With only a couple more specials to air, the Thirteenth Doctor’s era feels like its quickly coming an end. With one Doctor about to leave and another about to start, chat in the production office, in the media, and in households will quickly turn to who will be playing the incoming Doctor.
But as it turns out, chatting about who the new Doctor could be wasn’t even allowed on set of Doctor Who Series 13.
This comes from an interview with actress Annabel Scholey, who plays the character of Claire Brown, first seen in The Halloween Apocalypse and then sent back in time by a Weeping Angel, before the Doctor bumped into her again and uncovered the plot surrounding her character in Village of the Angels.
Talking to the Radio Times about her character and time spent filming this new series, she quickly explained how things were on set:
“There’s a lot of secrecy. There were a lot of signing of forms. And yeah, not allowed to say very much. You know, nobody was allowed to speak about the new Doctor.”
It didn’t seem to bother her; the secrecy added another level of excitement as filming proceeded. But featuring in a Doctor’s final full series meant that she wasn’t allowed to talk to actress Jodie Whittaker about it either.
Scholey said:
“Yeah, well, we didn’t know for certain, and she didn’t even really ever properly say that to me, because she wasn’t allowed. I sort of figured she probably was but it wasn’t ever said. Because even Jodie wasn’t allowed to say anything about it. And she didn’t know very much about… she didn’t know who was taking over. I don’t even think she knows now. I’m not sure she does. Maybe she does and she’s lying! But it’s mysterious, the whole thing.”
With a few of the things featuring in this series having been leaked over the last couple of years, including set photos and casting, it would appear that the BBC and Bad Wolf Productions are keeping the identity of the new Doctor a very closely guarded secret.
That is, if they have even cast the new Doctor yet. With returning showrunner, Russell T Davies, in the process of plotting out the new series, if not writing scripts for it, he’ll probably have an idea of the character for the new Doctor, but it’s very possible they haven’t cast the new Doctor yet.
I think that Scholey is right when she say’s its exciting; I’ve never liked knowing who the incoming Doctor is going to be before the current Doctor has regenerated. For me, it kind of ruins the final series as people are waiting for the current Doctor to leave.
If Chibnall keeps things that close to his chest, I wonder what filming the series is like: does it get stressful, not knowing certain things until its almost too late? People clearly have to keep a lot of things secret on set, but could it possibly be that this time, people genuinely don’t know? Nonetheless, with two more specials on their way, including Legend of the Sea Devils, it seems that the Thirteenth Doctor will have at least one more big problem to solve before the Fourteenth Doctor comes along.
