The closing minutes of Doctor Who’s latest season finale, “The Reality War,” stunned viewers as Ncuti Gatwa bowed out as the Fifteenth Doctor in a glow of regeneration energy that resulted in former companion Billie Piper seemingly stepping into the role completely unannounced. In a time when it is impossible for any secrets to be kept about TV shows and movies, Doctor Who pulling the rug from under viewers was a shock, but apparently not always the plan.
Shortly before Saturday’s finale, scooper Daniel Richtman shared a small description of what should have happened in the season closer before reshoots changed the story. He wrote, “The original ending of [Doctor] Who S2 (before the reshoots) was The Doctor, Ruby, Belinda, etc. are all having a big party (think Amy [and] Rory’s wedding) everyone’s dancing [and] The Vlinx is a DJ. Susan is seen watching them from afar, which would’ve been the cliffhanger leading into a [season 3].”
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Now he has further elaborated, to share more details on the way the season should have ended, and what forced showrunner Russell T. Davies to change the direction of the show at the last minute.
“Susan would have appeared in a Five Doctors-esque look (grey trenchcoat) overlooking the party that the Doctor [and company] are at. She [would] have been standing with Poppy to…Susan says, ‘Let’s go Mum,’ and then we cut to the credits. This was to be explored next season but was shelved once [season 3] was then not to go ahead as planned, and [Davies] wanted to give the Poppy storyline an ending instead of having to pick it up in a later season with a new Doctor.”
While under the control of the BBC, Doctor Who was a show that knew what it was. Throughout its 60-year history, the series has constantly regenerated itself just like its central character, and while there have been several villains and characters that have made frequent appearances across the years, the series never relied excessively on callbacks and nostalgia.
The return of David Tennant for the show’s 60th anniversary was very on-brand, as the series has often brought old Doctors back for special occasions. However, it was the first time that an actor had returned as a different Doctor. Davies then went one step further to keep Tennant’s Doctor in play with a “bigeneration” to introduce Ncuti Gatwa. With Disney having bought into the franchise, it was clear that Gatwa’s Doctor had gained a huge cash injection, leading to many elaborate CGI spectacles. However, according to many comments made on social media, a combination of gimmicky tricks – such as the “bigeneration” scenario being used for a second time in the reveal of The Rani – returning stars – Piper being the latest example – and occasionally focusing on sharing “messages” rather than entertaining, has turned off a lot of viewers.
Fans of the series will be getting a spinoff show, The War Between the Land and the Sea, but what happens beyond that is incredibly uncertain. There has been no word on whether the series will get a Christmas Special this year, or if it will be returning for a new season. Disney’s initial contract ended with last Saturday’s episode and, while Davies has said that there are big plans for the future, Doctor Who seems to be in the most precarious position since its 2005 reboot.
Source: Daniel Richtman
Doctor Who
- Release Date
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2005 – 2021
- Network
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BBC
- Directors
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Graeme Harper, Euros Lyn, Douglas Mackinnon, Jamie Magnus Stone, Charles Palmer, Rachel Talalay, Joe Ahearne, James Strong, Jamie Childs, Saul Metzstein, Toby Haynes, Wayne Che Yip, Nick Hurran, Richard Clark, James Hawes, Daniel Nettheim, Colin Teague, Keith Boak, Azhur Saleem, Adam Smith, Andrew Gunn, Nida Manzoor, Lawrence Gough, Paul Murphy