Hapy New Year! Seems appropriate to open the New Year with a season opener - and one first broadcast at his time of year. In Toby years this is a very modern epsiode too - even though it is now (gulp) 5 years old this week! The lovely Joe Ford takes a sabbatical from his brilliant Hamster with a Blunt Penknife podcast to visit the place of happy times. But he's only gone and chosen a story from an era that your host (a) doesn't know that well and (b) struggles with. So this is going to be quite a task. So don your tux and change your identity, we're going into deep cover to try to extoll the virtues of Spyfall, which will hopefully be a case of "Yes, Doctor" and not "Doctor - NO!"

Please support these podcasts on Patreon, where you will get advance releases, exclusive content (including a patron-only podcast - Far Too Much Information), regular AMAs and more. Tiers start from as little as £3 per month: patreon.com/tobyhadoke

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A classic Doctor Who story which has been chosen by a key figure in the show's animantion range - Martin Geraghty. What will Martin draw inspiration from to celebrate about this moody, spooky, sometimes darkly funny story? Anyway, this is a good one - a terrific story that host Toby Hadoke has a lot of fun revisiting. And as ever the Omnibus has new opening and closing sections - probably only about 2% of the entire running time but at least it shows these aren't just cobbled together and provides something new if you listened to the episodic version.

#doctorwhocomedian #tobyhadoke #doctorwhofacts #positivedoctorwho #classicdoctorwho

Please support these podcasts on Patreon, where you will get advance releases, exclusive content (including a patron-only podcast - Far Too Much Information), regular AMAs and more. Tiers start from as little as £3 per month: patreon.com/tobyhadoke

Or there is Ko-fi for the occasional donation with no commitments: ko-fi.com/tobyhadoke

Follow Toby on Twitter: @tobyhadoke

And these podcasts: @HadokePodcasts

And his comedy club: @xsmalarkey

www.tobyhadoke.com for news, blog, mailing list and more.

The very idea of Happy Times and Places is to banish all the humbuggery from Doctor Who discourse, so this seems an ideal episode to chose: and the time of year does it no harm either. Jason Thompson, a veteran of other estimable Who podcasts, is a fine advocate for this Christmas Special which, you host has to admit (grudgingly), he has never really had at the top of his festive watch list. Will his visitor present him with enough glimpses into the past to influence his present and change his future feelings about this tale of redemption, or will he just say "Bah" and close my doors to all of his positivity? Well: watch, listen and learn...

And, incidentally of course, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home...

Please support these podcasts on Patreon, where you will get advance releases, exclusive content (including a patron-only podcast - Far Too Much Information), regular AMAs and more. Tiers start from as little as £3 per month: patreon.com/tobyhadoke

Or there is Ko-fi for the occasional donation with no commitments: ko-fi.com/tobyhadoke

Follow Toby on Twitter: @tobyhadoke

And these podcasts: @HadokePodcasts

And his comedy club: @xsmalarkey

www.tobyhadoke.com for news, blog, mailing list and more.

#doctorwho #doctorwhoreaction #doctorwhocommentary #doctorwhocomedian #tobyhadoke #doctorwhofacts #positivedoctorwho #classicdoctorwho #newdoctorwho