Doctor Who talk with side roads.
Strangers in Space treats Doctor Who as home base, then wanders freely into horror films, old science fiction, albums, polls, anniversaries, and daft thought experiments. The appeal is the table-talk chemistry: quick corrections, dry jokes, and detailed verdicts built from specific scenes and memories.
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Strangers in Space is a panel conversation show built around Doctor Who, film, music, politics, and the pop culture that tends to orbit those obsessions. It does not present itself as a polished lecture. The energy is closer to sharp friends trying to get a topic started while someone else is still making a joke. Doctor Who remains the main reference point, especially in episodes on Sarah Jane Adventures, Ninth Doctor stories, and the recovered parts of The Daleks' Master Plan. The show also has a wide sideline in genre cinema. Film Club episodes move from Triangle and Christopher Smith's horror run to 1951 science-fiction landmarks and werewolf films connected by Hammer, childhood memory, and performance debate. The criticism is usually specific. A scene's pacing, an actor's range, a restoration choice, a sound mix, or the shape of a story can become the hinge for the whole discussion. The panel can be dry about things it dislikes. It is not detached, though. Even when the verdict is negative, the argument tends to come from close attention rather than easy sneering. Music Club adds another lane, applying the same conversational pressure to an album like On The Hill by DRASS, with talk of samples, alien voices, connection, and repeated listening. The show likes comparisons. Stephen Moffat, British horror, old television broadcasts, mono soundtracks, and 1980s viewing memories all get used as ways to clarify a point. There is also a taste for deliberately silly premises, including asking Google's AI assistant to guess Donald Trump's favorite Doctor Who story. That triviality is part of the texture. The panel knows when an idea is absurd and often treats that as the point. What keeps it from becoming shapeless is the habit of returning to concrete judgment. Did the story earn its payoff? Did the performance offer more than presence? Did restoration improve what was actually available? Did the album connect enough to deserve another listen? Strangers in Space suits listeners who enjoy fandom as an argument rather than a shrine. It is affectionate, restless, and often funny, with enough mess in the conversation to make the opinions feel lived-in.
Made for: For Doctor Who fans who also like old science fiction, British horror, films, music chatter, politics, and panel debate that is more pub-table than podium. It especially suits listeners who enjoy criticism that can be affectionate and skeptical in the same breath.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by letting fan discussion stay conversational without losing critical detail. Its best moments come from the collision of banter, memory, technical curiosity, and scene-level argument.
Broader and deeper than Doctor Who...Back in the early months of 2012 we started life as the Blue Box Podcast, a small team of three (then four, then five...) people podcasting our thoughts on Doctor Who, in the classic style of a bunch of friends the microphones were just accidentally eavesdropping on during a conversation in the pub. Over a decade later, the team has expanded and so has the remit; nowadays we publish episodes approximately three times a week, and the discussion has moved on to include any number of subjects that Doctor Who fans might find themselves chatting about during the aforementioned informal gatherings. So alongside our main subject, you’ll find us talking about fil…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Strangers in Space pairs detailed Doctor Who analysis with candid film arguments that make disagreement more illuminating than a settled verdict.
Strangers in Space makes criticism sound like an argument still being worked out. JR, John, Matt and Steve challenge one another over Doctor Who's storytelling limits, from Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat to Flux and The War Between the Land and the Sea.
Doctor Who continuity becomes your pub-table argument, with Oliver Reed and Brazilian cinema waiting nearby.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A lively panel weighs a surprise Daleks Master Plan reveal and the realities of restoration.
Who Review Extra turns a surprise announcement of two episodes of The Daleks Master Plan into a loose, good-humored panel discussion about what the reveal might mean and what the restoration is likely to sound like.
A werewolf double bill that becomes a lively Oliver Reed debate.
Film Club Duets' return to The Curse of the Werewolf and The Legend of the Werewolf stays anchored in Oliver Reed, and that focus gives the episode a clear through line.
A loose, specific panel review follows an alien concept record from telepathy toward connection and an uncertain happy ending.
Music Club approaches On The Hill as a restless concept record that keeps changing shape under the panel's hands. JR, Eric, John, and Simon start from its unruly mix of Orbital, Nine Inch Nails, and a modern War of the Worlds, then trace Eric's loose idea through aliens,…
An anniversary-led debate explores how Doctor Who's format contains stories that want to sprawl.
Strangers in Space uses a run of anniversaries to frame a counterfactual about Doctor Who: what might the programme have become if Russell T Davies had turned it down, or if the BBC had never asked him?
A loose but specific panel review tests underwater promise, fugitive tension, and daft plot choices.
JR, John, and Matt review episodes three and four of The War Between the Land and the Sea, where the promised descent into the deep needs to become more than a tease.
A divided Secret Agent discussion turns Oscar chatter into a sharp debate about whether its strangeness holds together.
Strangers in Space uses a penultimate Oscar-predictions episode to weigh whether Secret Agent's unruly ambition finally adds up. Richard Osman, John and Matt begin with the Brazilian Portuguese they hear in the film, then move through its spectacular opening, its…
Retro TV, derailed with purpose.
Pop culture watch-alongs with managed chaos.
British TV reviews with dry weekly friction.
The hosts discuss the Doctor Who Christmas special 'The Time of the Doctor', focusing on its regeneration story and comparisons to other showrunners' approaches.
The hosts of Strangers in Space introduce their podcast episode where they will review the first two episodes of 'The War Between the Land and the Sea' with humorous banter about their live recording mishaps.
JR, John, and Matt review episodes three and four of 'The War Between the Land and the Sea'.
The hosts discuss the Doctor Who episode 'The Android Invasion,' exploring its reputation and sharing personal viewing experiences from the 1990s.
Secret Agent arrives in a Film Club Extra devoted to Oscar predictions.
Strangers in Space's Who Review Extra covers The Avengers episode 'You Have Just Been Murdered,' the fifth episode of series six and an early colour story with Steed and Peel.
A panel of hosts reviews the Doctor Who spin-off 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' episode 'Lost in Time' within a strict 20-minute timeframe.
The host introduces a special 1000th episode of Strangers in Space where he plans to ask Google's AI assistant about Donald Trump's favorite Doctor Who story as a frivolous celebration.
Two hosts discuss the 2009 horror film Triangle, its director Christopher Smith, and its place in British horror cinema.
The hosts discuss the results of a listener poll ranking favorite Ninth Doctor stories from Doctor Who, reflecting on the fresh energy of that era.
The hosts discuss 1951 films, including 'The Thing from Another World', 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', and 'When Worlds Collide', while sharing personal memories of watching them on TV in the 1970s and 1980s.
The panel opens with the surprise of two episodes from the Daleks Master Plan being announced.
Film Club Duets goes back into the archive feed for a werewolf pair.
Music Club gathers JR, Eric, John, and Simon around Eric's album On The Hill.
Strangers in Space’s “Swapping in Steven (Blue Box 210)” examines how Doctor Who might have changed if Stephen Moffat had revived it instead of Russell T Davies.
This episode of Strangers in Space is a tribute to two actors who contributed to Doctor Who, focusing on Gregory de Polny and discussing the social media post by John Barrowman about his dog's death.
The hosts of Who Review Extra discuss their first Blake's 7 episode, 'City at the Edge of the World,' focusing on their personal history with the series and the random selection process.