Episode 142: Modern Prometheus | Doctor Who, Gothic Horror & The Year Without a Summer

TARDIS time! We’re hopping in the big blue box with our favorite time-traveling superhero and her fam. A new season of Doctor Who has just wrapped on the BBC, and we have tons to say about it. In this episode, we’ll analyze one episode in particular of Series 12, and that’s Episode 8: The Haunting of Villa Diodati. The Doctor and her companions visit Lake Geneva in 1816 to witness one of the most famous gatherings in literary history—that dark and stormy night when Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Doctor William John Polidori, Claire Clairmont, and Lord Byron were shut indoors and decided to tell ghost stories. It’s the eve that Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein, and that also helped birth the literary vampire genre. Did we mention there was a Cyberman present?

We’ll discuss the historical context of the Year Without a Summer, the psychology of horror, and the larger-than-life personalities of Lord Byron and the Shelley’s. Is the Doctor a Byronic hero? Why are the Romantics so obsessed with the titan Prometheus of Greek mythology? And how do time travel and sci-fi mix with the horror genre? All that and more in this week’s discussion.

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Episode 123: Timey Wimey | Doctor Who's Weeping Angels, Theology & Quantum Theory

Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck.

On this, the illustrious day of the anniversary of Derek & Laurel’s marriage, we’re going back to the story universe that brought us together in the first place: the BBC’s Doctor Who. In a new episode format, we’ll turn our unblinking eye to the occurrences of a particular Doctor Who monster: the Weeping Angels. First appearing in the episode Blink and in several subsequent episodes and stories, the Weeping Angels terrify in a way unique among the series’ villains. Taking the form of a comforting image, they can move lightning fast, but only when they’re not being observed. We’ll dive into the iconography and theology of angels (angelology, in fact), and the quantum physics behind the Angels’ ability in this fun new installment.

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

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Check out our new merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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Midnight Myth Time Machine | Episode 13: The Clock Is Broken | Doctor Who, Mythology & Thermodynamics

It’s bigger on the inside… What is? The TARDIS! By that, we mean Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Ya know, the blue box that the Doctor travels in? If you haven’t figured it out yet, this episode introduces Derek & Laurel’s analysis of Doctor Who. We zoom in on Series 2 ,Episode 5 (of the David Tennant era) “The Girl In The Fireplace”— one of the hidden gems in a legacy of amazing TV sci-fi. This episode traces time’s arrow, thermodynamics and the mythology of Greek demi-gods. Listen as we live, learn, and love with the Doctor and Madame De Pompadour.

Episode 89: Cosmic Frog in a Blue Box

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

New Year, New Doctor! Derek and Laurel are here to explore some of the most consistent themes and arcs of season 11 of the BBC’s Doctor Who (and to celebrate the joyous spirit that is Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor!) Spoilers abound for the latest season, but we’ll focus most closely on two episodes: Demons of the Punjab and It Takes You Away to understand the poignant and powerful motifs of new show runner Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who debut. Enlightenment religious theory, postwar colonial Indian history, and sonic screwdrivers await.

Episode 47: Doctor, I Let You Go

Few themes of storytelling and mythology are as widespread or as powerful as the resurrection myth. From the ancient to the modern world, the idea of resurrection, reincarnation, and escape from mortality lies at the heart of religions, belief systems, and popular BBC television shows. Revisiting one of our favorites, Doctor Who, we learn to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new during the Doctor’s process of “regeneration.” Derek & Laurel take a look back this week over Peter Capaldi’s legacy as the legendary Timelord, and seek to understand the timelessness of the character through the lens of Egyptian mythology and contemporary psychology. Some spoilers for Series 9 and the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Episode 25: What an Artist

Derek and Laurel have returned from traveling the great wide world and bring you another episode about a favorite character who travels the great wide universe. In our second Doctor Who case study, we focus not only on the Doctor himself, but an unexpected friend, the painter Vincent Van Gogh. In Season 5, Episode 10 of the beloved BBC series, we explore questions of madness, alienation, loneliness, and ecstatic joy. Most importantly, we ask, what does it take to be a truly great artist?

Episode 13: The Clock Is Broken

It’s bigger on the inside… What is? The TARDIS! By that, we mean Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Ya know, the blue box that the Doctor travels in? If you haven’t figured it out yet, this episode introduces Derek & Laurel’s analysis of Doctor Who. We zoom in on Series 2 ,Episode 5 (of the David Tennant era) “The Girl In The Fireplace”— one of the hidden gems in a legacy of amazing TV sci-fi. This episode traces time’s arrow, thermodynamics and the mythology of Greek demi-gods. Listen as we live, learn, and love with the Doctor and Madame De Pompadour.