Doctor Who Just Tricked You, And Nobody's Talking About It

WhatCulture

We noticed, Doctor Who. We noticed!

Transcript

00:00Hello everybody, Ellie here for WhoCulture, and today we have a mystery to solve.

00:06Now, does anybody remember this all-important looking shot of the 15th Doctor?

00:12Because it just vanished, it just disappeared, never to be seen.

00:16So we thought we'd do a little bit of investigating.

00:20So, let's split up and look for clues.

00:23Scoob, you're with me!

00:24So first of all, let's journey back all the way to the 23rd of September, 2023,

00:30which feels like a really long time ago, even though it really actually wasn't in the grand scheme of things.

00:35And we got a 60th anniversary trailer just before Strictly Come Dancing,

00:39and the last shot in this trailer was the aforementioned shot that we're talking about here, of the 15th Doctor.

00:46Everyone assumed that this was a shot from one of those 60th anniversary specials,

00:50I mean, first and foremost, this was a trailer for the 60th anniversary.

00:53Because of the nature of it, because it was the 15th Doctor in the shot,

00:56most people assumed that it would be in the final of the three specials.

01:00I think a lot of people assumed that it was something to do with the regeneration.

01:04There was the regeneration sound was playing over this section of the trailer.

01:11In hindsight, would they have done that because, you know, is it massively spoilery?

01:17But at the same time, we knew that a new Doctor was coming.

01:20So we knew a regeneration was imminent.

01:23And at the time, we didn't know that there was anything special or different about this particular regeneration.

01:28So I don't necessarily think that it was suspicious for there to be some sort of regeneration shot in the trailer.

01:33But I think a lot of people, that's the assumption they had when they saw this was,

01:38well, that's going to be the ending of special number three.

01:41So then we jump ahead to the 25th of November, which was a very exciting day to the Starbeast.

01:47Nope, didn't appear in that episode.

01:48Okay, we wait to the following week, to the 2nd of December, to watch World Blue Yonder.

01:53Nope, not there either.

01:54Okay, well, then we'll jump to the 9th of December, The Giggle.

01:58We know the regeneration must be happening in this episode, so it probably will appear here.

02:02And lo and behold, we get to the end of that episode.

02:05We've been introduced to Shuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor, we've been introduced to this whole notion of the bi-generation,

02:12and we still have not seen this particular shot that we were teased all the way back in September.

02:20So then we kind of forgot about it, you know, there was a lot of things going on in the trailers,

02:23and I think then we just assumed, well, actually, we have got the Christmas special coming,

02:27so maybe it was a shot from the Christmas special.

02:29So we'll wait, we'll wait until Christmas Day, we'll watch The Church on Ruby Road.

02:33It's probably in that episode.

02:35And guess what, folks?

02:36It wasn't there either.

02:37So at this point, I think the most logical conclusion or assumption about this shot

02:41is that it was intended literally just for the trailers, perhaps as a red herring,

02:46to dissuade people from making conclusions about the regeneration.

02:51If you put a shot in the trailer that suggests it's just going to be a normal regeneration,

02:56like we've known for however many years gone by,

02:59then no one's going to suspect that there's anything untoward or different about what we will be seeing,

03:05obviously, the bi-generation.

03:06And we know that there is precedent for them to have done this,

03:10because we know there was another shot of Shooter Gatwa in that trailer,

03:14the shot where he says,

03:15well, someone tell me what the hell is going on here.

03:17We know that there was a false background edited onto that scene,

03:21because we now know that that scene was on top of Stark Towers,

03:25and he was surrounded by all the unit people,

03:28and David Tennant was stood right next to him.

03:30So we know that that scene was edited in the trailer

03:32to just have this sort of cloudy background.

03:33So we know there is precedent for them to throw in false shots,

03:38or for them to tweak shots,

03:39or throw in red herrings to throw us off of the scent.

03:42So this very well could have been just put in there

03:45to suggest that everything was normal and we had nothing to suspect.

03:49And as I said, we learned in the commentary for The Giggle from Russell T. Davis

03:53that things had been leaked.

03:54And so it does suggest, as I've just mentioned,

03:56that by including this shot,

03:59they were trying to mislead people

04:02into thinking that the leaks they'd seen weren't actually true.

04:05I guess that's kind of sneaky, kind of clever,

04:07but if the leaks are already out there,

04:08then you're not going to stop people from listening to them,

04:12reading them, jumping on them, and ripping them apart.

04:14But from a creative point of view,

04:16I mean, it's not a difficult shot to create.

04:17So if these leaks were made,

04:20then it's not difficult for them to go,

04:22oh, shooty, would you just stand here?

04:24We're just going to get a close-up of your face

04:25and we're going to edit it in a way

04:27that we can kind of throw people off the scent of these leaks

04:30and suggest to them that everything is fine and normal

04:33and that they shouldn't be listening to these leaks

04:35because we want it to be a surprise.

04:37So it could have very easily been a last-minute addition

04:40just to throw people off the scent, as I said.

04:42And it is something that is common practice within marketing campaigns.

04:45We've seen it probably most famously in the trailer for Avengers Infinity War

04:50where we had the Hulk running in Wakanda.

04:54But we later learn by watching Infinity War,

04:56spoiler alert if you haven't seen it,

04:57but the Hulk is never the Hulk.

04:59Bruce Banner never hulks out in that entire film.

05:01But the trailer suggested that he was there with all of those heroes.

05:04And while he was there,

05:05it would have been a spoiler to show him in a big Iron Man suit.

05:08So they just edited the trailer to mislead the audience

05:12to kind of lie to us, basically, but for the better.

05:16So that's one suggestion, yeah?

05:18It was a fake shot for the trailer.

05:20Case closed.

05:21Good looking for clues.

05:22We've unmasked the bad guy.

05:24But there could be more to it than that.

05:27At the end of The Church on Ruby Road,

05:29we then got a trailer for season one.

05:30And we also got confirmation that season one will be coming in May 2024.

05:35And then, interestingly, the official Disney Plus Twitter page

05:39posted a little promo.

05:41I think it said, new home, new who?

05:44Guess what the only shot in that teaser was?

05:47You're guessing right, folks.

05:48It's that same shot that's just been floating around

05:50but mysteriously disappearing.

05:52So is this a shot from season one?

05:54And the thing is, we need to remember as well is

05:56they started filming season one all the way back in December 2022.

06:01So they would have had shots of that season ready and waiting to go.

06:05The other thing that makes that a potential possibility

06:08is if you look very closely at the collar in that teaser,

06:13it looks very similar to what we saw Shooty Gatwell wearing

06:15at the end of The Church on Ruby Road.

06:18Again, that just lends itself to the suggestion

06:20that this is a shot that we may be seeing within season one.

06:23So I think there are three possibilities here.

06:26Of four possibilities,

06:27it was a fake shot intended for the trailers only to mislead people.

06:32It was an actual shot that was intended to be in the 60th anniversary but was cut.

06:38It's a shot from season one that we are yet to see.

06:41Or it's a shot that was created for the only purpose of marketing.

06:46Now that does happen.

06:47They do plenty of promo shoots.

06:50They stand and pose as their character in different positions.

06:52We've seen plenty of those promotional images of the characters all posing together.

06:57You know, the famous one with David Tennant doing his little pointing.

07:01And because now we are moving on to the age of social media and streaming,

07:07then the promo stuff advances with that.

07:10So rather than having the promotional images,

07:12then it is very, very possible that this was a shot that was created just for the marketing,

07:18just for promotional content.

07:21It's not a difficult shot to achieve.

07:23So it's very simple.

07:24And look, it's got us all talking.

07:26But it did seem like a very important shot to be seeing.

07:29And it did just seem slightly odd that we ended up not actually seeing it.

07:34I guess the only other thing is if it is a shot from season one,

07:37why was it in the 60th trailer?

07:39Other than the fact that most footage of the 15th Doctor that could be used from the Giggle

07:46would have been massively spoilery.

07:48But then we've seen them edit footage from it to suit the trailers.

07:52So there's just a lot of mystery surrounding this random shot.

07:55It's much more fascinating than it probably should be for all of about three seconds worth of footage.

08:01But we like to get those discussions rolling.

08:04So let me know in the comments down below.

08:07Let me know your theories.

08:08I know a lot of you are probably going to go,

08:10it's just a shot.

08:11Get over it.

08:12And that's fine.

08:13But I like the conspiracy theorists out there.

08:15So join me in speculating what happened to this mysterious shot of the 15th Doctor.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended