Doctor Who Minisode Has The Doctor And River Making Sacrifices (Plus: Christmas Rumors!)
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What is the loyal Doctor Who fan to do? We got a colossal cliffhanger of a season finale (which, granted, wasn’t as much of a surprise as it would have been before the internet), and try as we might, our mad science continues to fail at speeding up time until it’s November 23rd. We’ve still got two months — two months! — until we get to see the Doctor face off against one of his greatest secrets, in the form of the legendary John Hurt. Sure, you could rewatch the show on Netflix, or go read some of the zillion-plus tie-in novels, or even just squeeze your eyes closed and wish really, really hard. But wait! We have a better idea! You could watch that charming little minisode up above! It’s got the Doctor and River and alleged rain gods and it was allegedly written by Neil Gaiman!
The minisode, entitled “Rain Gods,” is among the goodies included in the Doctor Who: The Complete Seventh Series set that came out earlier this week. It didn’t originate there, however. The brief “Rain Gods” sequence was originally part of Neil Gaiman’s Hugo-winning script for the sixth season episode “The Doctor’s Wife.” From there it bounced through several different incarnations before…ah hell, we’ll just let Gaiman explain:
For the puzzled and curious. The lost Planet of the Rain Gods sequence from THE DOCTOR’S WIFE, which was drawn by Mark Buckingham as a comic featuring the Doctor and Amy and Rory in the 2012 Doctor Who Brilliant Book, was then rewritten by me as a Doctor/River minisode for the DVD, and then that script was filmed more or less given some limitations of time and budget, does now sort of exist.
Well, I’d say it more than “sort of” exists, Neil. It’s on the internet; that’s pretty much the definition of existence these days. And I’m glad it exists, because the Doctor and River are good fun together, and who knows if we’ll be seeing her around much once Peter Capaldi pickpockets the TARDIS keys. Apparently two more of these minisodes exist on said DVD set, but so far this is the only one we’ve run across.
But while we’re still two minisodes short, we do have another intriguing little bauble for you. Remember when three of the former Doctor actors were spotted “protesting” in front of the BBC a while back? Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor), Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor), and Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor), to be precise. There was speculation that it was probably a publicity stunt playing on the ongoing dismay many of the fans were feeling about the classic Doctors seemingly being shut out from the anniversary festivities. The stunt theory gained serious traction when Davison suggested he would be involved in the 50th anniversary special somehow, and now a story from Bleeding Cool has added more fuel to the flames of speculation.
It seems that Davison, Baker, and McCoy have all been spotted hanging about at the Who studios in Cardiff. Given that they’re currently shooting the upcoming Christmas episode, it’s possible the three could be involved in some capacity. Or, equally possible, they may just be shooting something else entirely, likely related to the show’s big 5-0.
I’m still hoping that all the surviving Doctors are going to pop up in the anniversary special, even though there’s been no confirmation of that. I’m hoping the long silence from the show’s producers when it came to bringing in the classic Doctors was just a bit of Moffat’s penchant for secrecy. An appearance in the anniversary episode would make more sense, but if not, make them a Christmas present!
