'Doctor Who' Tenth Doctor Story "Fear Her” Returns to iPlayer Huw Edwardsless
The repugnant nonce that was a beloved news anchor has been removed from the second series episode
Have no fear, British Doctor Who streaming audience, your Tenth Doctor streaming experience is complete once again. Series 2’s 11th episode “Fear Her” has completed its redubbing process to remove disgraced presenter Huw Edwards and been returned to BBC iPlayer after six months. The original version has remained at the very least on Max in the United States.
The disgraced Edwards was known for covering major British events, some of the biggest in its history. That was until he pled guilty to charges of dealing with indecent child images, essentially engaging with child porn. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison suspended for two years. In “Fear Her”, the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, and companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, help Chloe Webber, a girl terrorized by a demonic version of her abusive dead father, and who draws people to make them disappear, around the the 2012 London summer Olympics opening ceremony. Edwards’s role is entirely voice over, and his line goes “My God, what’s going on here? The crowd has just vanished, right in front of my eyes,” he says. “It’s impossible. Bob, can we go to you in the box? Bob? Not you too?” He’s now been replaced by actress Becky Wright, who has previously done voice work in the Doctor Who podcast series.
The aforementioned line was expanded to “My God, what’s going on here? The crowd has vanished, they’re gone, everyone has gone. Thousands of people have just gone, right in front of my eyes, it’s impossible. Bob? Bob, can we join you in the box? Not you too Bob…” There’s also a second piece of commentating after the Doctor’s heroics, though it’s unclear if it’s completely new that goes Wright’s commentator says: “Just look at this, utterly incredible scenes at the Olympic Stadium. 80,000 athletes and spectators, they disappeared, they’ve come back. They’ve returned, they’ve reappeared. It’s quite incredible.” The episode also now features the iPlayer disclaimer: “This programme has been edited since broadcast. There are a number of reasons why a programme may have been edited including legal, contractual or technical issues.”
While Russell T. Davies’s initial showrunnership did have a regular news anchor in Trinity Wells, played by Lachele Carl, there were times overall where the show, with or without him, dipped into reality with cameos like Edwards, with one such news anchor example being American Meredith Vieira, who was still with Today at the time of the series 6 finale “The Wedding or River Song”. The show’s international broadcast partner, Disney, has been in different aspects of the situation before with their television shows. As previously discussed, Andi Mack actor Stoney Westmoreland was caught as a pedophile in 2018, and he was promptly fired from the series starring half a dozen minors. His presence was edited out of his final batch of episodes, dropping runtimes to as low as 18 minutes, and reduce the availability of the series on Disney+ to just 31 episodes. But before that, there was the collapse of Louis C.K.’s career in 2017 for his own sexual misconduct, leading to his Gravity Falls role, The Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity from “Weirdmageddon” Part I, which originally aired in October 2015, being redubbed by creator Alex Hirsch, who already voiced a litany of characters including mains Grunkle Stan and Soos.
Source: Deadline