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2022 Specials Production News, Spoilers, Speculation Discussion

DanaK

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Llywela

Llywela

Preview for next episode says: 

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Ace!!! Guys, you've no idea how exciting this is. It's been so long since we revisited a Classic companion. And Ace was THE companion of my childhood, the one who was on-screen just as I became old enough to really fall in love with the show. I'd always watched Doctor Who - the first serial I have memories of was Tom Baker's regeneration into Peter Davison - but I was smaller through the Peter Davison-Colin Baker eras. The show was always on because my mum was a fan. But Sylvester McCoy came along just as I grew old enough to become a fan in my own right. I have such vivid memories of Seven and Ace, with her nitro nine, whacking Daleks across the eye stalk with a baseball bat, that was formative stuff. And she's going to be back! Wicked!

 

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DanaK
DanaK

Here's my writeup summarizing various things in the coverage of the special from DWM. I've put in spoiler brackets for length. This is just from the interviews Sacha, Janet and Sophie did. There's a l

DanaK
DanaK

Summary from Cultbox on Radio Times interview with showrunner Chibnall https://cultbox.co.uk/news/headlines/doctor-who-showrunner-almost-quit-in-2020 My summary of Chibnall’s interview with Radio

Llywela
Llywela

Tegan and Ace! I haven't been this excited since Sarah Jane came back!

JustHereForFood

JustHereForFood

2 hours ago, Llywela said:

Preview for next episode says: 

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Ace!!! Guys, you've no idea how exciting this is. It's been so long since we revisited a Classic companion. And Ace was THE companion of my childhood, the one who was on-screen just as I became old enough to really fall in love with the show. I'd always watched Doctor Who - the first serial I have memories of was Tom Baker's regeneration into Peter Davison - but I was smaller through the Peter Davison-Colin Baker eras. The show was always on because my mum was a fan. But Sylvester McCoy came along just as I grew old enough to become a fan in my own right. I have such vivid memories of Seven and Ace, with her nitro nine, whacking Daleks across the eye stalk with a baseball bat, that was formative stuff. And she's going to be back! Wicked!

 

I get the excitement for old companion, but isn't it weird for Jodie's last episode? That should be her episode, not overshadowed by some bone thrown for fans of old series (no malice intended, I don't know how to word it differently). 

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Llywela

Llywela

8 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

I get the excitement for old companion, but isn't it weird for Jodie's last episode? That should be her episode, not overshadowed by some bone thrown for fans of old series (no malice intended, I don't know how to word it differently). 

It isn't just Jodie's last episode, though. It is an episode specially commissioned to celebrate the BBC's centennial, and as such it is absolutely fitting that it should touch on the almost 60 years of Doctor Who in this way, by looking back over the whole of the very long history of the show, as well as setting up the future. Anyway, what could be more special for Jodie's last episode than a Very Special Episode reuniting the Doctor with a couple of her old friends? I wish there'd been more such reunions over the years.

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JustHereForFood

JustHereForFood

5 hours ago, Llywela said:

It isn't just Jodie's last episode, though. It is an episode specially commissioned to celebrate the BBC's centennial, and as such it is absolutely fitting that it should touch on the almost 60 years of Doctor Who in this way, by looking back over the whole of the very long history of the show, as well as setting up the future. Anyway, what could be more special for Jodie's last episode than a Very Special Episode reuniting the Doctor with a couple of her old friends? I wish there'd been more such reunions over the years.

True. Well, then I wish they made two separate episodes, one for the 100th celebrations and one for 13th farewell.

Llywela

Llywela

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

True. Well, then I wish they made two separate episodes, one for the 100th celebrations and one for 13th farewell.

Can't be helped now. It just worked out that way, with Chibnall and Jodie's resignations coming when they did, that their final episode ended up coinciding with the special centennial episode. It does mean, though, that Jodie should go out with a bang, with it being a special episode, rather than it happening in just another season finale or standard Christmas/New Year ep.

libgirl2

libgirl2

On 4/17/2022 at 2:47 PM, Llywela said:

Tegan and Ace! I haven't been this excited since Sarah Jane came back!

Me too! I loved Tegan! Doctor 5 along with her, Turlough and Nyssa were a big deal at the time. I mean, I watched all the older ones too but these were considered "first run" for us. 

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DanaK

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I don’t think this BBC write up on the final special has been posted https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features/the-master-daleks-and-cybermen-return-for-centenary-special

It contains a general synopsis from Chibnall:

“Jodie’s final feature-length story contains a plethora of treats and surprises for audiences and fans, not least the return of two of the most beloved companions in the show’s history. They’ll be helping the Doctor fight on three fronts, against her deadliest enemies: the Master, Daleks and Cybermen,  in one huge story! For the BBC’s Centenary, we’ll be celebrating the past, present and future of Doctor Who, in a fittingly thrilling, epic and emotional send-off for the Thirteenth Doctor."

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DanaK

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Exiting showrunner Chris Chibnall did an interview with Doctor Who Magazine and it's in the latest issue. I've summarized it and put it in spoiler space given the length. I decided to put it here since this topic is for the end of the era with the specials and Chibnall talks about his era. I left quite a bit out so please consider buying the magazine if you want the full thing and various behind the scenes pictures

Quote

According to co-interviewer Marcus Hearn (along with co-interviewer Emily Cook), the interview was conducted in April The magazine hadn't been able to conduct an in-person interview with Chibnall since 2019 because of the pandemic. They called him in March to discuss getting together and he agreed.

In the Summer he'll sign off on the final cut of the Centenary special.

Chibnall's devotion to Doctor Who started with a Jon Pertwee episode broadcast in December 1973. The first one he saw was "The Time Warrior". He clearly remembers the cliffhanger where viewers see the Sontarans properly for the first time. He remembers discussing it with his great Aunt the next day because she had seen it as well. To young Chris, Doctor Who meant kind of everything. He lived for Saturday afternoon. It was the highlight of his week and a really formative part of his childhood. His notorious appearance on the feedback program "Open Air", where he criticized writers Pip and Jane Baker over their first four episodes of The Trial of the Time Lord, suggests per the interviewer that there came a point when he fell out of love with Doctor Who. He indicates no, that he only stopped watching when the show stopped. The clip of him that can be found on Youtube suggests he was cross about everything, but it was just that particular story. He was also a "grumpy, mouthy, opinionated 16-year-old who got called up on Sunday night by someone saying 'Do you want to go on telly tomorrow?' And I didn't prepare anything. It's hilarious. And then to think you end up in that job..."

When he was asked to take over as showrunner, he was surprised even if it seemed like he was an obvious contender. He was less worried about what he would do and more worried about where he would live and how it would affect his family. His wife was worried about the pressure he would be under, but she understood what it would mean as well. She was one of the first people he told that there would be a chance to cast the first female Doctor and she knew that was important, and in a way, that clinched it.

Making the 13th Doctor a woman was foremost in his mind. When Peter Capaldi decided he was leaving, a female Doctor became the conversation and he's glad he did it. When he was considering the BBC's offer, he drew up a list of pros and cons and there were far more cons than pros, before deciding to take the role. He then did some research. He looked at the documents that were drawn up in 1963 when Doctor Who was first developed (which the magazine posted), saying that every show has a DNA that you can't disrupt. He says the shows inherent DNA is the 1963 debut episode An Unearthly Child and that first Dalek story in 1963-64, and that you shouldn’t try to get too far away from that because that's what everyone loves about Doctor Who. He comments that he found it hilarious that people in 2017 were asking why there were 3 companions and he was thinking, it was part of the show's original format. Everything you're trying to do now is to expand on that format, making it feel modern and cinematic. He cops to being something of a traditionalist in spite of turning the show on its head. He says he hopes he expanded the mythology without breaking it.

When asked how much of the 13th Doctor's story from beginning to end did he have in mind before shooting began on the first episode, he says had a sense of quite a lot of the Timeless Child story. He indicated little hints even from the start. In the first episode, the Doctor said it had been a long time since she had bought women's clothes. He says you can argue that Pertwee's Doctor dressed as a cleaning lady in an episode, but that line was there as a little hint. In the second episode The Ghost Monument you hear the Remnants mention the Timeless Child. Those lines were little nods to what they were going to do.

He wanted to excavate what the Doctor knew about themselves and ask 'what if that's not the whole story?', indicating there are so many gaps. Like with An Unearthly Child, there's a whole encyclopedia of stuff we don't know about the Doctor, like he's got a granddaughter. Where's the mother, where's the father? He says it's a 3 volume story. The first volume is introducing the Doctor. The second volume asks her could there be more to your life than you know? The third volume is about discovering the truth of that and where that leaves her. He says it's all tied in to casting a woman to play the Doctor. The thing he wanted to dispel was this sense that there was a locked-in, fixed myth and that the only stuff that counts is what's been on screen so far. He wanted it to feel like the story could get much bigger than this, and he wanted to expand the on-screen universe, to create the sense that you can have as many Doctors as you want. You can tell stories on a much bigger canvas if you're not worrying about how many Doctors there are. He says it broadens everything and it challenges your central character. He says he remembers he was at the BFI with BBC Drama Commissioning Officer Piers Wenger and said to him, "what if the Doctor isn't from Gallifrey?" and Wenger responded "Wow, yes!". He indicated that Wenger and the BBC's Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore were both so great.

When asked where the Doctor is actually from, he says he doesn't know, that nobody knows, saying that's the point. Everything they've done goes back to that central idea. While the 12th Doctor was prone to asking whether he was a good man, the 13th Doctor has been faced with more fundamental questions about her identity. Some of the inspiration for that was personal as it's an adoption myth and Chibnall is himself adopted. The thing about where you're from vs who you are is really personal to him. But he also says it's inbuilt to Doctor Who, because with each regeneration, the Doctor is remade. They are a new person each time making new choices. When you disrupt that sense of knowing where you come from, you can take the Doctor to all sorts of new places. He was just digging into what was already there, making it a personal and emotional story. He says the hardest thing with the show is to challenge your lead character as it's very easy for the Doctor not to be challenged by anything other than an inherent logic problem. But he says you need to be doing more than that, and when you've got an actor like Jodie as the Doctor, you want her to be playing every note she can.

Chibnall says he initially explained his strategy to only a handful of colleagues, including producers Matt Strevens and Sam Hoyle, Who writer Pete McTighe, BBC execs Wenger and Moore, and Jodie herself, who loved it and asked if it fit with what’s already been seen on screen. Chibnall told her he would make it fit. So he went to the archives to look at the 1976 story “The Brain of Morbius”, in which the mind battle sequence appeared to show still images of 8 people that were prior incarnations of the Doctor we knew nothing about. The story didn’t prompt any ideas for Chibnall for the episode “The Timeless Children”, but when they were doing that episode, he remembered the bit where Morbius regresses the Doctor and asks him how long he has lived. So Chibnall thought it was cheeky to include the clip in “The Timeless Children” and tie them together.

Other elements of 13’s personality were devised in collaboration with star Jodie Whittaker. He says he’s a really positive, curious person. He believes in hope and kindness and likes to see characters that reflect that as well. He and Jodie also talked about a Doctor with lots of energy and enthusiasm and a childlike element in her. Jodie compared her Doctor to someone who has just woken up in a dark cave and then the lights go on and they react instantly. He felt that was a great driving thing and that it was something she brought to her first audition. He had written some scenes and felt she really illuminated them. He also feels there’s a real line from Jodie back to Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor). He had that delight in something and then the hard steel and fury and Chibnall feels Jodie has done that brilliantly. He also sees hints of loneliness and melancholy in 13 as well and that it’s covered up. In the moment she’s very present tense going into situations. But when she’s sitting, the weight, brooding, and melancholy descend. And that part of the Doctor has lived across multiple lives. The lonely Doctor’s descriptions of her ‘fam’ of companions were partly inspired by the original line-up of characters. The first Doctor initially travels with his granddaughter and then he constructs a ‘family’ around that. It’s a yearning to belong for someone who can’t belong. They went back to that structure of the show, back to its DNA.

When asked to identify Jodie’s greatest moments, Chibnall says it’s difficult because there were so many. He does identify her first episode as a big one, feeling she nailed it from the start. He also says he loves the funny bits she does, especially the faces she pulls, like in “Rosa” when Graham says his name is Steve Jobs to the police officer. He suggests watching episodes with the sound off and just watch Jodie and her physicality. He also thinks she’s incredible when working with other actors they bring in as guests, specifically mentioning Sacha Dhawan as the Master and Barbara Flynn as Tecteun. He also noted that when they were making Flux under Covid restrictions, she didn’t go out for a whole year because she was in a bubble, isolating with Mandip Gill (Yaz). Because of sacrifices like that, they didn’t have a single shutdown due to Covid

In regards to his own fond memories working on the show, he says the best moments are things like every day’s rushes [first cuts of an episode], a great first draft from a writer and a great piece of music and that making the show is a daily high. In terms of production, the team overcame its greatest obstacle by producing Series 13 under pandemic restrictions. The scale of the challenges brought some of his biggest problems as showrunner. He says everyone who worked in television were struggling. He and his team were very much on their own trying to make the show as no one had a clue at the beginning. Trying to figure out how to make the season was the lowest moment for him. He had another job offer and he thought he’d have to take it because it looked like there was no way to get the show up and running, but they did it. As far as lessons he learned that he wished he had known in 2016, he says it’s a difficult thing to answer. You learn as you go but there are certain tiny things he would change. He would have loved to have been able to finish every episode before he had to decide the episode order for each season. By the time the season starts to get broadcast, they’ve maybe completed 3 or 4 episodes.

Chibnall now has only the Centenary special to go. He’s already delivered a script for another television project and he describes his ambitions for the future with a clear enthusiasm and is asked if it feels strange not to be working on Doctor Who. He indicates it’s nice to write a story where the universe doesn’t have to be in jeopardy. When asked if he will write for Doctor Who again, he responds no and says the great privilege of the job is to do things and to enjoy them and then stop, and he really loves that. When asked if he’s even a little bit sad about that, he says he isn’t. He says the pandemic has made things so hard over the past two years and also that the 3-season arc is in nice shape. He feels he’s done what he came in to do and doesn’t feel like there’s unfinished business. He doesn’t feel he would have liked to have done another season. He knew what he wanted to do when he came in, he did it, and now it's time to stop. He says “How many people get to do Doctor Who? Very few. We got to do it and it was great. But there are loads of other things to do. For every series that I’ve done, I’ve had to turn down a lot of other great things.” He continues, “It was great to do Doctor Who and it will be great not doing it. I’m handing it on to the next person, and the show is still going as I walk out the door. That’s the important thing. It really is the only important thing.”

Other things he talks about, but I’ll only highlight some things for most:

Showrunning vs guest writing: He mentions Davies asked him to do a sequel to “The Impossible Planet”, but 6 months later, Davies told him there was less budget and the story needs to be mainly set in corridors, so he ended up writing “42”

The Face of Doctor Who: Given that a Doctor Who showrunner is one of the most high profile jobs in TV, he’s asked if he gets approached by fans for autographs and selfies and he says he does and tells the story about a fan. He indicates he’s always had positive feedback from people he’s met. He also indicates he doesn’t like to go on programs and promote the show. He loves writing scripts, being at tone meetings, being in the edit, all that stuff. He loves the work but not the publicizing. It’s useful for the show, but he doesn’t find it nourishing

Love Story: Asked what he makes of the Thasmin phenomenon [shipping the 13th Doctor and Yaz], he laughs and says he’s aware of its existence. The burgeoning relationship between the Doctor and Yaz was something that evolved during the era. He says, “You’re in constant dialogue because you see things come through and you think, ‘That’s interesting – we can slow burn that’. And that’s sort of what happened with this. If you look at ‘Arachnids in the UK’ [2018] it’s there front and centre in the scene where Yaz’s mum asks, ‘Are you two seeing each other?’ and the Doctor says ‘I don’t think so. Are we?’ Later in the episode, when Yaz describes the Doctor as the best person she’s ever met, we noticed a real intensity to Mandip’s performance. It started to read on-screen, maybe partly because of Jodie’s and Mandip’s friendship off-screen, but partly because it just came through. We started to make very deliberate decisions in terms of costume [he doesn’t elaborate on this] and started laying some things in. I remember Maxine [Alderton] adding the line to the ‘Haunting of Villa Diodati’ [2020] where Claire talks about Byron being an enigma and Yaz says ‘I know someone like that’.”

The Return of the Master: Chibnall only found out about Russell Davies’ return as showrunner about 36 hours before the rest of the world and was told by BBC execs Wenger and Moore. He had a suspicion because Davies hadn’t texted him for awhile and he never been that quiet. He called Davies and told him that he had kind of guessed and Davies was very apologetic about keeping it a secret. They are in constant touch but Chibnall feels Davies hardly needs any handover notes from him, as he’s done the job before and knows exactly what to do. He says, “I know a little about what’s going to happen, but not very much. Really I don’t want to know, because I just want to go back to enjoying watching the show as a viewer.” He ends with saying “You’d be a foolish person to bet against Russell T. Davies.”

He also goes over each season and talks about the stages of the Doctor’s journey and other things, but I’ll just highlight a few things per season:

Series 11:
- Given he had no ambitions about taking over the show, all his ideas for the 13th Doctor’s 3 seasons were generated after he was approached for the job. He didn’t use any old ideas he thought about as a guest writer because he wanted to make sure the show was connected to now
- Series 11 was the only season to use a writer’s room. They would have done that with Series 12, but it just didn’t work out due to timing and of course they couldn't do that with Series 13
- He indicated he felt the season finale “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” was his least favorite script. They had some problems towards the end of the season and he had to go back and do some big rewrites and he didn’t have much time, so the first draft was what was filmed. He didn’t have time to do a second draft and it ended up not feeling enough like a season finale

Series 12:
- The structure of the second season was very different from the first and that was entirely deliberate in order to start introducing elements of the Doctor’s past
- Chibnall regards the Fugitive Doctor as a legitimate incarnation, but he’s not prepared to be definitive about where she falls in the Doctor’s timeline. He says the “Fugitive of the Judoon” story is setting up what happened in the gaps and there could be any number of points in the timeline where that Doctor sits, but he deliberately won’t say where. He does have an opinion on where she fits, but he’s not going to share it, as it’s about expanding the mythology without breaking it

Flux and the 2022 specials:
- Asked if we will ever discover more about the “lost” third season that Flux replaced, Chibnall says there wasn’t one, as they hadn’t gotten that far. A lot of the characters, monsters and other ideas that were already developed went into Flux. By the time they realized they had to stop work because of the pandemic, there were writers starting to work on additional ideas and that’s what was lost and he felt that was a shame.
- The two specials seen so far were also produced under Covid restrictions, with careful juggling of the available budget. Chibnall says they weren’t sure they could even make the New Year’s Day special “Eve of the Daleks”. He had to write the episode in a week because they would have otherwise lost the episode. In regards to the final special, that was more a happy memory, saying they got some really gorgeous stuff in the last 2 days of filming.
- He says there were difficult times, but overall, doing the show was a joyous experience.

 

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DanaK

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(edited)

Davies said in the linked article that the Centenary special is 90 minutes. Also, he told Jodie the day before who the new Doctor was

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ncuti-gatwa-jodie-whittaker-bbc-russell-t-davies-tv-baftas-b2074163.html

“[Jodie] is still the Doctor. She has got an enormous finale, an epic finale, a 90-minute finale in October. So we are polite gentlemen. It is only right and fair to shut up. 2023 you will be fed up of us. We will be ready by then. Until then we bow to Jodie. We love her.”

 

Edited by DanaK
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Russell Davies was on the One Show on Tuesday for It’s a Sin stuff but reiterated that the Centenary special was in October and 90 minutes. He said he had seen the finished version 2 days prior and that it was fantastic and gorgeous with a lot of surprises https://cultbox.co.uk/news/headlines/russell-t-davies-praises-doctor-who-bbc-centenary-special

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Just to note, some people got the current issue of Doctor Who Magazine early so they leaked the info and pics on social media (DWM likely is staying mum on social media until after the Queen's funeral). It should be available to digital subscribers tonight and will be officially available and on sale tomorrow (Thursday). It's mostly about the guest stars and the next issue in October will be part 2 of their coverage on the special and will likely interview Jodie, Mandip and John

DanaK

DanaK

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Here's my writeup summarizing various things in the coverage of the special from DWM. I've put in spoiler brackets for length. This is just from the interviews Sacha, Janet and Sophie did. There's a lot more from the guy playing the Lone Cyberman and Cybermaster costume stuff from Ray Holman, plus great pictures all around. Please consider buying the issue to support the magazine in these trying times

Spoiler

Sacha's interview:
- He did have scenes with Sophie Adred (Ace) and Janet Fielding (Tegan) in the special and they were fans of his incarnation of the Master
- Doing the show was a real gift for him in terms of overcoming his mental health challenges because of the people who work on the show and the fans. Doing the final special was partly a thank you to the fans and it was important for him to deliver and take them on a journey because he knows they love to hate the Master
- As a gift, the show gave him his original costume that included the purple jacket

Janet Fielding's (Tegan) interview:
- She shot her first Doctor Who scene in 38 years in the late Summer of 2021. She swore on her first take with Jodie. Jodie just laughed and said "Welcome back!"
- As far as how she got the job for the special, she was contacted in late July of last year asking her if she would be interested in doing it. She said yes, thinking it would be a day or two and then found out it would be more than that. She had to lie to a lot of people that she was doing the special and she hates lying. When they went in and out of the studios at Roath Lock, they wore hooded towelling robes
- When filming began, she was shocked to learn they don't rehearse like they did on Classic Who, so her first day was terrifying. The first scene she did was with Sophie Aldred (Ace) talking on a mobile phone (seen in the trailer). It took her a couple of days to get her muscle memory back (she hadn't acted in front of a camera for 35 years). She said some very nice things about director Jamie Stone. She, Sophie and Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart) spent a lot of time together
- Chibnall chatted to both Janet and Sophie about what they wanted the characters to do and Sophie was all hot to be an action hero so Janet found herself running up and down stairs dodging Cybermen
- She loves her costume. She calls costumer Ray Holman a treasure. She got to choose her costume, which was sneakers, jeans, shirt and jacket. She was happy she didn't have to do her scenes in high heels
- Tegan's relationship with her Doctor Peter Davison was irreverent with a lot of affectionate bickering. Asked how working with Jodie compared, she didn't get specific, just saying it was very different. She also said Jodie and Mandip were so charming and lovely and so friendly
- She found it very exciting to see the fans go nuts when the teaser for the special was shown at the end of the Easter special and revealed Tegan and Ace
- In the early years after her departure from the show during Classic Who, she kept the show at a distance for quite a while. She stopped acting, so she didn't want to do conventions because she didn't think it was appropriate and then bought an acting agency and didn't think it was appropriate then either. Her decision to quit acting was partly motivated by the typecasting culture of the time. She doesn't specify how and when she decided to get re-involved in Doctor Who and attending conventions
- She calls her time on the special an absolute joy and that it was wonderful to be on set with such a lovely team, with an atmosphere that was so collegiate and supportive. So much of that was down to Jodie and her leadership. She added that Jamie as director and Nikki Wilson as producer were wonderful as well. She says it was just a very, very happy experience

Sophie Aldred's (Ace) interview:
 - When the Easter special showed the special's trailer, she said nearly everyone lost their minds with excitement. She was at her dad and stepmother's house for dinner and got them to watch the trailer and they were apparently not impressed (or at least excited) with the trailer. Her Twitter feed went mad though and she spent the next couple of hours answering texts from Chibnall, Russell Davies and a bunch of other folks she knew through Who
- She had gotten the call to do the special in August 2021. Her agent called her and said casting director Andy Pryor was on the phone asking for her availability to do Who. After the call from her agent, she burst into tears and was so emotional. She hadn't realized she was so excited and always had been about the possibility of coming back
- She talked to Chibnall on Zoom and he asked her to be in the special and she readily agreed. Chibnall asked her what she thought Ace would do. They talked about Ace now and her  thoughts about her. Chibnall indicated they couldn't do all that because of all the other stuff in the special, so her heart sank, thinking it would just be a cameo but she agreed to do it anyway. At a costume fitting in Cardiff, Ray Holman let her know that her role was definitely more than a couple of scenes. She was honored and thrilled for her and Janet to be given prominent roles in the special
- Like Janet, she was really nervous about filming her first scenes after so many years away since most her work since has been in audio. But in her first scene, she was in Bristol filming in a museum and the crew gave her a nice welcome back and applause
- When she was a young actress, she loved learning the technical aspects of making Who and that hasn't changed, as she was fascinated how director Jamie Stone used an app on his iPhone to choose his lenses. She indicated the special was bonkers given the sheer scale of one of the show's biggest, most ambitious stories
- For all the advances in technology, the process quickly began to feel familiar to her. The crew reminded her of the crews she used to work with on Classic Who. When the actors filmed with Jodie and Mandip, it was obvious why everyone was so happy because they reminded her of Sylvester McCoy and her. She said there was no 'side' to Jodie, no ego, that Jodie just wants to do the best job possible while making it fun for everyone. Asked if it was odd acting alongside a Doctor that wasn't her old pal Sylvester, Sophie said yes. She said in a way, it felt a bit like what a companion goes through after a Doctor regenerates when you have this strange loyalty to the previous Doctor. But she does say Jodie has a very similar energy to Sylvester, she had that kind of curiosity about everything and everyone and that she was very professional. She indicted they were getting scenes quite late and Jodie was learning her lines, all this really big stuff she has to learn, sometimes just before they recorded. But Sophie indicated Jodie walks through it once and gets it and said Jodie was so clever and quick the way she gets it all in her brain and that it was astonishing to watch her work. She also said that having Janet Fielding there to lean on was just gorgeous. They were able to support each other with the initial nerves
- Given how Ace was so tough, it's no surprise Sophie requested plenty of action scenes for the special. She told Chibnall she wanted to ride a motorbike but he indicated she probably wouldn't be able to. She did say that after a day or two, she noticed her stunt person disappeared, thinking maybe the crew thought she's mad enough to do her own stunts. She said the first stunt was the sequence we saw in the trailer with Ace and Tegan with the big guns. Even though they had to run only a short distance, the crew looked after them, padding up their elbows and knees, not like the old days she says when she would easily get bruises
- She met up with Jacob Anderson (Vinder) who had indicated previously that Ace was a childhood hero. After initial hellos, Jacob told her a story about watching a particular Who episode of hers (1988's The Happiness Patrol) over and over and that it made a massive difference to him.
- Unlike Janet, who stepped away from the world of Who for a time after she left the show, Sophie had embraced it from the start and says she wouldn't have the rich relationships she has with so many people in the show otherwise
- Asked if she was looking forward to the new generation of fans joining the previous Ace devotees, she reveals that the surge of interest had already begun. She and Janet did London ComicCon and the queue for them was all day. She had never had that before, not even in the heyday of her previous time on the show. She reiterates that it really was  an all day queue and a lot of people were young women in their early 20s and a different demographic than she had before.

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DanaK

DanaK

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“TV Zone understands The Power Of The Doctor will air on Sunday 23rd October as part of the BBC's week of centenary celebrations.

TV Zone has also obtained the following line from, what is understood to be, the episode synopsis:

Who is attacking a bullet train on the edge of a distant galaxy?”

DanaK

DanaK

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TVZone UK being cryptic. Fans believe it to be about Doctor Who since that looks like Jodie. Some fans believe they've figured out the code to say "Why is a Dalek trying to contact the Doctor?", which may be part of the (as yet unrevealed) full synopsis

This makes me wonder if maybe the Doctor Who Twitter account should have been teasing this since they did some things with Flux

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