Official Doctor Who Discussion

“I wrote the final moments very early on,” Chibnall told DWM. “I knew exactly what they were going to be for quite a while.”

“I wrote it before I knew Russell was taking over. I had my suspicions about what was going to happen, but when I had it confirmed I said to Russell, ‘This is going to work very nicely!’ The whole story is the perfect lead-up to…” Chibnball pauses, before smiling. “… what happens next!”

It’s a particularly unique brief and a particularly unique episode because it's a regeneration episode, but it's also a celebratory episode for the BBC centenary and Doctor Who's place within the BBC. So I really wanted to ensure that it had sufficient scale, but also that it was connected into the past, present, and future of Doctor Who.



We’re bringing back characters like Tegan and Ace, also there are lots and lots of easter eggs. Some are visual, some are verbal, some are so deeply buried that only few people will recognise them! But there are so many references to the past of Doctor Who in there that it’s got its own crazy movie length identity for the BBC centenary, whilst also saying goodbye to a very beloved Doctor

We have a focus on villains in this episode, was it hard to keep that balance of good evil? Will it be a dark episode?



I would say it's a fast, lively and exciting episode. What you have with the three villains is separate plans and multiple threats for the Doctor. So the Doctor is really having to contain separate attacks on multiple fronts and it's incredibly overwhelming. She's running from pillar to post to try and sort all of these things out. And again, it was something I had in my mind for a long time, that it'd be lovely to do the axis of evil, the triumvirate of evil in Jodie's final episode. We hadn’t done those, and I really wanted to hold that back for her finale.

The scale of this episode is huge, apart from the obvious COVID challenges, what were the other challenges faced during this process?



Every sequence is massive. So even the pre-credits - which is the longest pre-credits we've ever done - is like a mini movie in itself. And this episode has more visual effects shots than any episode in Doctor Who history. It was a huge demand on the visual effects team. There is a lot of action, there are a lot of locations, there are a lot of monsters, there’s a lot of things exploding! Really from the get go it had to feel constantly on the move, constantly exciting and I think it does. It was a lot of work and a lot of brilliant directing by Jamie Magnus Stone, who really is such an incredible talent and has such an ability to corral both of the emotions and the action and the scares and the humour. I think he's done an extraordinary job.

Are you excited about the next era and being a viewer again?



I'm really looking forward to not knowing anything, I’m already enjoying it. And in fact, I had to say to Russell on a couple of occasions, ‘Please don't tell me!’ I'm lucky enough to have seen the full ending of The Power of the Doctor and even the tiny bit of the end just made me thrilled about and excited and desperate to see more about what comes next. It’s a delightful prospect!