PODCAST: The Wedding of River Song

It's at times like this, as we write the shownotes, that we think of things we forgot to discuss. And this is a biggun. We somehow got through the whole thing without mentioning The Wedding of River Song's tribute to both the character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the actor who portrayed him, the late Nicholas Courtney. We would have discussed how Matt Smith's long hair from the tribute to Elisabeth Sladen that was broadcast before The Impossible Astronaut proved that they were filming this episode at the time, which is why they didn't include a tribute to the man any earlier than this. But then we'd have gone on endlessly about whether it was a wig. It certainly seemed to be in the "wedding" scene, but that may have been a pick-up. And just from reading this, you can guess how exciting such talk would have been.

Join Joe and Chris as they discuss which is longer: a Curly-Wurly or a Peperami?

Listen to THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG

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PODCAST: Closing Time

Closing Time: every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end, probably. And so we find ourselves wasting some time in the company of Craig Owens and learning that it's nice when fathers and sons bond, which we're sure you'll agree is a theme which has been under-explored in Doctor Who this year.

Join Joe and Chris as they jam on bass and hands, go "dip-dip doo" again during the spoiler curtain and generally be unimpressed at Closing Time's approach to anyone who isn't a white man. None of that sighing, you, we genuinely wish we didn't have to do that.

Listen to CLOSING TIME

Image from SONIC BIRO

PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY

PODCAST: The God Complex

It wasn't all that complex, and it certainly wasn't God. If it turns out that God actually IS an episode of a television programme then it'll most certainly be that episode of The Colbys with the alien abduction at the end.

Toby Whithouse's third Doctor Who was a beast of two halves of unequal length, divided in a slightly ungainly fashion, and as a result has also divided audiences in a similarly ungainly fashion.

Find out the shocking truth about Joe and Chris's opinion of THAT ending and try not to be bothered by the sounds of our fidgeting.

Listen to THE GOD COMPLEX

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PODCAST: The Girl Who Waited

Here at The Eleventh Hour Podcast, we've always been fans of the way that podcast releases are staggered over the week so that if you're a fan of a show, and an avid podcast listener, there's always a new one coming out that you can listen to. The Eleventh Hour Podcast, true to its name, has tended to be geared towards the end of the week but on this occasion (for which Chris accepts full responsibility) it's much later than usual.

Mind you, since the crux of The Girl Who Waited involves Amy being trapped for an incredibly long time in a dull, joyless hell without any indication that she will ever smile again, one could say that we were merely using the podcast in a metatextual fashion in order to bring this experience to your lives. Would you buy that?

Listen, finally, to THE GIRL WHO WAITED

Image from SONIC BIRO

PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY

PODCAST: Night Terrors

Mark Gatiss takes his fourth bash at televisual Doctor Who, the same number of episodes (disregarding Time Crash, obv) Steven Moffat had written by the time it was announced he would be taking over the top role.

Gatiss takes the opportunity to tell us what little boys are made of, to tell parents that kids should watch scary telly and to return us to the kind of housing estate that was once one of the prime concerns of the RTD era and provides a largely successful, but very familiar feeling, chunk of telly.

Join Joe & Chris as they discuss why George has a dollhouse, plan a party in a hallway, question the gender of a dog and impersonate Sylvester McCoy. How could you possibly resist?

Listen to NIGHT TERRORS

Image adapted from one uploaded by SONIC BIRO

PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - End of the Road

There's a bit of End of the Road which essentially goes like this:

ESTHER

Jack, I've noticed something weird about the floor here.

JACK

That's great. Would you mind keeping it between us just for the moment?

ESTHER

I dunno, I think those CIA guys who keep threatening us and acting in a really antagonistic fashion need to know about this.

JACK

Seriously, though, please. Could you just keep quiet on this just for the moment? Cool. I'm glad we have this level of trust now we've been working together for ages, developed a rapport y'know? Seeing as how we're all on the same page and have been trying to stop the government and its agencies burying the truth and acting in sinister covert ways over the course of this truly extraordinary adventure that we've found ourselves on. At this point, you suddenly deciding to ignore me and tell the CIA about the thing I'm asking you not to would be completely bizarre and would make no sense for your character or any of our experiences thus far.

ESTHER

Hey, CIA guys - come and check out this weird floor!

But this is Miracle Day. Eighth episode and we still haven't completely abandoned ourselves to the fact that stupid crap like this is going to keep happening.

Join Joe and Chris as they navigate the eighth episode of a series that STILL feels it needs to restate its basic premise twice an episode. While you listen, why not have a go at Bat Masterson's EHPodcast Bingo?

Listen to THE END OF THE ROAD

(Available playlist on Spotify)

PODCAST: Let's Kill Hitler

Blimey. It's safe to say some of you didn't like that. Possibly so much that you caused Chris's internet to fail, we haven't been able to prove it it either way yet. So yes, old-time technical issues has caused a 'Doctor's Wife'-style emergency live recording conducted, for the first time ever, in Joe's new flat. Exciting!

There's really too much to say about the episode itself (and that was indeed one of the problems with the episode) to bother summarizing here, except to say we thought it hovered around the nebulous 'not great' to 'OK' quality range. Hopefully, the episode itself will summarise our views, and the issues many viewers had with the episode much better.

Haha, yeah, that'll happen...

Listen to LET'S KILL HITLER

(also, note that we recently released our podcast for Torchwood: Miracle Day's seventh episode "Immortal Sins", which you may have missed. Track it down, yo.)

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - Immortal Sins

You know the form by now: not much happened, everyone is stupid, "Miracle GAY more like" etc. Despite that, Immortal Sins offered the most watchable episode of Torchwood in a while, a love story between two men in the late 1920s, with an alien brain parasite in it - a classic tale if ever there was one.

Join Joe and Chris as they battle technology and WIN. And if you're here for the Doctor Who podcast, that'll be along tomorrow. Love you all! Yes, in THAT way.

Listen to IMMORTAL SINS

(Available playlist on Spotify)

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - The Middle Men

Well, fancy that, an episode of Miracle Day in which nothing much really happens. I once read a disparaging summary of Becket's 'Waiting For Godot' which read "Nothing Happens. Twice". Well, on Miracle Day nothing has now happened close to 6 times. Of course, The Eleventh Hour Podcast do not respond with such wit but instead with a characteristically lengthy discussion about pretzel nuggets.

Still, at least Ernie Hudson has finally shown up and his scene was pretty excellent, even if it could have been summarised as "what's going on with this miracle, then?" "I don't know." Except now we're to call it 'The Blessing', in accordance with the Rusty law of Mysterious Words Being Dropped Into Every Episode. We also suggest that maybe the Torchwood team should have perhaps tried searching for 'The Truth' 5 episodes ago.

Anyway, JOIN US NOWWW

(Also, listen to the available playlist on Spotify)

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - The Categories of Life

Hey, it's Joe here, returning with some more words all up in your FACE.

So, Miracle Day trundles on in the way that only Torchwood can: wildly inconsistent and with much padding. This episode of The Eleventh Hour Podcast also proceeds in what has now become an established fashion, in that we state we broadly enjoyed it and then spend half an hour pointing out its many flaws. Maybe more should have happened now we're halfway through, but the plot is definitely going to go somewhere now, right? Right?

Anyway, join us for discussion about why Oswald Danes' speech was probably written by a computer, the possible existence of pussy carts and a truly shocking revelation about clothes pegs.

WARNING: Listeners likely to be troubled by such things should note that there is a discussion about the mechanics of cremation between 14.10 and 16.45. Obviously, do feel free to skip this section.

Listen to THE CATEGORIES OF LIFE

Available playlist on Spotify

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - Escape to L.A.

Hello, y'all. Miracle Day powers on by having nothing really happen again, except for some people doing some stupid things and then getting upset about them. Still, never mind. Against all odds we remain hopeful that it's still going somewhere.

In this episode Joe records using his computer's internal mic and sounds great, Chris records in the same way as usual and his recording is all full of plosive pops, sorry about that.

Come and find out why we would say things like "woo!", "we detected unusual activity with your account" and "precious antique cans" and why Chris might say potentially insensitive things about the L.A. riots of 1992.

Listen to ESCAPE TO L.A.

Available playlist on Spotify

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - Rendition & Dead of Night

We're back. After an almost disastrously will-sapping episode 2 of Miracle Day, Jane Espenson has arrived and added enough genuine writing talent into proceedings to make us actually record an episode.

Join Joe and Chris as they turn slowly into robots, laugh at John Barrowman impressions and proclaim their love for each other before your very ears.

Listen to RENDITION & DEAD OF NIGHT

Available playlist on Spotify

TORCHWOOD PODCAST: Miracle Day - The New World

Nobody dies these days, except the previously immortal Captain Jack Harkness, probably. Jack's previously impervious nature is one of many things not adequately explained for a new audience. Still, it's early days and nobody was killed by a vagina so it's looking fairly positive as Torchwood goes. Join Joe and Chris as we take a brief look at Russell T Davies's attempt to break into America. Something he's done by crow-barring in some Welsh folks that the target audience may find indecipherable.

Despite this, we still liked it. As you will find out when you:

Listen to THE NEW WORLD

PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY

PODCAST: A Good Man Goes to War

So delayed, but for such good reasons.

Actually, tell a lie, there were good reasons for the delay of the recording, the delay of the editing and release is purely due to the laziness of one of our number, who shall remain Chris. Not much to say on this one. Enjoy our talk of nurses, jelly babies, liking tit and even more over the top laughter than usual.

And, finally, thank you for your patience.


Listen to A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR
Spotify playlist

Image from SONIC BIRO

Pimp attack!

Our buddy, listener Rook has taken it upon himself to send us both some gauntlety armbands with the DW insignia on, which is very nice of him. It transpires that he has a little Etsy shop that we said we'd stick on the blog, so here it is!

GearwingsDesigns

PODCAST: The Almost People

"Wot's that wumbely noise?"

Well we're back in the realm of W, T, and indeed F with another cliffhanger that can only be referred to as 'THAT cliffhanger'.

The reaction to this episode has been divisive, to say the very least, and this was reflected in the amount of feedback we received this week. Therefore we decided to let the episode be a little bit more feedback-focused than usual, in a way that we hope you don't find annoying.

After last week's early, slimmed down, fighting fit podcast we've reverted back to type, with a sprawling, bloated episode delivered somewhere near the eleventh hour. Expect a return to the classic series 6 theme of floundering over things that don't make sense, both intentionally and unintentionally. However, you can marvel as something new happens and we begin to reach an unexpected conclusion as the episode goes on...

Oh, and while we're here, enjoy the image we nearly chose for this update:

BUZZER'S GLOWING DONGER!

Listen to THE ALMOST PEOPLE
Spotify playlist

Images from SONIC BIRO

PODCAST: The Rebel Flesh

STOP THE PRESSES! Wow, an early episode! The Eleventh Hour Podcast may have to change its name, having slid in an episode in only the fifth or sixth hour.

The forces of technology smiled upon us this week, and yet a mild disagreement still broke out. The Rebel Flesh was an enjoyable slice of classic sci-fi, reminiscent of much older Doctor Who but how good was it, exactly? Quite? Somewhat? Rather? Also how much muff can one fit into a cliffhanger? Clearly something is going on in this episode, but we come to the rescue by using our classic defence of shrugging and disbelieving all current fan theories.

In other news Chris is all banjaxed up on the aftermath of dental surgery and Joe botches up a philosophy discussion like Botchicelli, the famously clumsy painter. Plus the mother-disrespecting events of EH? 2011 take a shocking turn. It's the most fun you can have without vomiting up a lump of meringue in a dirty monastery sink.

Listen to THE REBEL FLESH
Spotify playlist

Image adapted from one uploaded by SONIC BIRO

PODCAST: The Doctor's Wife

Was it a brilliant episode that lived up to its lofty expectations to move, amuse and scare in equal measure? Or was it a mawkish slapdash update of a beloved piece of Doctor Who mytho... I'm sorry, I can't keep this up, it was a truly amazing episode.

OR WAS IT? Prepare yourselves, listeners for a disagreement in opinion so minor it makes last year's Silurian Smackdown look like the Thrilla in Manila. A disagreement so minor that it caused the very forces of technology to again turn against us, leading either to a hasty coda being recorded live and 2 Hot 4 TV at Chris's house or an impromptu instance of teleportation, whichever you prefer.

So join us for this Frankenstein's monster of a podcast, also the first of series 6 to not feature a mass of unaswerable question, whether good or bad.

Listen to THE DOCTOR'S WIFE
Spotify playlist

Image adapted from one uploaded by SONIC BIRO

New Logo!

Last year, a fellow podcaster requested we change logo because our respective ones were too similar. They were similar as we'd both stolen the idea from the same place, although in fairness they had stolen it first. Our solution was to change the colour and throw loads of effects at it. Since that time, though, more and more podcasts are using the "insignia" design and so we've been meaning for ages to do a new one, and this is it. Hope it's not too jarring after getting used to the other one.

Also, the EHP/EH? logo will appear on all future iPod artwork. That's right - we've gone brand-aware, bitches.



It will probably affect very little, if anything, on the blog design as we aren't in a hurry to change the header (cos it took bloody ages) or anything like that, just expect to see it on some of our comments on other people's blogs, on our Twitter and on the iTunes Music Store (when it catches up).

PODCAST: The Curse of the Black Spot

Or "The Curse of the Bad Plot" as one of our listeners put it. Was it a terrible mess with explanations that made no sense or was it a clever piece of television that we will come to appreciate when it is deconstructed in a future episode?

Clue - it's not the second one

Secondary clue - it was rubbish.

LISTEN TO "THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT"
Spotify playlist

IMAGE FROM SONIC BIRO

PODCAST: Day of the Moon

Who was she, then? Do we have any clue? Of course we don't! Come and hear us flounder about like a pair of idiots in the face of the WTFiest cliffhanger this side of a mysterious island.

Hear about the Pork Horse and Yank4Cash and maybe some stuff about Doctor Who as well. We aren't really selling it in these notes, but barely anyone reads this stuff anyway!

Listen to DAY OF THE MOON!
Spotify playlist

Image adapted from one uploaded by SONIC BIRO

PODCAST: The Impossible Astronaut

The 2011 season kicks off and drops you right in it. This year, the production team of the series has decided that if you've never seen Doctor Who before, tough luck. Pay close attention and catch up or get stuffed and so we get a dizzying concoction of death, aliens, presidents and Things That Make No Sense. Very impressive. Joe and Chris are back with the shave chat, Creme Egg omelettes and a spoiler for Torchwood: Children of Earth (sorry about this, consider it a warning but it's the most famous spoiler from it so you probably know it anyway).

Some technical points: an echo of Chris's voice on Joe's track has been responsible for the slow release of this podcast. We have as much as possible tried to line the two files together to dramatically reduce the presence of this echo but at times it will make its presence felt. Hopefully it will not detract from your enjoyment. Finally, after last week's somewhat quiet Episode Zero.2, this podcast has been ENLOUDENED in a way that is entirely new to us. Let us know if you thought it was successful or if you found the results a bit too brash and fuzzy.

Listen to THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT
Spotify playlist

Image adapted from one uploaded by SONIC BIRO

To Absent Friends...

Image courtesy of Doctor Who Magazine.

PODCAST: Series 6, Episode 0

EPISODE ZERO HAS ESCAPED...

No music. No editing.

You may recall that last year, we did an Episode Zero in which we relaxed our usual spoiler policy slightly, and just talked about what we know about the upcoming series of Doctor Who unencumbered by our usual musical score or our pace-setting editing trickery.

Well, this year we're doing it again, as well as also talking about Space and Time, this year's excellent Comic Relief sketches as well as the Richard Nixon-tastic Prequel to the series. If you are spoiler wary, the biggest spoiler we address (and one which we do not, and have not tried to, know the answer to) is the one splashed all over the front of this month's Doctor Who Magazine so we doubt you would learn too much to your disadvantage.

Technical note - produced on a new computer with some different software, file may be less loud than usual. We will address this in future.

Anyway - enough of this guff. Get stuck in:

Listen to EPISODE ZERO.2


(Image from BBC Pictures, by way of Blogtor Who).

PODCAST: A Christmas Carol

Less than one entire month after the showing of "A Christmas Carol", and about two weeks since they recorded the episode, Joe and Chris are here to tell you what they thought, as well as their thoughts on some of the other Christmas specials and many other things not even close to being on topic. You will learn what Any and Rory have in common with Cassandra and Rodney from Only Fools and Horses and which Star Trek star appears in Joe's sexy, sexy dreams.

Is it Marina Sirtis? Let's find out together:

LISTEN TO "A CHRISTMAS CAROL"
Spotify playlist

Stay tuned at the end for a voicemail from Didi, an email from Ros and the trailer for popular voicemail contributors Jennie and James's own podcast My God! It's the Baggage Man!

Image from Sonic Biro.

PLUG: Have a look at the excellent Doctor Who - The Science Review