We're eagerly awaiting the Easter episode of Doctor Who - Michelle Ryan and all - but now we're hearing the show has run into a major snag, and may not air at Easter. Possible spoilers...
If you looked at those set photos we ran last week, you saw David Tennant and costar Ryan sitting in a double-decker London bus. According to Den Of Geek, that bus, or one like it, was meant to be transported to Dubai for filming there. (If it's true that Dubai is standing for an alien planet, then maybe the London bus gets whisked off to another planet?)
Sadly that London bus - which is essential for the plot - was damaged in shipping, so badly that it can't be used at all. This has forced writers Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts to rush back to the drawing board, rewriting the episode to suit the newly trashed state of the bus. (Or write the bus out altogether?)
Meanwhile, I couldn't help perusing those images a bit more closely, and noticing a few things. Like, what's Tennant holding in this picture (and a few others)? It looks like some kind of timey-whimey detector:
And notice an ad over Tennant's head for a book called Ocean Of Noise by E.R. Butler. There's no such book - I checked - but "Ocean Of Noise" is a song by Arcade Fire, a group which includes Win Butler. In-joke? Or does the book Ocean Of Noise figure in the plot somehow?
Who's this woman standing next to Michelle Ryan? She's not wearing a reflective vest like the rest of the crew, so is she another actor? Or is she a producer and I'm just not recognizing her?
And finally, are these horseback police officers - who looked like pumpkin-headed monsters in the thumbnail version - part of the story? Or just local color? (Please let there be horses. Tennant on horseback is always a major plus.)
Images by WENN.