Coming to America Doctor Who Confidential

My fellow Americans, this is President Richard Milhous Nixon,

and this

is Doctor Who Confidential.

Doctor Who Confidential are in the US of A.

The team has travelled Stateside to Utah to tell you the story

of how Doctor Who created their very own American dream.

We wanted a location that said America like nowhere else

and these monuments are so identifiable. One shot, you know exactly where you are.

This is the country of John Wayne.

This is the US of A.

I'd like to start on the floor, looking at the floor,

then we come up and meet the bus as it's going past.

See the angle we're at with the road now.

Travel with the bus a little bit, then on to... Let the bus...

Let it go ahead, then reveal the monuments.

Every single year, you're trying to say

"How do we come crashing through the door this time?"

Howdy, Confidential, and we are in the US of A!

-Yee-ha!

-We start off with Amy and Rory and River Song

being summoned by the Doctor,

by these special blue envelopes, to a particular point on the map.

-Howdy!

-Doctor!

THEY LAUGH

Look at you. Hello!

-Come here.

-Someone's been a busy boy!

-Did you see me?

-Hello, stalker.

-Flirt!

-Husband!

-Rory the Roman, come here, you!

One of the things we wanted to do while we were here

was get American icons into the story,

so in this scene, the original script had a truck pulling up

and the Doctor getting out

but we wanted a way of getting another of those American icons in,

so Toby had the brilliant idea of swapping it for a yellow school bus,

which everybody knows from movies.

It's just another little bit of America that we can't get in the UK.

-Day three.

-In America.

It's pretty cold. Here he comes.

-Missing the good stuff right here.

-Oh, dear.

How's it going out there, Matt?

-It's day three in...

-We've already done that.

I know, I felt a bit left out.

Come in, get in this shot, you.

It's wonderful, I've got to say.

You know, we've got these wonderful locations.

This place is, you've seen it for yourselves,

it's just devastatingly vast and epic.

Nearly fell on the seaweed there, well done, Confidential.

Yeah, so you know,

I think it's going to do something really brilliant

for these first two episodes

and sort of start us off on a grand scale, you know?

See you on the other side, dudes.

We're on Lone Rock Beach, which is a beautiful part of Lake Powell,

which is a huge body of water in Arizona.

In fact, it stretches across the state line into Utah as well.

In the scene we're shooting today -

and tomorrow as well, because it's a huge scene -

it's one of the kind of seminal scenes of the episode.

It's a really key moment for the Doctor's story in the episode

and across the series.

Of course, Stephen has packed in every element you can imagine.

We've got the four principal cast.

I'm just trying to get in shot here because your hair, Alex, there.

Oh, is that what it is?

We've got the first appearance of Canton in his older guise.

We've got an astronaut coming out of the lake, as you do.

An authentic Apollo 11 astronaut,

so we've had to get the suit specially fabricated.

It's an absolute replica,

right down to the design of the helmet and the badges on it.

Because it's coming out of the water

and their suits were designed to be used in space and not in the sea,

we've had to adapt it slightly. We've got a stuntman inside it.

-Action.

-Oh, my God.

You all need to stay back.

Whatever happens now, you do not interfere.

There's no question that Time Lords can die.

The Doctor is running from real death.

He's not running from the possibility of a new body.

So if you kill him fast enough, then, yes, he won't regenerate.

The Doctor is now standing still, preparing.

So after you've said it and agreed to do it,

that's when you just stand ready

and go "OK, it's time now."

He's being reassuring. "It's OK, it's OK, don't worry, it's fine."

He then closes his eyes, puts his head back and waits.

The astronaut raises a gloved hand, pointing at him

and...bang, like that.

He really does die in that first scene and that really is him.

So I'm going to get my arms back, I look at you and I'm going to go...

Exactly. Action.

Hello. It's OK. I know it's you.

Well, then.

GUNSHOTS

-No!

-We have to stay back.

Doctor!

I'm sorry.

He starts to regenerate

and gets shot during that regeneration cycle

so he doesn't live forever and he's not indestructible.

GUNSHOT

For all the kind of spacemen,

cowboys and sort of adventure that Doctor Who has,

at the heart of this was a very emotional kind of moment,

a true moment of a friend who's gone.

SHE SOBS

Won't wake up. You're dead.

It's not possible.

Whatever that was, it killed him in the middle of his regeneration cycle.

His body was already dead. He didn't make it to the next one.

Maybe he's a clone or a duplicate.

Doctor Song, I believe I can save you some time.

That most certainly is the Doctor.

And he is most certainly dead.

He said you'd need this.

Karen, who plays Amy, when we shot the scene, she was incredibly distraught.

Doctor.

SHE WHISPERS

I know it's a trick, so wake up. Come on, wake up.

SHE SOBS

Our hearts were in our mouths.

You almost don't want to say cut because she's crying so much.

It was very emotional.

It was very kind of, she was really acting her heart out out there,

and it just was, you know, we knew that it was powerful.

Almost too powerful and we had to pull it back.

I think it's good to see characters at that extreme.

We've seen them be happy and jolly. We've seen them have adventures.

We rarely see them - more often this year - facing the consequences

of that extraordinary lifestyle with the Doctor.

People do die. Sometimes it's be the wrong people

and sometimes it's the people you love.

We came here a couple of days ago and recced this place

and knew we had to shoot a scene at dusk.

We noticed the sun went down over there, which is the wrong direction.

We wanted to have a beautiful sunset over the Doctor's burial,

so we figured if we do it in the morning we get a perfect, amazing sky

and it'll look like evening.

But we won't have enough time to do the whole scene in the morning,

so we split the scenes.

Looked one way in the morning and got a beautiful sky behind Arthur and the Doctor burning.

And then we looked the other way the day before,

and we had beautiful sky behind everybody else.

After the Doctor is dead, they're tasked with burning his body.

We actually put him in a boat, wrap him and put him in a boat,

and set him alight like the Vikings.

It was really, really moving, actually.

Who are you?

-Why have you come?

-The same reason as you.

Doctor Song,

Amy,

Rory,

I won't be seeing you again.

But you'll be seeing me.

It did feel like the end-of-series moment

but it had to feel like this is going to set off

the whole of the second series for Matt Smith and Matt Smith's Doctor.

-"I'm scared, Mr President."

-I think we've gone a bit darker.

"I'm scared of the spaceman."

I think that's an inevitable function of just lives getting more complicated,

the Doctor's continued presence in that young couple's life,

when he should have gone by now.

Doctor, I need to tell you something.

There are major twists in the ongoing plot line

and it's all about that pregnancy.

I'm pregnant.

There's a lot of things we're putting into play at the beginning,

that are going to pay off later in the series.

-Who's that?

-Now it's starting.

We are, over the course of 13 episodes,

going to find out who they are and what they're up to.

You will tell the Doctor.

Answers are coming, big answers are coming.

How can you be OK with this?

Not to every single question.

The Doctor's death doesn't frighten me. Nor does my own.

He will find out who River Song is, definitely, yes.

There's a far worse day coming for me.

You do get big and hopefully surprising answers to big questions.

Spoilers.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media