticking up as the episode offers up the show's in-universe explanation for the afterlife(!) as well as the absolute best Master reveal ever. It's all quite epic, but is this really too much for family viewing? Join Pete and Chris in the box as we obsess over those...
2021-02-151h 54Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastA Little More Magna, a Little Less Carta (Abdicating "The King's Demons")After "Planet of Fire," the show bounces back to Kamelion's first and only other appearance in Doctor Who, "The King's Demons." What is it about this shapchanging robot from Xeriphas that's inspired the TARDIS Randomizer to make us take stock of Kamelion's onscreen life, but in reverse order? Regardless, Chris and Pete pull out their history books (as well as their Ahistory books) to decode drunk British history and epic hits from the Crusades, not to mention Anthony Ainley's beard. Also: Because you demanded it — we provide the definitive review of the Fifth Doctor's celery in the 13th century....
2021-01-311h 43Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastRising From the Sexy Flames (Igniting "Planet of Fire")Like a glorious bird on fire (there should really be a word for that), Pull To Open rises from the ashes of 2020 and swoops into 2021 with a new episode and a new mission: to revisit any and all episodes of Doctor Who — in random order. In our first podcast on this journey, the TARDIS Randomizer takes us to "Planet of Fire," the penultimate story of the Peter Davison era. With companions arriving, leaving, and just plain imploding, the adventure is more notable than most, particularly if you like your Master portions small and your eye candy constant. There's a go...
2021-01-161h 48
Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastInfinity Doctors (Absorbing "The Haunting of Villa Diodati," "Ascension of the Cybermen" and "The Timeless Children")Everything about Doctor Who has been changed, but was the three-part Season 12 finale truly epic? We got to experience ghosts, Cybermen, almost-Cybermen, and massively ambitious retcons, and they all added up to... something, anyway. Chris and Pete navigate the misguided character arcs of "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" and the painfully predictable plot of "Ascension of the Cybermen" to arrive at the mysterious door of "The Timeless Children." Now that the show has pulled, opened, and walked through that door, what's the view on the other side? Is everything old new again, or are Doctor Who's best days behind...
2020-03-291h 09Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastJudoon Honeymoon (Interrogating "Fugitive of the Judoon")Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who gets even more ambitious, and it... works? Fugitive of the Judoon marks a big turning point for the show and Jodie Whittaker's Doctor — plus we get to see (a noticeably older) Captain Jack again. Is this it? Has the 13th Doctor finally hit her stride? Or is it just more big promises with next to no hope of a satisfying payoff? Beware the lone Cyberman commentary that smashes into this episode at the last minute, but not a moment too... fast.
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2020-02-2145 min
Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastSpyfalling Down (Infiltrating "Spyfall" Parts 1 and 2)Doctor Who is back! And so is an old enemy, which happens to smash a certain big reset button. Chris and Pete take apart Spyfall, the two-parter that opens Series 12 of new Who, but is it truly as epic as showrunner Chris Chibnall clearly thinks it is? And what does "epic" even mean when universe-threatening stakes are the norm? Will the ambitious seeds Spyfall has planted grow into something great, or is this all just wasted effort?And what did the episode get exactly right? We should talk about it — and we do!
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2020-01-2645 min
Pull To Open: A Random Doctor Who PodcastWho Doesn't Love Christmas? (Celebrating All the Christmas Specials)In the debut episode of the Doctor Who podcast Pull to Open, hosts Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor come home for Christmas. That is, the Doctor Who Christmas specials — all 13 of them. Which were delightful holiday presents, and which were Christmas turkeys? And is it a good thing the show ditched Christmas for New Year's? Grab some eggnog and gingerbread (assuming fish fingers and custard aren't available), cue up your BritBox or Amazon Prime app, and get ready to explore the Whos of Christmas past.
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Pull To...
2019-12-301h 23
The Social Hour (Audio)Mashable's Tech Editor Pete Pachal - The future of Twitter, Instagram's Bolt, Detour for audio tours.
Amber and Sarah chat with Mashable's Pete Pachal about Twitter's big future, Instagram launches Snapchat competitor Bolt, Eaze wants to be the Uber for pot, Detour app for audio tours, and more!
Hosts: Amber MacArthur and Sarah Lane
Guest: Pete Pachal
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/social-hour.
Bandwidth for The Social Hour is provided by CacheFly.
2014-07-3153 minThe Social Hour (Video)Mashable's Tech Editor Pete Pachal - The future of Twitter, Instagram's Bolt, Detour for audio tours.
Amber and Sarah chat with Mashable's Pete Pachal about Twitter's big future, Instagram launches Snapchat competitor Bolt, Eaze wants to be the Uber for pot, Detour app for audio tours, and more!
Hosts: Amber MacArthur and Sarah Lane
Guest: Pete Pachal
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/social-hour.
Bandwidth for The Social Hour is provided by CacheFly.
2014-07-3153 min