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It's no secret that the ending of Doctor Who Season 2 didn't quite go as planned, and now Susan actress Carole Ann Ford has basically just confirmed everything we've been talking about for the last few months. Here's Ellie with the latest Doctor Who news!
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00:00Hello everybody, Ellie here for Who Culture and welcome to another weekly roundup of Doctor Who
00:06news and tidbits. As usual there will be timestamps in this video so you can jump about to the things
00:11you're interested in. Before I get started, just a big thank you to anybody who came and said hello
00:16to me at MCM Comic Con in London this weekend. I was there on the Sunday, it was a wonderful day.
00:22I got to see so many Daleks. If anyone went over to the Project Daleks section where they had so
00:27many Daleks, all different shapes, all different sizes and colours, amazing. They had a Davros
00:32performer there who was absolutely fantastic and of course I got to see the wonderful Ellie Jolly
00:38and Crystal D who I may or may not have filmed some content with so keep an eye on her Instagram page
00:44and mine as well. Maybe some fun things will show up. Also another week, another episode of Strictly
00:50Come Dancing where Alex Kingston is a contestant this year if you didn't already know. It was week
00:56five this week, it was Icons Week and her icon was Dolly Parton and when I tell you she embodied the
01:03role of Dolly Parton, it was incredible. She fully embraced it when she was playing Miranda Priestly a
01:09couple of weeks ago for a movie week. Icons Week was no different, she looked fantastic. Can I just say
01:15she looks amazing every single week? They all look amazing but my goodness, she looked incredible.
01:20She was fourth place on the leaderboard this week although technically it was third place because
01:24there were two couples that were in joint second place so if you look at the scores she had the
01:29third highest score this week. Next week is Halloween themed, I don't know what dance she is dancing as of
01:36this moment, it has not yet been announced but I'm so excited, I'm excited to see what she's dressed as,
01:42who she's dressed as and of course make sure if you can you are voting for Alex Kingston. Not an ad,
01:48I just want Alex Kingston to remain in the competition. If nothing else for me to give you
01:53these weekly updates. Anyway, moving on. But the main thing I want to talk to you about, and I'm sure
01:58many of you have seen this yourselves, is that Carol Ann Ford has confirmed the original ending for
02:05season two. We'd had rumours, we'd had maybe some confirmation via the mother of the young actress that
02:12played Baby Poppy over on social media that these rumours of this other ending might have been true.
02:20But we now have confirmation from Carol Ann Ford herself that there was in fact a different ending
02:26filmed for season two of Doctor Who revolving around Susan and Baby Poppy which we never got to see.
02:33On top of this obviously there was rumours that there were reshoots happening which we now know
02:38was true. There was an image released by Disney Plus that was presumably a still from the ending of
02:46the reality war that turned out to never be seen in the reality war, hence why more rumours that
02:54there was a different ending recorded and full on descriptions of this ending as I say that were
03:00previously sort of confirmed to be true by the mother of the young actress playing Poppy. So a lot of
03:06things circling around that the ending we saw was not the original ending and it's basically true.
03:14As I say, Carol Ann Ford has confirmed this to be true. Susan herself, I mean if it's literally
03:19coming straight from the horse's mouth as it were. During an interview, Carol Ann Ford described this
03:24unseen ending for the finale of season two and this is what she said.
03:29You didn't see the episode which was to sort of introduce my coming back, where I was holding hands with a
03:34beautiful little tiny black child three years old and we were watching through the window somewhere
03:38where the audience wasn't supposed to know where we were supposed to be. And we were watching my
03:42newly embodied grandfather who is now shooty and watching him have a wonderful time singing and
03:47dancing in a party in a shop opposite where we were. And obviously I, my character Susan, was longing
03:53to just go there and fling her arms around her grandfather and say, Grandfather how lovely to see
03:57you after all this time? And how did you survive your floating about in space? And why have you
04:02changed? Anyway, that original ending was unfortunately not to be, for reasons I know and will not disclose.
04:10Hmm. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Well should we just start with the obvious? We all know. We all know these reasons
04:17you're not going to disclose, okay? You know, it's pretty obvious at this point we've done a whole video on
04:21this whole timeline but the lowdown really being, shooty Gatwa decided to leave the show, reshoots
04:28had to happen to accommodate a regeneration, in doing so that scene was cut and a new ending was placed
04:34onto the episode. Simple as. Hearing this, having had time to think about it, there are several questions
04:43that I have. Some of these may not be new questions because, as I say, we've spoken about this whole
04:48situation in quite some detail but now that we have confirmation of it I still have some questions.
04:53First and foremost, if they had to change the ending to accommodate a regeneration,
05:00fair enough, they had to alter things. First question, why did they leave Susan in the
05:09Interstellar Song Contest? Because it was very clear that that was setting something up and if you then had
05:14to change the ending of the reality war and Susan was no longer a part of it, it's sad but what was
05:20more sad is the fact that you teased us with Susan earlier... Season? You teased us with Susan earlier on
05:28and then nothing came of it. So in my mind, once the decision was made that the ending was going to be
05:33changed and reshoots would have to happen regardless to create a different ending,
05:41then why not change who appeared to the Doctor during that scene in the Interstellar Song Contest?
05:48Because I think that was the most disappointing thing is that we were led to believe Susan was going
05:52to be returning and that's all we got because of the reshoots. So I feel like yes, you did need
05:57something to trigger the Doctor to keep fighting and live and survive and all that, fair enough, but I
06:02feel like having it as Susan and then not having Susan later on was a real letdown. It could have been Ruby,
06:08it could have been Rogue, who we then saw again in Wishworld. So if you'd already had a little
06:15snippet of flash from Rogue later on, it actually would have made sense if it was Rogue. Or Ruby,
06:19as I say. But having it as Susan and then not seeing Susan later on was a big disappointment.
06:24So that's the first question. If you're going to reshoot the ending, why not also retroactively
06:31go back and reshoot whoever's popping up to the Doctor there now that you're not having Susan
06:36in the reality war? Question two. If you had to alter the ending to accommodate a regeneration,
06:45why did it mean that the entire situation revolving around Susan and Poppy had to also be written out
06:55entirely? Surely there was a way that you could have had the ending changed to be a regeneration story,
07:01and still have had the tease of Susan's return as well. That absolutely could have happened. I have
07:10a plot that could have worked here, okay? Just picture this if you will. We get to the end of
07:16what we think the end, everyone's saved, everyone's back. Ruby points out, Poppy's not here. I promise you
07:22had a daughter. Her name was Poppy. Okay. The Doctor decides I'm going to sacrifice myself to bring
07:28Poppy back. Cool. Brilliant. Does so. But instead of running through the door, finding Poppy and
07:36discovering that she is not in fact his daughter, but Belinda's daughter, have him run through the door
07:42and for Belinda to still go, who's Poppy? And for him to go into his regeneration, believing that he had
07:50failed only for a mid-credit scene to reveal Susan and baby Poppy somewhere watching on. Dun dun dun.
08:00Turns out, Doctor, you didn't fail. Because look, they're fine. And what's going to happen next season?
08:06We're going to explore Susan looking for her grandfather, but now not knowing what he looks
08:11like because she's just seen him begin to regenerate. You could have had basically both of those stories
08:18merged into one. You didn't need to sacrifice one for the other. You could have altered one slightly
08:24to accommodate both, is all I'm saying. And here's the thing, you know, we've joked about and spoken
08:29about, seriously to some degree, this idea of absolute content from Russell T. Davis. And you can see
08:36that that's probably a big reason why Billy Piper was chosen to be the face at the end of the regeneration.
08:41But quite honestly, regardless of whether we'd seen who Shuty regenerated into or not, I think having
08:48the Susan twist at the end could have also been a great absolute content moment. A moment that everyone
08:54had been waiting for. A moment that was intended to be the ending of the episode as it initially was
09:01written. It just raises so many questions as to why they decided to completely scrap that ending,
09:09rather than just rework the ending to suit that cliffhanger and a regeneration at the same time.
09:16I mean, I just came up with a pretty decent plot there, I'd like to think, in about five minutes.
09:22So it really does raise the question as to why that wasn't the route they went down.
09:27The thing is as well, it's not as if it wouldn't have worked moving forwards. The Doctor changes
09:33their face, that's literally the nature of the character, it has been the case for the show
09:37for the last 60 plus years. So it's not like it wouldn't have been able to continue and Susan
09:44looking for the Doctor wouldn't have been a storyline that could have continued had the Doctor changed
09:50their face. It makes no difference, it's the same character. So Shuty leaving really shouldn't have
09:56made a difference to that particular storyline. It might have added a layer to it, but like I said
10:02by Susan now having to kind of go back to square one to figure out what the Doctor looks like now.
10:08But I feel like there was a whole storyline there that could have been so interesting,
10:12try to figure out who is Poppy? Is Poppy somehow, does she still exist even though she's from a world
10:20that didn't exist? You know, who is Susan's father? How have we got into this situation where Susan
10:28is an old lady and she's there with her mother who is a baby? How does this whole timey-wimey
10:34situation pan out? You know there's still so much that could have been done with it and I think it
10:39could have been a really fun scenario to explore in the next season. And I think that's why everyone was
10:46so disappointed that rather than it be reworked it was completely scrapped. And by them categorically
10:52stating that Poppy was in fact 100% human, not the Doctor's daughter, they've completely,
11:00completely scrapped that whole storyline. Why? This is the big question, I don't have an answer for
11:08you, I'm just asking because I would really like to know what's going on in in these writers and
11:11showrunners heads, that they didn't think that through. Or they did, but why come to the conclusion
11:22that they have to scrap that entire thing? Now the only thing I can really think of maybe is the
11:28uncertainty with regards to the future of the show. And so if you've got Caroline Ford who, you know,
11:34in the nicest way possible is getting on a bit and you've got a young actress who, playing Poppy,
11:41who quite possibly will have grown up too much to carry on playing the role by the time the situation
11:49is sorted and they know what they're doing with the future of the show, so I guess that kind of
11:52makes sense a little bit. But even if Shooty had stayed, surely from what we're hearing there would
11:58have been a little bit of a waiting game with regards to what was going to happen with the future
12:02of the show, so surely they would have known that. It's so confusing. I don't like that there's so much
12:07secrecy, obviously they don't want to reveal all the things that happened behind the scenes, they
12:11want it all to look like a well-oiled machine and everything runs smoothly, but we clearly know
12:15that's not the case. And it does just raise so many questions about why they did this, why they did that,
12:23what were they thinking? So yeah, I guess, I mean, could Susan be potentially explored in the future?
12:27Honestly, I think it depends on how soon the future is. As I say, Caroline Ford, in the nicest way possible,
12:37getting on a bit. The young actress who plays Poppy is going to grow up, and at that age kids grow up
12:43fast. So, you know, if it's revisited in the next year or so, maybe. If they're holding out on, you know,
12:51we're going to have two, three years before we have New Doctor Who, I don't know that that's going to be
12:55revisited. Which, potentially, is the reason why they decided to scrap the whole idea. But it's really
13:00sad if that's the case, and it really does highlight the fact that Shu-Ti leaving has really
13:05thrown a spanner in the works, because as we know from previous interviews, it did seem like season
13:10three was just going to be filmed straight after season two. It seems like this decision for him to
13:16step away has really caused some issues, because all these storylines have now been scrapped,
13:22and is that because now we don't know what the hell's going on, and we've got this big gap,
13:25where there didn't seem to be that lingering beforehand. Something's clearly happened here.
13:31So yeah, I think if it's- if soon is- soon? Maybe. If soon is a few years, I don't- I don't see them
13:38revisiting that, and it's really sad, because that was their opportunity, and they completely disregarded it.
13:43And then there's the question of, obviously, why Carol Ann Ford has- has said this and brought this
13:48up. To be perfectly honest with you, if she was a little bit mad by it, I wouldn't blame her. If it
13:53were me, I'd be mad as well. Obviously, when it's a written interview, you don't know the intonations,
13:58you don't know the inflections, you don't know how these things have been said, so it's very easy
14:02to take them out of context. So I don't know, you know, what the tone was when she said this.
14:08But if she was mad about her whole thing being cut, would you blame her? I wouldn't blame her.
14:15It is very frustrating to be finally invited back after all these years. The fans are really
14:21excited about it for it all to be scrapped. At the same time, sometimes I think with the older actors,
14:28you know, they just have less of a filter. There's less media training. Nowadays, people have to sign
14:34NDAs. They're trained in what they can and cannot say. There's clearly something going on behind the
14:39scenes and they're kind of told and informed what is okay and what's not okay to talk about. Whereas,
14:45I think some of the actors who maybe aren't really in the industry anymore, have come back for this
14:49cameo or asked about things, they just say it how it is. You know, they don't care. They're just gonna
14:55say it. Having said that, you know, I don't- you know, she handled it, I think, pretty well. You know,
15:00she said there were reasons that I do know but I'm not going to disclose. She could have completely
15:05revealed everything and quite honestly we'd all been very grateful if she had because at least then
15:08we'd have some answers. But you know, she was delicate enough to not reveal what happened,
15:12which that in itself highlights that something's happened. The fact that she's pointed out there
15:17are reasons, I'm not going to talk about them. If it was just a case of, you know, timings,
15:24things- the storyline had to change, yeah, clearly something's happened here. It just makes me all
15:29the more curious to figure out what the heck is going on behind the scenes in the world of Doctor
15:35Who. It's just a little bit mind-blowing really, isn't it, that we can be in such a mess, such a
15:41mess, and feel so in the dark about the mess at the same time. I think that Susan being wasted in
15:49season two was probably one of the worst parts of the season. I did an entire ups and downs of season
15:54two as a whole, which you can watch on our channel, but spoiler alert, the teasing of Susan and then
16:01the complete and utter lack of Susan at the end was one of the biggest letdowns this season had,
16:07and it now seems like we're not even going to get that story explored. In the very least, I hope at
16:12some point, hopefully soon, they release that original intended ending. Even if it's just a
16:19little bonus thing, I think we all deserve to see the return of Susan that should have been,
16:26because I think it's unlikely that we are going to see her come back now. I think that's it,
16:29I think they had their chance, they muffed it, and the fans deserve to see what could have been.
16:36Let me know your thoughts on this situation in the comments down below. In the meantime,
16:42I've been Ellie for Who culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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