Podcast Plus: The Official Doctor Who Podcast
The first in a new recurring feature about the dozens (hundreds?) of official TV-related podcasts.
Today I’m kicking off a new recurring feature where I discuss television-related podcasts. The podcast industry might be in crisis and industry vets might be losing their jobs, but media companies and celebrities are still flooding the market with new shows about TV. These capsule reviews will share if the show is worth a listen and capture what’s happening in two relatively unstable industries.
The transformation of the U.S. podcast industry is generating some fascinating data. While studios continue to close and news publishers reconsider their investments in audio, people can’t stop listening to podcasts. According to the 2024 edition of The Infinite Dial, the industry-standard survey, 47 percent of U.S. people aged 12 or older listened to a podcast in the last month—a figure that’s up five percent from 2023 and more than tripled since 2014.
The clumsily named “video podcasts” are driving interest. More people “listen” to podcasts on YouTube than Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and more of the most popular podcasts are shot on video. The distribution of video teasers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts helps immensely. The video format works best for “chat shows” rather than deeply reported journalistic or narrative non-fiction efforts.
This should all be good news for “official” TV podcasts that serve as audio companions to current series. The problem with many podcasts of this type is that they never find a compelling reason to exist. BBC’s Official Doctor Who Podcast illustrates the format’s limitations.
The specs
Hosts: Nadia Jae (TV presenter and DJ) and Shabaz Ali (comedian, broadcaster). Who showrunner Russell T. Davies regularly cameos in pre-recorded segments.
Guests: Writers, thinkers, occasional members of the cast and crew.
Producer: BBC
Running time: 25-40 minutes
Video or no video: There is a video version.
The review
Doctor Who is the perfect franchise for a weekly chat podcast. The history is extensive and unwieldy. The different eras are perfect for meandering debates. The list of guest stars is iconic. Better still, the newest season is being treated like a soft reboot and the partnership with Disney Plus means the series is more accessible than ever. There is so much room to make an official podcast that bridges Who’s past and present and is therefore accessible to more listeners.
Unfortunately, The Official Doctor Who Podcast is too shallow to serve any particular audience. Hosts Nadia Jae and Shabaz Ali are a charming pair with good chemistry. Self-described as “Newvian” and “Whovian,” the two’s distinct experiences with the franchise could make for an intriguing listen later in the season. But at the outset of Doctor Who’s new season, their different knowledge makes little impact on the podcast. Likewise, Russell T. Davies’ beamed-in appearances flatly push the hosts—and the audience—toward fairly basic questions or interpretations. The non-production guests? Well, I’ve forgotten them all.
The podcast’s structure aims to hit each episode’s high points with some simple summarizing and theorizing tossed in. Hosts and comedian guests try to maintain a jovial energy that is never fun enough to supersede a lack of substance. The quick shots from Davies, Steven Moffat, or guest stars are equally bright but lacking. The result is an official podcast that can’t be too sharp in its critique or too shaggy in its running time but also doesn’t offer the creative team the space to celebrate their work, share behind-the-scenes anecdotes, or add meaningful context. The Official Doctor Who Podcast is, like so many comparable audio efforts, stuck.
I suspect that the “hang out and chat with internet and media personalities” approach of the podcast is intended to pull in more listeners. But I also suspect that people don’t listen to podcasts or watch video podcasts about media they don’t consume. For me, the natural cap on the audience for these TV podcasts means that producers should go even harder to appeal to existing fans. Otherwise, your podcast is for everyone and no one all at once.
This is TV Plus, a newsletter about television written by Cory Barker, a media studies professor and veteran blogger. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky, or email me at barkerc65[at]gmail.com. Thanks for tuning in.
Looks like the hosts they had last year were way better
Thanks for this - I should have realized it was a video pod! I listened to the first two episodes and found them to be deeply annoying/difficult to follow. I have so many feelings about Official Podcasts in general, and this iteration of the one for Doctor Who is REALLY not working for me, for all the reasons you outlined. It's too scattered, it's trying to combine a hangout pod with a slightly structured reflection, and it's not really -for- anyone. I'm always so curious about what goes into planning and executing this kind of 'official podcast;' (in this emerging world/glut of celebrity rewatch/official pods) I just can no longer deal with the cloying self-congratulatory PR exercise that seems to drive so many.