Doctor Who viewers in the USA saw an additional scene during Saturday’s show that was done in what’s being termed “motion comic format” sponsored by AT&T. It is an unprecedented case of advertisers connecting with creators to bridge a budgetary gap.

Ad Age also has a feature up about the evolution of this motion comic.

The time-traveling premiere is set in 1930s Berlin and was written by “Doctor Who” executive producer and showrunner Steven Moffat, who, along with the episode’s director Richard Senior, wanted to create a “bridging scene” in between commercials — a chase sequence starring lead characters Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill). Mr. Senior would have loved to include the scene in the original episode, but the show didn’t have the budget to shoot the additional scenes.

Enter AT&T. The telecommunications concern, along with its media agency, WPP’s MEC, wanted to incorporate its corporate slogan, “Rethink Possible,” into the premiere. So MEC and BBC America’s ad sales team collaborated with Messrs. Moffat and Senior to came up with a 60-second “motion comic sequence,” produced by Double Barrel Motion Labs, that continues the storyline from the premiere episode but with much cheaper production values.

“The shots were either too impossible to capture or too expensive to create live, so doing it in a motion comic theme from different viewing angles made perfect sense,” said Mark Gall, BBC America’s exec VP-media sales. “It hits all those key things AT&T needs. You’ll even hear the Doctor say things like ‘Anything is possible’ on the series because it’s part of his character, part of how people talk about him during the episodes.”

Were you a fan of the scene? Did it stop you from getting up during the commercial break? Would you want to see more motion comics?