Night Of The Living Geeks

Friends, welcome to Season 1, Episode 1 of Phenomena City Limits! Yes, we're back with an all new look and feel...new music, same great hosts, and a fantastically creepy topic for our first trip out! In February of 1993, Gary Sudbrink was visiting his family on Long Island, NY when he received four very strange calls over the course of two nights. Was it just someone goofing around or was this truly a case of high strangeness in a family that has a greater connection to the UFO phenomena than we previously realized?

Friends, what if we told you that we have the perfect Halloween costume idea for you and you'd get to go the whole night without having to talk to anyone! No? You don't want to have a ping pong ball in your mouth all night? Alright then, fine! But just hear us out as we talk about the Monoids, the plague that Dodo brings, the 1st Doctor "hmm'-ing a lot, Cushman carts of the deep future, and an honest-to-goodness elephant on set as we review the First Doctor adventure The Ark!!

The Mind of Evil might just be Doctor Who at its greatest attempt to be an action-adventure show with a little bit of science fiction thrown in! The story is split between Stangmoor Prison and a Peace Conference for which UNIT is providing security (except for when everyone races off to the prison for the back half of the story). The Master has built a machine to harvest evil feelings, but also wants to steal a missle and blow up the conference! Looks, there's really a lot going on here and we haven't even gotten to the dragon...so get ready for some great faces from Pertwee and let's dive in!!

Happy New Year, friends! We're starting 2024 with a look at Ncuti Gatwa's first full episode as The Doctor, The Church on Ruby Road! And on Ruby Road, we find Ruby Sunday! So, new Doctor, new companion (er, friend...), and new adventures as RTD starts weaving some fantastical elements into our fave sci-fi show. And we are totally here for it! In fact, we're left to wonder if maybe RTD has seen a certain documentary about high strangeness that we both enjoy!

Well, folks, it's a new year and we're getting ready to shed our original skin and come back next month as Phenomena City Limits! But before we do all that, we're going to wrap up our year by getting to all those advertisements we never make you sit through. Just kidding, we'll never have commercials. But we have seen many very strange and laughable ads in our last year of grabbing stories from newsletters and magazines. So let's take a look at some of the strangest ones this month!

Omigosh, friends, it has come and gone! The 60th Anniversary Specials have come to a smashing close with The Giggle! There's so much to talk about: The Toymaker, UNIT, what's that Vlinx thing?, Mel!, bi-generation...and what that means thematically for not just The Doctor but Doctor Who as a show. So gather the wee babbies around and let's dive into it! Programming Note: We're both traveling around Christmas time, so this is our last episode for 2023 and we'll discuss the Christmas special at the first of the new year!

Off we go! Off to watch Wild Blue Yonder! Don't worry, I won't turn this entire synopsis into a song! It's far too early for that. But this week we watched the 2nd of the 60th Anniversary Specials: Wild Blue Yonder! In which we learn the value in not knowing everything that's going to happen in a story before it airs. And it was freakin' bonkers as The Doctor and Donna land on a ship out at the edge of the universe where something (some...not-things) are trying to get in. And what ensues in a visually stunning adventures in which our beloved actors really get to work double duty!

Happy start of December, weirdos! We're here with our penultimate episode (before a rebranding change in Feb 2024!) and two great stories as we get ready to conclude our year of pulling stories "from the pages" of old and obscure newsletters. First up, Taylor talks about The John Reeves Incident from Florida in 1965 in which an alien-maybe-robot leaves some writing behind and then things get strange. Then Seb discusses a story in which a Tennessee photographer heads to the "great American southwest" and seemingly photographs a caveman where there definitely wasn't one before! And friends, we hope you have a great holiday season, whichever holidays you celebrate, and a fantastic rest of 2023!

DOCTOR WHO IS BACK, BABY! Holy smokes, are we ever stoked to have Doctor Who back on our screens! This time around, we dive into the first of the 60th Anniversary specials: The Star Beast! Yes, we have small nitpicks, but they're small and don't take away from our overall enjoyment of this adventure. We won't spoil any of it here, so slap on those headphones, flip all the switches you can find, and settle in for The Star Beast!

How far will two guys go to learn more about The Toymaker? Will they endure telesnaps and amateur animations? They will! With The Giiggle in our not-to-distant future, it was high time we got to know this immortal craftsman with a penchant for games. So we did our best to watch The Celestial Toymaker (and will likely revisit it when the animated version comes out). We also have a boatload of Who News and the slew of story notes, so grab a drink and get comfortable!

Happy November, everyone! Your boys are back with an all new episode taking about two rather unusual cases. First up, Seb talks about a local story (just over in Lodi, CA) involving the mystery airships from the late 1800s! And while some aspects of it are particularly fantastical, there's a bit of reality grounding everything. Then Taylor lends his automotive expertise to a Belgian encounter from the 1970s! Plus we continue our march toward our rebranding coming very early next year!

Welcome to the jungle! But there really aren't a lot of fun and games on the furthest charted planet in the universe as something is killing of the crew of a geology ship. As is far too often the case, The Doctor and Sarah Jane are the suspects, but the reality turns out to be far stranger with an anti-matter monster on the loose! That's right, join us on the Planet of Evil where there's an amazing jungle set!

This is it, folks! With The Awakening, we've now reviewed every televised 5th Doctor story! And to describe this story as one that doesn't overstay its welcome is fairly apt! It's not a stunner, but it's also not a stinker. And, really, the star of the show is a giant sort of Green Goblin face that looks like it belongs in the Cave Train ride under some blacklights at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! So join us as we don our LARPing outfits and check out The Awakening!

Friends, we promise you that this is not a foot fetish episode. However, both our stories this month deal with small-to-tiny creatures and the unusual footprints they leave behind. Taylor shares a story from Coldwater, Kansas in 1954 that (in some ways) shares elements with Tom Dawson's experience from last month. And Seb talks about the bizarre experience of a North Carolina man who witnesses a creature about the size of a Coke bottle!

What a difference one story makes! Yes, this time we've gone backward in Season 15 by one story (yeah, our bad) to The Invisible Enemy and holy moly, friends, we loved this adventure! A sentient prawn virus is making plans to propagate not just from person to person, but also through TIME as it looks to take over The Doctor! Can a teeny version of The Doctor and Leela save the day as well as adopt a cute tin dog? You bet they can! So join us for The Invisible Enemy!

Classic Doctor Who! Doesn't it feel so good to be in that warm, cozy blanket? Well, there might be a few burrs in this specific blanket as Image of The Fendahl rubs us the wrong way in places. On the one hand, we're happy to see Tom Baker and Louise Jameson again, but at the same time there's almost too much going on in this story and it gets kinda dark at times...does things we're honestly surprised to see on Doctor Who!

Happy September, everyone! Fall is fast approaching here in the Northern Hemisphere (happy Spring to all of you down under!) and with it the spooky season approaches! But this month we have two truly bizarre cases of high strangeness. Seb talks about Whose Line is it Anyway? No, not the improv comedy show...literal lines hanging from something somewhere up above a town in New Jersey! Then Taylor goes back to the newsletter that gave us Sam the Sandown Clown to look into a UFO encounter in Georgia in 1977 that might have actually been the Fae. And those Fae may have captured Jimmy Hoffa.

We did it! We've reached the end of our Summer of Season Six with The Wedding of River Song! And, naturally, it had to go out with a bang! Time is rebelling against itself (and River's efforts to prevent her killing The Doctor), but The Doctor always has one extra trick up his sleeve! So join us as we wrap up this season, take a look at our updated stats, and get excited for some Classic Who next time!

"Closing time! You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!" Actually, wait, no you can stay here! In fact, we'd prefer if you stayed here and listened to our review of the 6th season episode "Closing Time!" Yes, it's James Corden. Yes, the Doctor talks to a baby. Yes, we kind of wonder why we see Amy & Rory at all. But there's also ruminations on what Carpool Karaoke would be like on a Cybership and the power of parenthood to pull you through tough situations!

Well, it's an episode we knew we'd have to tackle eventually. The Girl Who Waited wasn't our favorite episode when it first aired. Over time, it appears that John has softened on it, but Taylor still feels like Moffat is putting Amy and Rory through the wringer any chance he gets. Join us as we process our feelings, talk about some Who News, and (as always) focus on the parts we enjoyed most!