Taking home props or wardrobe on one’s last day on set is a long-standing tradition in the television industry. But Doctor Who stars Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill might have taken too many keepsakes with them after shooting “The Power of the Doctor,” Whittaker’s final episode as the BBC show’s Thirteenth Doctor.
“When we wrapped in the TARDIS, everyone left,” Whittaker recently told Entertainment Weekly, referring to the show’s spaceship set. “Then me and her started breaking s—t off.”
“We heard that you were allowed to, didn’t we?” added Gill, who plays Yaz on the show. “We heard it somewhere. We literally started taking things off — things were being pulled off, runners were helping us — because we’d been given the go-ahead!”
Ben Blackall/BBC America
That “go-ahead” was premature, though, because the TARDIS set was still needed for “pick-up” shots, Gill admitted.
Gill said that she took a “huge ball” from the set, while Whittaker took off with a miniature TARDIS model, a figurine of the “Lone Cyberman” Ashad (Patrick O’Kane), and her character’s sonic screwdriver.
And yes, she now has the outfit the her version of the Time Lord wears on the show. “Of course, I f—king have!” she said. “Are you kidding? It’s mine! It’s well comfy.”
The 40-year-old also told EW that her final episode of the show — airing on Sunday, October 23 — “ticks a lot of boxes” for fans. “It’s feature-length. That in itself is amazing for us, because it meant we had a real journey,” she added. “Obviously, it’s a continuation of the story from previous episodes, but it also feels contained within this adventure. And the energy, from start to finish, you feel like you’ve gone on a massive roller coaster.”
She also said there’s “something for everybody” in the Thirteenth Doctor’s swan song. “It [is] a celebration of everything that makes the show what it is: Cybermen, Master, Daleks,” she explained. “But also, if you’ve never seen it before, it’s the biggest advert of what the show is about. It celebrates change, the challenges the Doctor goes through, the darkness and the lightness. I think it certainly delves deep into the psyche of the Doctor. But then for me — as Jodie — it has the ending I knew was coming, but it still makes me sad to think about.”
Doctor Who, “The Power of the Doctor” Special, Sunday, October 23, 8/7c, BBC America
