With the coming start of the tenure of Peter Capaldi as the 12th actor to the role of the Doctor in a few days, it is a good time to re-visit one of the controversies of the process that chose him. The revived popularity of the show meant that there was a lot speculation in the media and on the Internet about who the next Doctor would be. Some of that attention was on the role the role of women in Doctor Who. More specifically, why hasn’t there been a woman chosen to play the role?

Continue below for more, and to read about the women who have played an important part in Doctor Who‘s history.

We bid farewell to the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen, as The Sarah Jane Adventures concludes, with a story that includes an odd CEO of a big tech corporation that Sarah Jane and her companions must investigate. With some underhanded references to modern tech companies, we soon learn that the company is nothing more than a front for something far more sinister and disturbing.

During TARDISblend 45, we review the events of The Man Who Never Was, and pay tribute to Elisabeth Sladen in final adventure in the Whoniverse. Later we make a few recommendations for people to check out, both in earlier Sarah Jane episodes, and in the era of Classic Doctor Who.

All this and more on the latest TARDISblend!

The Sarah Jane Adventures continues, with a new adventure that’s become considered to be as good as a Doctor Who episode. An odd meteorological occurance leads Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) and her team into investigating a strange totem pole on display in a museum. While examining the exhibit, Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony) gets cut by a splinter from the totem, causing an unnerving series of events.

Following his blood being spilt by the totem, Clyde’s name becomes cursed… turning everyone around him to hate and despise him after the mention of his name. Disowned and kicked out from home, Langer finds himself on the streets alone, homeless, and without hope… until a homeless girl he had previously helped callled Ellie (Lily Loveless) enters his life, and helps him adjust to the street life.

Elisabeth Sladen may be gone, but she is not forgotten, as her final episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures are released at long last. The fifth and final series begins with a strange knock on the door in the middle of the night, in which Sarah Jane finds an infant abandoned at her doorstep.

Naming the baby Sky, she soon discovers this child has the strange ability to conduct and absorb energy, causing havoc across the area. But Sarah Jane is convinced that Sky was brought to her for a reason – and it turns out that it is central to a galactic war between two civilizations who have now brought their battles to Earth.

It begins with a knock at the TARDIS door, while still in deep space, and an important message from a long-lost Time Lord friend. The distress signal prompts the Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) to literally leave the universe, and leads them to a junkyard asteroid. The matrix and power of the TARDIS is immediately drained, leaving them stranded on this odd world, where they confront a mysterious entity called the House (Michael Sheen). What secrets does the mad bitey woman known as Idris (Suranne Jones) hold for the Doctor?

During TARDISblend 26, we review the events of the long-awaited Neil Gaiman-penned episode, The Doctor’s Wife, an episode that proves to be much of the best Doctor Who has offered in a long time.