diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 6f9197924..2d621772e 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -22,3 +22,4 @@ Jan Balster
 Grig Gheorghiu
 Bob Ippolito
 Christian Tismer
+Daniel Nuri
diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 5c7a19f93..a829d18f6 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Changes between 2.1.3 and XXX 2.2.0
 - new feature to help optimizing the speed of your tests: 
   --durations=N option for displaying N slowest test calls 
   and setup/teardown methods.
+- fix issue89: --pdb with unexpected exceptions in doctest work more sensibly
 - fix and cleanup pytest's own test suite to not leak FDs 
 - fix issue83: link to generated funcarg list
 - fix issue74: pyarg module names are now checked against imp.find_module false positives
diff --git a/_pytest/pdb.py b/_pytest/pdb.py
index 1fe8dd61a..7516b14fb 100644
--- a/_pytest/pdb.py
+++ b/_pytest/pdb.py
@@ -70,7 +70,13 @@ class PdbInvoke:
         tw.sep(">", "traceback")
         rep.toterminal(tw)
         tw.sep(">", "entering PDB")
-        post_mortem(call.excinfo._excinfo[2])
+        # A doctest.UnexpectedException is not useful for post_mortem.
+        # Use the underlying exception instead:
+        if isinstance(call.excinfo.value, py.std.doctest.UnexpectedException):
+            tb = call.excinfo.value.exc_info[2]
+        else:
+            tb = call.excinfo._excinfo[2]
+        post_mortem(tb)
         rep._pdbshown = True
         return rep
 
diff --git a/doc/announce/release-2.2.0.txt b/doc/announce/release-2.2.0.txt
index 83013a5b0..6c2bcfe8d 100644
--- a/doc/announce/release-2.2.0.txt
+++ b/doc/announce/release-2.2.0.txt
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ If you want to install or upgrade pytest you might just type::
   most code probably "just" works because the hook was already called
   for failing setup/teardown phases of a test.
 
-Thanks to Ronny Pfannschmidt, David Burns, Jeff Donner XXX for their
+Thanks to Ronny Pfannschmidt, David Burns, Jeff Donner, Daniel Nouri, XXX for their
 help and feedback on various issues.
 
 best,
diff --git a/testing/test_pdb.py b/testing/test_pdb.py
index cd92b33d2..99903c035 100644
--- a/testing/test_pdb.py
+++ b/testing/test_pdb.py
@@ -106,6 +106,26 @@ class TestPDB:
         if child.isalive():
             child.wait()
 
+    def test_pdb_interaction_doctest(self, testdir):
+        p1 = testdir.makepyfile("""
+            import pytest
+            def function_1():
+                '''
+                >>> i = 0
+                >>> assert i == 1
+                '''
+        """)
+        child = testdir.spawn_pytest("--doctest-modules --pdb %s" % p1)
+        child.expect("(Pdb)")
+        child.sendline('i')
+        child.expect("0")
+        child.expect("(Pdb)")
+        child.sendeof()
+        rest = child.read()
+        assert "1 failed" in rest
+        if child.isalive():
+            child.wait()
+
     def test_pdb_interaction_capturing_twice(self, testdir):
         p1 = testdir.makepyfile("""
             import pytest