Brace yourselves, Doctor Who fans. A table read for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary was held today, and the BBC decided to make our heads explode by releasing this photo.
We see former Doctor David Tennant clutching his new script with current Doctor Matt Smith. Yes, this is real. Click for full size!
One thing that is immediately obvious is the level of security regarding the 50th anniversary special. If you look carefully, you can see that Matt Smith and David Tennant’s names are watermarked across the fronts of their scripts. It’s likely that the watermarking occurs on other pages as well. It’s become a trend in the film industry to watermark sensitive scripts, so if someone leaks a scan to the press, or carelessly leaves their script in a taxi (as happened earlier this year with the script for Neil Gaiman’s episode) and it’s then found and scanned online, they know exactly who to blame. In fact, Steven Moffat has been talking about how he’s kept the working drafts of the script under lock and key in a safe in his office.
UPDATED: Joanna Page and Jenna Louise Coleman were featured in another photo from the BBC. Page is most familiar to American audiences from her role in Love Actually where she was opposite Martin Freeman, of Sherlock and The Hobbit fame, and spent much of the movie not wearing very much.
Note, that although the script seems to say “Blue Amends” this may not be the actual title as scripts undergo several versions and frequently are referenced by color versions. This may be the “blue amended script”. It could also be a Doctor Who anagram such as “Men on Waves” which was “Woman Seven” which was Jenna-Louise Coleman’s code name.
There are also two additional items of note. In the background of the photo is Marshall Griffin, whose casting we recently announced. He is the bald man seated to the left of the photo who is almost out of frame. Also, David Tennant has grown back his trademark sideburns for his role as the 10th Doctor – he has not had that style since departing the show. It is widely speculated that he will return as the “clone 10th Doctor” since that is the most logical way for him to appear alongside the current Doctor.
The 50th anniversary special’s title is unknown at this time, though we did try to enlarge the scripts that Tennant and Smith are carrying to get this information. It will be broadcast on BBC1 and BBC America on November 23, 2013, exactly 50 years to the day that Doctor Who first aired. The episode is being shot in 3-D and it will also have a limited release in theaters in that format.
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