Allons-y, Alonso (and all you other Whovians out there)! It’s time to throw your excitement into hyper drive. With a mere sixteen days — but who’s counting? — to go, the BBC is picking up the marketing pace and have released to us not one, not two, but FOUR new photos from the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.”
And while they still — still! — haven’t give us much to go off, there is room for interpretation. For instance: the doctor is upset! There’s a girl in Four (Tom Baker)’s scarf… and some straight-up Harry Potter glasses (is that a Comic-Con joke?). Plus the inclusion of merry Queen Elizabeth I. But what does it all mean? Well, when looked at in conjunction with the companioning (see what I did there?) interviews, there’s a bit more revealed. Namely, that there’s love involved and a heck of a lot of history.
And when you add history and interviews and pictures together, you’ve got more than enough to fire up the Speculation Station! Which is, of course, the bread and butter of all Doctor Who fans, so let’s get on it! Just like the TARDIS, it’s bigger on the inside.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to note is the additional detail given about Joanna Page’s character, Queen Elizabeth I. Turns out the queen may have had a bit of a thing for our fair Doctor, or at least in his Tenth iteration. None too surprising when you consider that he was sort of a romantic bugger, wasn’t he? Rose! Madame De Pompadour! Astrid Peth! And now, apparently, Queen Elizabeth I!
“Everyone is probably jealous, thinking she gets to kiss the Tenth Doctor and it’s all romantic, but it’s not; my lips were numb and my hands were chapped,” explained Page. The duo were forced to lock lips “on top of a mountain in Neath,” complete with gale-force winds, it seems.
In the scene, Page explained that, “David, the Tenth Doctor and I, are having a picnic. So I’m lying across him and he probably couldn’t breathe, because I’ve just got this massive costume on, and he’s feeding me grapes as I’m just desperately shivering.” So there we have it, folks: there will be grapes in the 50th Anniversary — but what, pray tell, about the bananas?
But the real question on everyone’s mind is: will our heads explode when we see both David Tennant and Matt Smith together on screen? I mean duh, but current showrunner Steven Moffat might have just raised the bar. “These two men have become hard wired into your brain as the Doctor. Matt and David got on so well and their interaction on screen is a sublime double act. Matt said to me, ‘It’s a bit like Laurel and Laurel. It’s like Hardy didn’t turn up.’ They are absolutely great together. Sometimes very, very, different, other times in moments they choose together they are exactly the same.”
As for details? Well, you’re just going to have to be satisfied with the official synopsis until The Day (…of The Doctor!) arrives:
"Something terrible is awakening in London’s National Gallery; in 1562, a murderous plot is afoot in Elizabethan England; and somewhere in space an ancient battle reaches its devastating conclusion. All of reality is at stake as the Doctor’s own dangerous past comes back to haunt him."
Airing simultaneously across the world and in theaters (in 3D!) on November 23, 2013, “The Day of the Doctor” was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Nick Hurran. It stars Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Jenna Coleman with Billie Piper and John Hurt, and it cannot come soon enough.
