Who Was That Terrible Woman? - "Dimensions in Time"

Guest: JB Anderton of the Doctor Who Gives a F#! podcast joins John and Jim, as he does for every multi-Doctor story, to make sense of the un-make-sense-able.

Note: This is a hiatus episode from our Wilderness Years coverage, released early on the Patreon feed and arriving on the main feed August 9th to celebrate Doctor Who Podcast Day. A warm welcome to everyone joining us for the occasion! Love the podcast? Consider joining us on Patreon for early access, exclusive episodes, and the option to commission your own Doctor Who story.

For the show's 30th anniversary in 1993, the BBC gave Doctor Who fans a two-part, 3D, charity crossover with EastEnders in which the Rani traps the Doctor's incarnations in a time loop and scrambles Doctors and companions together at random. It is, by common agreement among the hosts, the Doctor Who equivalent of the Star Wars Holiday Special—not to be taken remotely seriously, but a genuine curiosity worth seeing at least once, if only because it's one more chance to watch these beloved actors play these beloved characters.

How We Even Got Here: The Ghost of The Dark Dimension

Before there was Dimensions in Time, there was The Dark Dimension—an ambitious, Tom Baker-centered 30th-anniversary feature that collapsed months before it would have aired. The hosts (with JB drawing on John Pertwee's own memoir) untangle the competing accounts of what happened: budget mismanagement, pressure from the American rights holders, and a script that the other surviving Doctors felt reduced them to walk-on cameos. What emerged instead was a bargain-basement Children in Need special built on a standing EastEnders set, produced by John Nathan-Turner as if it were a real episode (production code and all), and shot around the soap's schedule for no fee.

A Cast List That Astonishes—and the Gaps That Intrigue

The hosts marvel at the sheer roll call of returning Doctors and companions, puzzle over who's conspicuously absent, and confront the parade of EastEnders faces that leaves them defaulting to "if I don't recognize them, they must be from the soap." There's the interactive phone-in twist that raised a small fortune for charity, the Noel Edmonds framing device, the rave-version theme, and Kate O'Mara gamely chewing the scenery as the third choice for the villain.

Everybody's In Character (With Two Very Notable Exceptions)

A running thread: nearly everyone slips back into their roles with real commitment—even in three seconds of screen time—which makes the two who don't stand out all the more. The hosts have plenty to say about a phoned-in performance from a certain fan-favorite Doctor reading off cue cards in a sound booth, and a beloved companion stranded in a costume and a barrage of technobabble that left one host cold (with a fair hearing of the very human, very practical reasons behind the wardrobe choice). Along the way: Susan's grandfather problem, the disembodied busts of two late Doctors, a monorail glimpsed in the background, and the eternal question of why the Seventh Doctor hauls all his equipment outside the TARDIS.

A Menagerie Missing Its Most Famous Monster

Why are there no Daleks among the Rani's captured specimens? The hosts dig into the rights tangle behind their absence—and what it might mean for the show's future as Doctor Who itself heads to tender in 2026.

The Canonical Silver Linings

Amid the chaos, the hosts find the moments worth preserving: the only on-screen meeting of the Sixth Doctor and the Brigadier, and Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier arriving by helicopter—giving the actor, if you squint, a claim to having worked with all seven classic Doctors.

• Broadcast: November 26–27, 1993 (across Children in Need and the Noel Edmonds show)

• Production Code: 7R

• Format: Two parts, presented in 3D, with an interactive phone-in ending

• Villain: The Rani (Kate O'Mara, the third choice after two others)

• Setting/Crossover: EastEnders' Albert Square

• Predecessor Project: The Dark Dimension (cancelled 30th-anniversary feature)

• Charity: Raised over £100,000 for Children in Need on the phone-in alone

• 13.8M (part one), 13.6M (part two) — inflated by the EastEnders crossover

Monday (Patreon Exclusive 183): A disco version of the theme, the Memory TARDIS, a look back at the first six Doctors, and the comics "The Grief" and "Ravens."

Friday (Patreon): Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?—A BBC Radio produced mockumentary, starring Jane Asher.

Saturday (Main Feed): Wartime—the fan-produced, BBC-sanctioned Benton video, from the Patreon vault.

This episode closes with a reworking of the Dimensions in Time theme by Darth Jedi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv2t41k2244

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