The question of what constitutes a complete story in Doctor Who isn't a straightforward as it may seem. The issue actually first reared its rubber-masked head fairly early on, when, in the third season, the show decided to "tease" its most epic adventure yet, The Daleks' Masterplan, with a single one-off episode called Mission to the Unknown. It even gave Mission a unique production code that tied it to that 12-part(!) adventure. So... is it its own story, or what? Years later, The Trial of a Time Lord scrambled things even more, giving its four sort-of-separate stories individual production codes, but labeling and marketing the entire 14-episode season as a single story. And don't get us started on Extremis or Flux.

Or rather — do! In this Pull To Open Short Trip, we examine the most difficult decisions we made to create our absolutely authoritative, definitive, take-it-to-the-Shadow-Proclamation record of all the Doctor Who televised adventures: the Pull To Open Codex [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hzEZ8ezmhOXVf2WyHvhLdCTaIl0T6QxKuFHPHqSQqOM/edit?usp=sharing]! Fire up your spreadsheets and start honing your head canon — this one's going to be... educational.



The Pull To Open Codex [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hzEZ8ezmhOXVf2WyHvhLdCTaIl0T6QxKuFHPHqSQqOM/edit?usp=sharing]



Rate and review Pull To Open on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pull-to-open/id1493205925]!



Join the conversation on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fa57WCsBghyd8WqJmFqOo?si=Eo0AKJW0QASQI5H_7c36uQ]!



Follow us on:

 * TikTok! @pulltoopen [https://www.tiktok.com/@pulltoopen]
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 * Twitter: @pulltoopen63 [https://twitter.com/PullToOpen63]
 * YouTube: youtube.com/pulltoopen [https://www.youtube.com/pulltoopen]



Pull To Open: Decoding the Codex

 * Season 4
 * Episode 11



Hosts: Pete Pachal [https://twitter.com/petepachal] and Chris Taylor [https://twitter.com/futureboy]



Music: Martin West/Thinking Fish [https://thinkingfish.bandcamp.com/album/incidental-music-for-pull-to-open-podcast]

Decoding the Codex (A Pull To Open Short Trip)

Orphan 55 [https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Orphan_55] stands apart from the rest of Doctor Who canon in two key ways: First, its idea of an indeterminate always-in-flux future is at odds with virtually every other adventure set in the future. And second, probably no other episode has ever dared to spell out its message so explicitly, ending with an ominous speech from Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor about the terrible consequences of neglecting our planet. To be fair, the story is much more fun than that sounds, with jokes about speedos and bats, a three-layer cake of mysteries, and plenty of creepy monsters with big teeth. This one has more twists than a Blackpool roller coaster, although when it’s done you might question where you ended up.



Play Pull To Open Bingo [https://photos.app.goo.gl/LaJvTEWhjx6Y4fp36]!



Rate and review Pull To Open on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pull-to-open/id1493205925]!



Join the conversation on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fa57WCsBghyd8WqJmFqOo?si=Eo0AKJW0QASQI5H_7c36uQ]!



Follow us on:

 * TikTok! @pulltoopen [https://www.tiktok.com/@pulltoopen]
 * Instagram: @pulltoopen63 [https://www.instagram.com/pulltoopen63/]
 * Twitter: @pulltoopen63 [https://twitter.com/PullToOpen63]
 * YouTube: youtube.com/pulltoopen [https://www.youtube.com/pulltoopen]



Story Essentials

 * Series 12, Episode 3
 * Story number: 291, per the The Pull To Open Codex [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hzEZ8ezmhOXVf2WyHvhLdCTaIl0T6QxKuFHPHqSQqOM/edit#gid=0]
 * Writer: Ed Hime
 * Director: Lee Haven Jones
 * Showrunner: Chris Chibnall
 * Aired 12 January 2020



Pull To Open: Orphan 55

 * Season 4
 * Episode 10



Hosts: Pete Pachal [https://twitter.com/petepachal] and Chris Taylor [https://twitter.com/futureboy]



Music: Martin West/Thinking Fish [https://thinkingfish.bandcamp.com/album/incidental-music-for-pull-to-open-podcast]

Bitter Dregs (Stranding “Orphan 55”)

To many, Doctor Who looks like an ordinary TV show. But just like the show's famous time machine, the TARDIS, if you enter, you'll quickly find it's much bigger on the inside. Longtime Whovians and journalists Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor invite you to explore the Whoniverse alongside them, one picked-at-random episode at a time.