In the second of three podcasts this week, we continue our in-depth retrospective of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, which will be coming to a close on Christmas day with the final Peter Capaldi adventure, “Twice Upon a Time.” This conversation was so large, we decided to split it into two parts. On today’s episode, we count down all 39 Doctor Who stories written by Steven Moffat, from “The Empty Child” in 2005 to “The Doctor Falls” in 2017. We celebrate every high, scour every low, and occasionally recalibrate rankings on the fly because lists are a silly and inexact silence. If you missed Part 1 of this conversation, where we take a broader view on the era as a whole, make sure to check out Episode 217.

Enjoy, and come back Wednesday for our fifth monthly Classic Doctor Who bonus podcast!

(There will be non-Doctor Who topics next week. We promise.)

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

In the first of three podcasts this week – yes, we’re crazy – we discuss a week’s worth of movie and gaming news, including all the announcements out of the Game Awards, before diving into a long-promised topic: Our in-depth retrospective of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, which will be coming to a close on Christmas day with the final Peter Capaldi adventure, “Twice Upon a Time.” This conversation was so large, we decided to split it into two parts. On today’s episode, we talk about the Moffat era as a whole, from the debut of “The Eleventh Hour” way back in 2010 to the most recent episodes we covered this year. We reminisce about covering the show in such depth throughout the decade, discuss which writers we loved most from the era, how the show evolved so much across six seasons and two Doctors, and more. And in part 2 of that conversation, which we’ll be releasing tomorrow as Episode #218, we rank all 39 Doctor Who stories written by Steven Moffat.

Enjoy, and come back tomorrow for Part 2 of this conversation, and on Wednesday for our fifth monthly Classic Doctor Who bonus podcast!

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

We kick off the last month of this very busy year with a grab-bag style episode in which we review three games, discuss some recent news, swap Thanksgiving stories, and go off on a very long Doctor Who tangent. Before diving into our main topics, we talk about some recent movies and Sean shares his thoughts on recent episode of Dragon Ball Super, while we both gush over the new Avengers: Infinity War trailer and scratch our heads at some crazy news in the entertainment industry. For our main reviews, Jonathan gives his impressions on the first 7 or 8 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and explains why there won’t be any second impressions; Sean returns to Nioh with some final thoughts on the Samurai action game; and Jonathan reviews Assassin’s Creed Origins, a beautiful game that is perhaps too big for its own good.

Enjoy, and come back next week for our long-awaited Steven Moffat-era Doctor Who retrospective!

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

It’s time for another monthly bonus episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, episodes where we will be discussing serials from classic Doctor Who history.

Today, we enter perhaps the most iconic era of Doctor Who, meeting the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, for one of his era’s quintessential Gothic Horror stories, “The Brain of Morbius.” Written by Robert Holmes, perhaps the greatest writer in the history of the show, “Morbius” is emblematic of the Fourth Doctor’s first three seasons, produced by Philip Hinchcliffe with Holmes serving as Script Edtior, and one of the most creative and atmospheric stories in the show’s history. Featuring the series’ most iconic companion, Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen), a terrific villain (Philip Madoc as Doctor Solon), and the wonderfully bizarre Sisterhood of Karn, “The Brain of Morbius” is a true classic, and a great entry point for enjoying the Fourth Doctor’s iconic tenure.

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The headline topic this week is DC’s disastrously boring Justice League movie, an incomprehensible, empty shell of a movie we spend over an hour of today’s show discussing in spoiler-rich detail. Suffice it to say, the film feels like the nail in the coffin for DC’s ‘shared universe’ film plans, which we’ve been covering on the show for years. But we also discuss two of the week’s big game releases – Skyrim on the Nintendo Switch and Pokemon Ultra Sun for the 3DS – and cover some major news items, including the ongoing debacle over EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II lootbox controversy, and the passing of beloved Japanese voice actress Hiromi Tsuru, who voiced Bulma in Dragon Ball for over 30 years.

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Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

In the second episode of the week, we offer a slate of reviews for recent games, giving final thoughts on Wolfenstein II and Super Mario Odyssey, while Sean waxes poetic about the magic of Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone on the PS4 and Jonathan discusses the hollow shell of Sonic Forces. But for the main event, we dive into Thor Ragnarok, one of the very best Marvel films to date, devoting a full hour to discussing all the wonderful characters, colorful visuals, and surprisingly poignant themes of this excellent superhero adventure.

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

It’s the first episode of a two-podcast week, as some unforeseen craziness in Sean’s life left us taking last week off. So we’ve split this week’s topics into two episodes. First, in today’s podcast, we cover two weeks’ worth of news, from PlayStation’s big event in Paris, to Universal bailing on their Dark Universe after just one movie, to Amazon potentially making a Lord of the Rings series, to Doctor Who revealing Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor costume. But we also spend the first hour diving deep into the flood of sexual harassment and assault allegations that have consumed the entertainment, media, and political spheres these past few weeks, listing every story we could find, and striving to comprehend what this moment means for our culture and society going forward.

Enjoy, and join us again Thursday for our second show of the week, where we’ll review Thor Ragnarok, give more thoughts on Super Mario Odyssey and Wolfenstein II, review Sonic Forces, and more!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

This week saw some of the biggest video game releases of the year, and we review two of them on today’s show, with Jonathan diving into the wonders of Super Mario Odyssey and Sean throwing hatchets at Nazi heads with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Both reviews are more or less spoiler-free, unless you want to go in completely cold. Before those big topics, though, we also cover a week’s worth of news, including a big cast announcement for the next season of Doctor Who, a bizarre Sonic Forces demo, and a follow-up to our thoughts on last week’s news about Visceral and EA.

Enjoy!

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Today, we dive into the incredible and singular run of the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, with the wild, wacky, and wonderful 1971 serial “The Daemons,” by Barry Letts and Robert Sloman (writing under the joint pseudonym “Guy Leopold”). The last serial in the season that introduced Roger Delgado’s iconic Master, and featured him in every one of the year’s stories, “The Daemons” closes Season 8 on an action-packed high note, with one of the most thrilling, creative, and straight-up entertaining stories Doctor Who would ever tell. And it features the entire Third Doctor gang, including companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning), Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), and UNIT soldiers Sergeant Benton (John Levene) and Captain Mike Yates (Richard Frankling). In addition to “The Daemons,” we also talk about the entire Third Doctor era up to that point, and all the ways it distinguishes itself from other periods in the show’s history. If you haven’t been following along yet, this is a great place to start.

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

We have two game reviews and a big piece of gaming news on this week’s show, as we await a flood of film and game releases over the next few weeks. First, we talk a silly Star Wars title reveal and an amazing second trailer for Black Panther, before diving into EA’s closure of Visceral and the ‘redevelopment’ of their long-in-the-making Star Wars game, all of which is perhaps one of the most surprising industry developments in years. And for our reviews, Jonathan talks this week’s Fire Emblem Warriors for the Nintendo Switch, while Sean takes a belated look at the samurai action game Nioh on the PS4. Both are excellent games well worth your time.

Enjoy, and come back Wednesday for our third monthly classic Doctor Who bonus podcast, on the Third Doctor story “The Daemons.”

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Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter!

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman