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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Pull To Open: The Green Death

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 trouble leaving.

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Pull To Open: The God Complex

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 mention the classic TARDIS console room. But about that hybrid, uh, we have questions….

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Story Essentials: Hell Bent

Series 9, Episode 12

Pull To Open: Hell Bent

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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: The Day of the Doctor

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 your rabbit ears, make sure you're sitting comfortably, and we'll begin.

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Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 first reactions to the news that Russell T. Davies is returning to Doctor Who.

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Pull To Open: Face the Raven

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 Talons' many facets, what's a 21st century Whovian to make of it? Don your headphones and grab your deerstalker — the game's afoot in this pod.

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Pull To Open: The Talons of Weng-Chiang 

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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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Pull To Open: Oxygen

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

Even Time Lords need time off. After you've saved all of reality for the 117th time, it's refreshing to kick back and simply make sure the politics of a remote colony don't go off the rails, especially if you can do it with robots. But if a baddie should rise to resist you, at least make sure he's delightfully entertaining, with oodles of scenery to chew on. If you think about it, you couldn't order up a better holiday for the Doctor, Romana and K-9 in The Androids of Tara, but is this mid-Key to Time romp through the countryside a little too "lite" to be memorable? We'll decide after we've filled our goblets one more time.

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Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada

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 case of the universe. That is, beyond the outstandingly creepy jungle set.

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Pull To Open: Planet of Evil

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Outro music: Chronos by Alexander Nakarada