The Plot Thickens…

OK, not really, but I’ve always wanted to use that title.

Our friends over at Blogtor Who have got some fun new pictures from Russell T. Davies’s new book. It’s called The Writer’s Tale – I haven’t found it yet at my local bookstore but am considering ordering from the UK Amazon site. Anyway, to explain the photo – the original ending of series 4 would have featured Cybermen in the Tardis, as a teaser for this year’s Christmas special (complete with “What?… What!?… WHAT!?!?! a la The Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned). It was scrapped because it took away from Donna’s special departure (which I won’t detail, just in case you’re still not up to date). And I can respect that decision – the ending had so much impact the way it was shown, I think it would have cheapened the effect to put Cybermen there.

Of course, that opens the door for all kinds of fun speculating. Will the Christmas special open with this “DELETED” scene? Why don’t the Cybermen kill the Doctor in the Tardis? Are they somehow working together? What on earth could happen to force that kind of alliance?

But hey, this wouldn’t be a blog about the Doctor and Harry Potter if I didn’t mention this one. Evidently, there was a plan at one point to do a J.K. Rowling Christmas special on Doctor Who, but it was scrapped because David Tennant thought it was too much like a spoof. You’ll find sources here, here and here. The articles all get the info from Davies’s book. I kind of tend to agree – the plot was to the effect that characters in J.K.’s head came to life, leaving the Doctor swashbuckling his way through a snowy wizarding world. I wouldn’t mind a J.K. Rowling episode, but I’d like it to be a little bit more realistically sci-fi, not unlike the way Agatha Christie’s nod was handled. (OK, so the alien wasp part probably wasn’t that realistic – but it wasn’t like they were in someone’s head. That’s too “Inner Space” for me.)

I’m ignoring rumors about Russell Tovey as the 11th Doctor, also from the Davies book. After all, it’s not Davies’s call who the next Doctor will be… and now that it’s out there in his book, I doubt it’ll happen. Besides, I’d still love to see Harry get his turn in the Tardis.