Our show is dedicated to in-depth discussion about the Doctor Who universe: show and cast commentary, filming locations, rumors, tie-in video games/other products, spin-off series and more.

Three of our regular hosts from around the globe are back on this episode. Hypable’s regular Doctor Who writer, Laura Byrne-Cristiano leads the discussion with Jen Lamoreux joining in.

-We start off by giving our instant thumbs up, down, or sideways reaction to the episode, and for the first time since we started the podcast, we pan an episode. It’s a thumbs down for both of us. There are some things we liked, but at the end of the day we were left with an empty feeling and disappointment at missed opportunity.

-Next we get into the specifics of the episode

Episode discussion

-Did we like the concept of a submarine in 1983 being in danger from an Ice Warrior? Did that concept execute well why or why not? In general, we have to give kudos to the following:

Overall was this a concept we were looking forward to?

Why was there no hint of a Russian accent, and did this work?

The homages to 1983, were they well done?

Was the CGI and the setting up to par?

Was the acting on the part of Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, and Liam Cunningham seamless?

-So where was our problem if we liked the above

Writing issues such as no back story on the characters so we didn’t care about their fate

Lots of filler but where was this going

Soldier disobeying and order on a sub?

Doctor slow to act on fire arm and quick to come up with blow them all up as an option

The translation plot hole from last week resurfaces this week

-Online reaction, like last week, no middle ground. Quotes from some fans.

-How do we see the role of Clara developing?

The concept of the apprentice adventurer.

Which former companion does she most resemble.

What are her defining motivations?

We like that she doesn’t do the reckless or the overly clingy thing

-The Ice Warrior

The updated look and what we thought of it

A retrospective on the Ice Warriors

Why didn’t we get more back story on the Doctor’s previous encounters? Was it understood that the Doctor had positive Ice Warrior encounters in the past

We have writing issues here too with not enough information conveyed

-Mark Gatiss’ history with Doctor Who

As an actor

As a writer

Why did his past stories work for us and where did we think this one fell short

-Things to keep in mind, but we don’t know what they mean: Hungry Like the Wolf (Bad Wolf foreshadowing we assume) , Rose shaped lollipops, and Barbie

News

-50th Anniversary: Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann speak out

-Should there be representation more than a scarf?

-Filming in The Tower of London and Trafalgar Square and the BBC’s new PR tactic and why we think it’s good.

Mail Bag

-Clara’s fears and is she two people, three people, or one person

-Is Clara evil? A tie-in to a popular Tumblr theory.

-What will we cover with retrospectives and classic Doctor Who

Three of our regular hosts from around the globe are back on this episode. Hypable’s regular Doctor Who writer, Laura Byrne-Cristiano leads the discussion with Natalie Fisher, and Tariq Herzallah joining in.

-We start off by giving our instant thumbs up, down, or sideways reaction to the episode, and we are leaning favorably. We are pretty positive on the episode, though there are some glaring canon problems. We felt the pace was very good, and it’s certainly more of an episode that kids will appreciate. We also felt the BBC has come a long way in their alien creation.

-Next we get into the specifics of the episode

Episode discussion

-How the space station concept compares to other episodes of a similar nature. Think space whales and “moisturize me”.

-Clearing up the human sacrifice thing.

-Kudos to the BBC for casting a child who could sing, act, and who wasn’t annoying.

-Natalie especially liked Murry Gold’s music. How did we like the music.

-Problems with canon and plot holes

Why is the Doctor overly giddy about aliens?

Why are they barking at aliens? Hello lack of TARDIS translation?

Clara and the sonic, why wasn’t she looking for a quick burger and fries?

-The Doctor

Did his speech make you cry?

Was there ever a doubt he wouldn’t help? Is he getting tired of helping.

Stalking of Clara’s timeline.

-Clara’s mum and mystery

The leaf is Clara’s parent’s history. it’s absorbed the energy of what was and what might have been..

Clara’s biggest fear is being lost. That’s interesting in light of last week’s episode.

Clara’s mother’s words, look out OUAT crossover. Is this massive foreshadowing.

She looks a little like Sally Sparrow’s friend.

“Oh my stars!” Have they been watching too much Bewitched?

Clara’s mother’s maiden name and timeline. How to those dates tie into existing canon.

What we noticed about the ring.

What are the Summer Falls implications?

-Back on earth

How do we like Clara telling the doctor off

Does he need her more than she needs him?

-News

Joanna Page and John Hurt in 50th Anniversary

Zygons are back

We’re getting impatient on the lack of details on the 50th anniversary convention in London because we want to go!

Eccleston out 50th anniversary and the BBC issues a statement. Subliminal message here? Why no Barrowman official message

-Spoilers

We cover the 50th anniversary filming and respond to fan questions about last week’s spoiler discussion on episode titles.

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Our show is dedicated to in-depth discussion about the Doctor Who universe: show and cast commentary, filming locations, rumors, tie-in video games/other products, spin-off series and more.

Three of our regular hosts from around the globe are back on this episode. Hypable’s regular Doctor Who writer, Laura Byrne-Cristiano leads the discussion with Jen Lamoreux, Natalie Fisher, and Tariq Herzallah joining in.

Shownotes:

We start off by giving our instant thumbs up, down, or sideways reaction to the episode, and we are leaning favorably. We didn’t love it, but we didn’t hate it. We also clear up some fandom confusion in regards to how these things are numbered.

Next, we get into the specifics of the episode:

So the Doctor’s been hanging with monks? How this connects to the prequel.

Clara is the “Woman Twice Dead”

-Is this version of Clara the baseline?

-She’s 24 and has no computer skills? Really? Tariq explains plausibility.

-Who is the mystery woman in the shop who gave out the phone number?

-So her mind was uploaded and upgraded shades of Cybermen and Silence in the Library.

-How does this work exactly? Is the Doctor overly focused on just saving Clara? What about the rest of humanity?

-The Doctor explores Clara’s room and finds missing numbers and licks leaves.

-Do we think Clara remembers the Doctor from her childhood?

Amelia Williams wrote the book Summer Falls

-Surely this is not a coincidence

-Summer Falls is the title and it seems like a mighty old book. How did Clara get it?

-Important quote, “The 11th will make you cry.”

-Tariq stumbles upon the real Summer Falls book and description and now we are really curious.

-Could the cover art be significant?

-Define falls: fall of the 11th, fall leaves, a fall from grace, a literal fall, fall from power, etc.

Winter theme seems to be developing and how it’s linked to The Great Intelligence. What exactly is the ultimate goal or even the beginning goals of The Great Intelligence?

Red theme, is it just our imagination?

We cover the latest news:

Recap of Doctor Who connected TV/movies in the fall/winter of 2013

David Tennant and Billie Piper are onboard for the 50th anniversary special.

John Barrowman no longer involved, is this a good thing? What do we think happened?

Spoiler:

We cover what is widely speculated to be the title of the 13th and final episode of series seven

As we say in the show, our listeners are the most important thing to us. We want you hear from you.

You can contribute to the next episode of the podcast by commenting on this post, emailing [email protected] or tweeting us @whohype

-Since we are in between episodes, we feature current news, predictions, and how we think Steven Moffat is doing.

-For current news we cover:

How we started a Doctor Who viral story

Mark Gatiss progress on the docudrama

Steven Moffat on giving up his Twitter and the TARDIS redesign

The Great Intelligence

Rumors on appearances by all 11 Doctors

- Moving along we talk about Moffat himself

What is the greatest asset he brings to the franchise

What are his weak points

Overall is he more of a pro than a con

As we say in the show, our listeners are the most important thing to us. We want you hear from you.

- After a brief summary, we kick off our episode with out instant thumbs up or thumbs down reaction to the episode. It's a thumbs up for all of us, but we do have some reservations regarding romance and redecorating.

-Next we get into the episode itself

- We share our favorite quotes.

- We talk about our favorite Christmas episodes and how The Snowmen ranks.

- Now for some of our reservations:

- What in the world is up with the romance? Has the Doctor forgotten all about River? Is the attraction one-sided or reciprocated? Is it all a Moffat ruse?

- We have new title sequence that we generally like, but when it comes to the redesigned TARDIS...not so much. Our hosts are split about potentially learning to love it or not.

- We love everything about Clara, and are pretty stunned that we all love her so much so quickly. In fact, it almost makes us want to forget about the romance reservations, but not quite.

- Having a full episode of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax was terrific. We can't get enough of these three, but how is Strax alive? We want a detailed explanation.

- Both Richard E. Grant and Ian McKellen were superb as the villains, but was Ian McKellen underutilized. Actually, maybe Sir Ian will be back given he is the voice of the Great Intelligence.

- What exactly is the Great Intelligence in Whovian history, and does it possibly connect to the Mark Gatiss episode?

- Moving along we try out some of our crack theories on who Clara is, how she is alive, and why she and the Doctor are attracted to each other

-  We next hop into our mailbag and discuss listener reaction.

-We decide to try and track down what we can about the Great Intelligence and see if any of those episodes are anywhere to be found. We want to watch and discuss. (Note: as of today it seems that most of the Great Intelligence episodes were accidentally thrown out by the BBC when they went on this shortsighted cleaning binge in the late 1970s )Our next episode will about the Great Intelligence and how we think it may tie in.

-Lastly, we are planning on some guests joining in the podcast. They are authors who are Whovians. We want to get some more episodes out before April.

- We kick off our episode talking about what fandoms we've been following while we wait for our new Doctor Who fix.

-Next we tackle the latest in Doctor Who Christmas episode news

- How do we feel about the Doctor potentially being Scrooge?

- Vastra, Jenny, and Strax are back. We love these characters and why we think they add depth to the canon.

- Ian McKellen is lending his voice to the snowmen, how cool is that, and why no one being above doing Doctor Who is such a great British commodity.

- Hello chemistry! Given what we have seen so far what do we think of Clara and Jenna-Louise Coleman.

- Moving into our general news section we talk

- The first half of the season DVD extras. Is Donna Von Carlson significant? We blow Selina's mind on the Torchwood anagram.

- Neil Gaiman is doing a cybermen script that was lost and found. Could we love Neil Gaiman any more, and what do we want from that episode.

- 50th Anniversary,  looks like Tennant and Eccelston are on-board, at least we think so reading between the lines. Is anyone actually surprised?

- There's a new TARDIS look (note the episode was recorded just prior to the reveal of the entire image) what do we think of the new blue color motif?

- Now that we have had time to digest, in retrospect what did we think of the episodes earlier this year?

- We still don't get why the Doctor can't ever see Rory and Amy again when River can.

- Which of the fall episodes are our favorites.

- How does the Rory and Amy departure rank among other companion departures?

- We had a wild ride with Doctor Who in the finals of Hypable's first ever Battleships. We plot how we are going to take it all the next time.

- To wrap it up, what Whovian loot do we want under our Christmas trees this year?

- This episode we decided to do it a little differently and stick to the episode itself. We are saving a news discussion, spoilers, and mailbag for next week because we have so much episode specific ground to cover.

- After a brief recap, we start out with our instantaneous, gut reactions to the episode and we all agree it was emotionally gut wrenching, but we have a few problems such as why the Doctor couldn't see Amy and Rory in say Philadelphia in 1947, or why we didn't get to see Amy and Rory's reaction at being reunited and knowing they'd never see the Doctor again.

- Next we proceed with discussing our favorite:

- quotes from the episode

- emotional moment in this episode

- companion departure episode of all time

-We proceed with an in-depth discussion of of many questions:

- Two theories on timelines: when and where are Rory and Amy past, present, and future

- Who tells Brian and what do they tell him?

- Is April 3, 1938 significant in the future

- What will be the end of the Ponds and will the Doctor have to tell Brian bad news?

- He has a time machine, can't he solve this down the line?

- Since when are the angels also metal statues

- What is the current nature of the Doctor's and River's relationship? Are they mutually in love?

- Where did River get that vortex manipulator and is her timeline ending?

- Moving into our New York specific section

- Why a quay is a bit distracting and the geography doesn't quite work out

- Bizarre traveling on the weirdest paths ever...TWICE!

- We start out with our instantaneous, gut reactions to the episode and for the most part we like the episode despite the defeat of the Shakri seeming a bit rushed

- Next we proceed with discussing our favorite quotes from the episode

-After a brief plot summary we proceed with an in-depth discussion of:

- The comedy of the childish Doctor

- U.N.I.T. and it's transformation to science. Is it the new Torchwood?

- Timelines again, but this time be think we have it about 90 % nailed down

- What will be the end of the Ponds and will the Doctor have to tell Brian bad news?

- Moving into our news we discuss

- Peter Jackson possibly directing an episode and do we think this plausible

- The unwritten rule that the Doctor and companion shouldn't see each other romantically in real life

- Our spoilers cover:

- implications on what happens to the TARDIS during the Angels Take Manhattan episode

- Back from our spoilers we dive into our mailbag clarifying how people and Timelords age in Doctor Who and what we think of the every changing title sequences.

- We start out with our instantaneous, gut reactions to the episode and we are a three thumbs up with some minor reservations

- Speaking of our minor reservations, we proceed with discussing our favorite quotes from the episode and perhaps that there were too many of them

-After a brief plot summary we proceed with an in-depth discussion of

- The theme of the unforgivable crime, is Jax worse than others we've met?

- FORESHADOWING and about Amy and motherhood. Could it be any more obvious, but what does it all mean?

- Timelines: so when are we exactly? Our brain's hurt, and it's Steven Moffat's fault

- Someone call an electrician because things seem to be shorting out everywhere

-Next we talk about the news outside of the episode

- TV Awards Wins for Doctor Who

- Fun facts: Matt rides, Karen drowns, Jenna is short

- Steven Moffat deletes his Twitter account: good thing or bad thing

- Amy and Rory weaning off the doctor

In our spoiler section we talk a bit about how how upcoming guest are connected to the past, and we explore a crack theory on Oswin Oswald

Back from our spoiler section we dive into our mail bag where timelines come up again and Laura gets a surprise.

- We start out with our instantaneous, gut reactions to the episode and it's a mixed bag for us. We all generally enjoyed the episode, but not all of us were 100% satisfied

- Next we proceed with discussing our favorite quotes from the episode

-After a brief plot summary we proceed with an in-depth discussion of

- Our favorite dinosaurs

- This week's main guest star, Mark Williams as Rory’s dad

and how he compare to other parental figures in the series, and what we thought of the father/son relationship

- How do Queen Nefertiti and Ridell rank among our historic figures?

- David Bradley also a Harry Potter alum plays the villain just how evil is he and were the Doctor's actions towards him justified?

- Harri and Natalie help American fans understand the in-jokes behind the robots

- Recap on Silurians where have we seen this race before

- Amy and Rory weaning off the doctor