The Podcasts of Death
It’s the fiftieth anniversary year of Doctor Who, and podcasts are springing up like… um… things that… I’ll get back to you. I’m having a bad day for similies.
Anyhow, podcasts are tricky things. I find I prefer them when there’s at least:
- Someone who I agree with in general
- Someone who I don’t agree with, but who argues their points well
- Someone who’s funny
These can overlap, of course. You might even find 1 and 2 in the same person. Anyway, here’s three of them that you may find worthy of your attention.
Verity
This was the first one I happened across. Six fans from across the globe meet up to discuss the show. They’re very amusing ladies, though sadly when it came to the recent series, none of them agreed with me on how irritating it was. This isn’t a dealbreaker, however.
They’re running through the show backwards, Doctor by Doctor, and talking about the episode that they find most “representative” of that era. This doesn’t interest me as much as I thought it would. In the end, talking about which Who episode is the most like the ones around it gets a bit dull. I’d much rather they were either talking about their best episodes, or even better, talking about the era as a whole without the hassle of having to talk about one episode.1
But: they’re still a lot of fun and your mileage may vary. And one of them reckons that the Doctor is banging his companions. I have lived a sheltered life and never encountered anyone who seriously thought this before, so I found this informative and amusing.
Doctor Who: The Writers’ Room
Don’t be put off by the awful, awful episode artwork. I mean, I am, but you shouldn’t be. Oh god, my eyes. That font! Podcast art is supposed to be square! Argh!
Anyway. If you can get past that, Erik and Kyle are excellent. They’re going writer-by-writer instead of Doctor-by-Doctor, which I find leads to much more focussed discussion. This is probably more for the hardcore Who nerd, but if that’s you, it’s great and a lot more in-depth than the rest.
I mean, not as in-depth as the TARDIS Eruditorum, but that’s pretty much the gold standard for “in-depth”.
Splendid Chaps
This one is my favourite. An Australian podcast by Ben McKenzie and John Richards, this involves monthly episodes with guest panellists discussing each Doctor and a general theme in Who, like comedy, or family. So far, this has led to some really excellent and hilarious discussions. There won’t be too many of these (unless they’re unexpectedly covering all the Doctors from ‘The Curse of Fatal Death’), so it’s not a huge commitment.
You’ll also find out which minor Australian celebrities are Doctor Who fans! So that’s… potentially interesting.
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The way they pick the episodes is to pick them out of a hat. Even when 5 out of 6 people agree on the episode to talk about, there’s still a hat involved. Just talk about the one you almost all agree on! This irritated me a bit too. A little bit. Not a lot. ↩
