Doctor Who showrunner was "wary" of Dot and Bubble ending
It was Ncuti Gatwa's first day as the Doctor.
After that shock ending to Doctor Who's new episode Dot and Bubble, showrunner Russell T Davies has admitted he was "wary" of giving the script to leading actor Ncuti Gatwa so early on.
The intense shoot was Gatwa's first day on Doctor Who, with Davies saying he considered rescheduling it or holding off to allow the actor to settle in, but ultimately decided to go ahead.
The Black Mirror-inspired episode follows Callie Cooke's Lindy Pepper-Bean, a resident of Finetime who is dependent on a literal bubble around her head that virtually connects her via a social network to everyone else in town.
When monsters start eating all her friends, the Doctor (Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) step in to help, but the story doesn't end there.
The end of the episode sees Lindy and the other residents of Finetime show their true colours, as entitled racists who reject the Doctor's offer of rescue. Gatwa gives an astonishing performance as the Doctor has no choice but to resign himself to the injustice and absolute stupidity on show.
Breaking down the scene, Davies said on Doctor Who: Unleashed: "We handed that script to Ncuti and I was wary, I was thinking, ‘My god,’ especially as it’s the first thing he shot. It is astonishing because he comes in – he did the regeneration way back with David [Tennant] but actually the scene at the end episode 5 was his first day with us, his first proper day."
He added: "We were all kind of holding our breaths thinking, ‘That’s no way you’d start any lead actor off’. We talked about it - ‘Should we reschedule? Should we let him settle in? Should we hold this scene off?' And we decided to go for it, and bang – that’s a great actor, he just hits it and it’s one of the most remarkable performances I’ve ever seen.
"It’ll be interesting to see the response to this episode. I think the main response to this episode will be the ending. What we can’t tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending, because they will have seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse.
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"Will you be 10 minutes into it, will you be 15, will you be 20 before you start to think, 'Everyone in this community is white'? And if you didn’t think that, why didn’t you? That’s going to be interesting. I hope it’s one of those pieces of television you’ll see and always remember."
Gatwa went on to say: "My first day on Doctor Who was that episode, episode 5, the barrage scene. That was an incredibly intense scene to start Doctor Who on but very exciting to get my teeth into it."
Meanwhile, Gibson described the reveal as "heartbreaking", adding: "You probably do realise it in the ep but it’s the moment when you look around and everyone is white you’re just like [gasp]."
Gatwa is the first Black actor to play the Doctor full-time after Jo Martin's appearance as the Fugitive Doctor in Chris Chibnall's era of the show.
He previously opened up about the prospect of the show addressing race, telling The Hollywood Reporter: "I think that there will be no way to not, you have to address race."
He added: "I think, like, the Doctor has been... this is the first time the Doctor has been this Black for this long, and he tends to spend most of his time on Earth, it's a favourite of his.
"And so, yeah, it would be essential to explore race within his tenure. It's something that I would want to do and, like, I don't think you can ignore it. You can't ignore my chocolate-ness!"
Doctor Who continues on Saturday 8th June on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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