OK, you've got us — not all 100 stories were randomly picked. That's because when we were but a wee newborn Doctor Who podcast, we weren't random. Series 12 was underway and, after reviewing every single Christmas episode, we zeroed in on the current season. But that was predictable, common, perhaps even a little basic. Pull To Open needed something more.

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The Pull To Open Hot 100

Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Instantaneous teleportation between any two points on Earth? Sounds pretty convenient — so convenient that it might lead to a stagnant society ripe for conquest by the next passing alien force. Yes, The Seeds of Death tees up the planet quite nicely for the Ice Warriors, but it’s hard to close the deal when your troops faint when they get close to a radiator, your diabolical bioweapon fizzles the moment it starts to rain, and your space fleet is being steered by Mr. Magoo. Sure, it doesn’t take a genius to see that Earth got way too complacent, but what’s your excuse, Mars?

Commentary for The Seeds of Death begins at 28:30.

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Story Essentials

Pull To Open: The Seeds of Death

Hosts: ⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Plenty of casual viewers of Doctor Who have been hooked into becoming fans because of the cold opens. Well, we don’t have stats or anything, but that feels true — because there are just so damn many great ones in the show that have gotten viewers to cancel plans, skip trips to the bathroom, or leave something burning on the stove because you just have to watch. A good cold open doesn’t necessarily mean a good episode will result, but it doesn’t hurt.

So what makes a good cold open? It should be short, for starters. Brevity counts for a lot. Like any good scene, it should tell a little story, introducing interesting characters in unusual situations. Then, something unexpected should happen, which of course leads to the key ingredient: the hook. The thing that wraps your attention around the episode like a string around a finger.

Although cold opens didn’t originate with the new series, they’ve become a staple of it, and it’s fair to say NuWho has perfected the format. There have been so many memorable ones, but there is one Doctor who has a disproportionate number of the best. Join us on our countdown of the 10 best cold opens in Doctor Who — with a few honorable mentions — to find out… Doctor Who?

The Top 10 list begins at 38:19.

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Pull To Open: The 10 Best Cold Opens in Doctor Who

Hosts: ⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

What exactly is the Doctor’s attitude towards changing history? With all the pure historicals of the era, William Hartnell’s Doctor actually has a lot to say about this. While The Aztecs makes clear his reluctance to interfere in history, The Myth Makers shows his bemusement at becoming a part of it — and his regret at seeing the consequences of that participation. It’s a surprisingly mature takeaway from an otherwise lighter take on the Trojan War, one that at times rivals The Romans for moments of comedy. Even when they’re being tortured, everyone looks like they’re having fun — so much so that Vicki stays behind. That’s really committing to the bit.

Commentary for The Myth Makers begins at 28:42.

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Seriously, please review Pull To Open on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠? What are you waiting for?

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Story Essentials

Pull To Open: The Myth Makers

Hosts: ⁠Pete Pachal⁠ and ⁠Chris Taylor⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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 contrary, by putting its ’60s spy movie plot in a backdrop “the day after tomorrow,” you get the thrills of an action yarn with all the more reason to comfortably suspend your disbelief. For a few episodes, anyway.

Commentary for The Ambassadors of Death begins at 28:33.

Hold on a second. You mean you haven't reviewed Pull To Open on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠? What are you waiting for?

The Big Finish Pete was rambling about: Dust Breeding https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-dust-breeding-646

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Story Essentials

Pull To Open: The Ambassadors of Death

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠⁠

An intelligent cactus? A society that worships a giant 12-sided shape? Barbara, but not Barbara? You don’t have to get very far into Meglos to begin to feel this story is the result of a drunken session of Doctor Who mad libs, complete with its own game show segment: How Do Time Lords Get Out of a Time Loop? One thing you can’t take away from Megos — it thoroughly and completely goes for it, and Tom Baker’s double act as both the Doctor and his prickly doppelganger provides a nice throughline for the whole affair. It’s all great fun… until someone loses a dodecahedron.

Special guest Mark Cockram from the All of Time and Space podcast joins! Follow them on X at @MarkCockram (AKA The Human Palindrome) and @TimeNSpacePod.

Commentary for Meglos begins at 19:29.

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Pull To Open: Meglos

Hosts: ⁠Pete Pachal⁠ and ⁠Chris Taylor⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠

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 things. But do the smart characters and whodunnit plot rise above the debatable morality play? At the end of the day, does Kerblam!... deliver? 

Commentary for Kerblam! begins at 23:58.

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Pull To Open: Kerblam!

Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠

It’s not a good idea to bet against the Doctor. There are lots of lessons learned in Doctor Who’s second “pure” historical, The Aztecs, but the folly going against the instructions of the curmudgeon with the time ship is probably the biggest. Of course, Barbara’s attempts to rewrite history by softening the more barbaric instincts of the eponymous civilization are what gives this particular story its weighty drama, so we’ll forgive her for not getting the memo. But the true lesson of this serial is up for debate: Is it the best historical of the entire series? And if so, what does that say about the other 59 years of the franchise?

Commentary for The Aztecs begins at 20:34.

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Story Essentials

Pull To Open: The Aztecs

Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠

Two full seasons in, Doctor Who finally gave viewers a hint of where its mysterious main character came from in The Time Meddler, a story that introduced the Doctor’s first time-traveling rival, the Monk. If the War Chief was a Master prototype, the Monk is the concept phase — the Doctor’s ideological opposite at a time long before the character became a righter of wrongs on a cosmological scale. Sure, the Monk is simply mischievous, but the fact that he’s morally closer to the Doctor than later villains helps define the lines around the Doctor himself. That’s a sign the show is full of confidence, so why not flaunt it by painting the faces of the regular cast among the stars?

Commentary for The Time Meddler begins at 17:08.

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Story Essentials

Pull To Open: The Time Meddler

Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠

When 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 are essential for NuWho fans.

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Pull To Open: The 5 Best Classic Doctor Who Stories for NuWho Fans

Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠Pete Pachal⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Chris Taylor⁠⁠⁠

Music: Martin West/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thinking Fish⁠⁠⁠