Two-minute Time Lord: A Doctor Who Podcast
Summary: Two-minute Time Lord is a commentary podcast about the BBC\'s popular family science fiction program, Doctor Who, and its spinoffs. We\'ll try to keep this context in mind as we review episodes, comment on the news of the moment, and otherwise pontificate: Doctor Who is not FOR a fortysomething podcaster. It\'s for that nine-year-old behind the sofa. But his or her mum and dad have been invited along for the ride, as are those of us who were kids when Fifth Doctor Peter Davison first picked up a cricket bat. And we\'ll keep it to two minutes (roughly), because we\'re ALL in a hurry. Except when we have interviews.
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- Artist: Chip Sudderth
Podcasts:
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?
Last month the Hugo nominees were revealed and thankfully, the controversies found in other award categories were absent in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category. Which Doctor Who-related work, including the non-episodes AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME and THE FIVE(ISH) DOCTORS REBOOT deserve the nod? And, these days, what does a Hugo really mean? (Sorry I've been away; launching The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 with Verity!'s Erika Ensign and my wife Shannon has been a bit of a distraction!)
A departure for 2MTL: why pontificate about a character when I can approach it fictionally? Here's a character study about Clara Oswald, and what might have been beneath her blurted confession in "The Time of the Doctor."
Eight years ago we saw a new side to the Doctor and his companion, who reached stratospheric levels of self-satisfaction. Was Queen Victoria right about what awful people they were? Are a smug Doctor and Rose worse than, say, a Doctor trying to brain a caveman or strangle a companion?
We made it through the Matt Smith era without the return of the Doctor's arch-nemesis, the Master. A couple of weeks ago, the rumors started to circulate. Is he back to face Peter Capaldi? And should he wear a new face?
In this Time-Dialated, Gallifrey One-facilitated interview show, two popular media observers with impeccable DOCTOR WHO credentials — Yer Actual Keith Telly Topping and The Incomparable's Jason Snell — help me look outside the fishbowl to see just how well our favorite television series is doing in the wider world of SF fans and TV viewers.
