'Doctor Who' Releases Date-Appropriate Deleted Scene, Promising More For 61st Anniversary
It’s November 9, let’s kick the TARDIS
Here we are in November again, and Doctor Who is getting ready to celebrate its 61st anniversary. Now of course, nobody is expecting anything as big as last year’s three specials marking that 60th anniversary, nor should they as nothing has been announced or scheduled, or filmed for that matter. 61 certainly isn’t monumental, but the show isn’t going to let it pass uncelebrated. That started Saturday, with the release of a deleted scene and a promise for more on November 23, the show’s anniversary just two weeks away.
Saturday’s deleted scene, which as of writing is on Twitter and Instagram but not YouTube or Disney+, comes from “73 Yards”. As the posts explain “My phone says it’s November 9th 2024 today 🤳 but if you travel to the 23rd November we might have some more deleted scenes for you 🤫” The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, has disappeared for some time after stepping on the fairy circle. It’s still recent enough that his companion, Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, believes he’s selfishly holed himself up in his TARDIS, still going through the stages of grief. It seems early enough that she’s still angry, keeping track of the days, in fact being November 9, 2024. That’s today! She pleads with the Doctor to stay and not go off without her. She walks off, returning with a light kick of the TARDIS and calling whatever is going on “rude”. The show previously used specific, feasibly reachable dates by setting the Eleventh Doctor’s supposed demise on April 23, 2011 the premiere date of “The Impossible Astronaut”, the episode where such was first seen.
When Doctor Who returns for its Christmas special on Christmas Day, titled “Joy to the World”, schedule scourers are finding that it will be back in the domestic evening timeslot on the BBC and premiere there. That means it will simultaneously premiering on Disney+ in the Eastern early afternoon (late Pacific morning) slot that last year’s four specials had, rather than the early Eastern primetime, midnight GMT iPlayer release the regular season had. Ruby won’t be appearing in it, as she stays home getting in quality time with her birth mother, instead starring Nicola Coughlan as Joy. However Ruby will return in some capacity in the new season, though to what extent is becoming less clear.
