Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 6, Episode 1 - Coming to America - full transcript
My fellow Americans, this is
President Richard Milhous Nixon,
and this is Doctor Who Confidential.
NARRATOR: 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 to find a location that
said America like nowhere else
and these monuments are so identifiable
that you just show one shot
and 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 that we're at
with the road now.
Travel with the bus a little bit
and then on to the...
Yeah, and then let the bus...
Let it go ahead,
and then reveal the monuments.
I think 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!
(ALL LAUGHING)
Look at him, Pond! Hello, Pond!
-Come here.
-So someone's been a busy boy, then!
-Did you see me?
-Of course.
-Stalker.
-Flirt.
-Husband.
-Rory the Roman! Come here, you!
One of the things we wanted to do
while we were here
is get as many 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 to find 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.
-I'm snuffling.
-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.
-Oh. Come in, get in this shot, you.
-Come on, friend.
It's wonderful, I've got to say. It's...
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.
-See you.
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 we'll be shooting it 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 of your hair, Alex, there.
Oh, it's my hair, 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.
But we've got a stuntman inside it.
Action.
Oh, my God!
DOCTOR: You all need to stay back.
Whatever happens now,
you do not interfere.
There's no question
that Time Lords can die.
There's never been any question
about that.
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,
like he's preparing.
So after you've said it
and you've agreed to do it,
that's when you just stand ready
and go, "Okay, it's time now."
This is like he's being reassuring.
"It's okay, it's okay,
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!
(BREATHING OXYGEN STEADILY)
Hello.
It's okay. I know it's you.
Well, then.
(GUNSHOTS)
AMY: No!
SONG: 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.
(SOBBING)
AMY: 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.
AMY: Maybe he's a clone
or a duplicate or something.
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?
(WHISPERING) Do you know who this is?
I know it's a trick, so wake up.
Come on, wake up.
Wake up! Please.
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.
It was 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, we see them more
often this year, facing the consequences
of that extraordinary lifestyle
with the Doctor,
that people do die and sometimes
it'll be the wrong people
and sometimes it'll be
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'll 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 what we did was we split the scenes.
We 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.
And it was really, really moving,
actually.
Who are you?
-Why have you come?
-For the same reason as you.
Dr Song,
Amy,
Rory,
I won't be seeing you again.
But you'll be seeing me.
It did feel like the
end-of-the 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.
GIRL: "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 sort of 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 that we're
putting into play at the beginning,
a lot of clues, things that are going
to pay off later in the series.
-Who's that?
-Well, now it's starting.
And we are, over the course of
these 13 episodes,
going to find out who they are and what
they want and what they're up to.
You will tell the Doctor.
Answers are coming,
big answers are coming.
How can you be okay with this?
Not to every single question.
The Doctor's death doesn't
frighten me. Nor does my own.
You 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.
President Richard Milhous Nixon,
and this is Doctor Who Confidential.
NARRATOR: 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 to find a location that
said America like nowhere else
and these monuments are so identifiable
that you just show one shot
and 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 that we're at
with the road now.
Travel with the bus a little bit
and then on to the...
Yeah, and then let the bus...
Let it go ahead,
and then reveal the monuments.
I think 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!
(ALL LAUGHING)
Look at him, Pond! Hello, Pond!
-Come here.
-So someone's been a busy boy, then!
-Did you see me?
-Of course.
-Stalker.
-Flirt.
-Husband.
-Rory the Roman! Come here, you!
One of the things we wanted to do
while we were here
is get as many 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 to find 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.
-I'm snuffling.
-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.
-Oh. Come in, get in this shot, you.
-Come on, friend.
It's wonderful, I've got to say. It's...
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.
-See you.
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 we'll be shooting it 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 of your hair, Alex, there.
Oh, it's my hair, 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.
But we've got a stuntman inside it.
Action.
Oh, my God!
DOCTOR: You all need to stay back.
Whatever happens now,
you do not interfere.
There's no question
that Time Lords can die.
There's never been any question
about that.
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,
like he's preparing.
So after you've said it
and you've agreed to do it,
that's when you just stand ready
and go, "Okay, it's time now."
This is like he's being reassuring.
"It's okay, it's okay,
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!
(BREATHING OXYGEN STEADILY)
Hello.
It's okay. I know it's you.
Well, then.
(GUNSHOTS)
AMY: No!
SONG: 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.
(SOBBING)
AMY: 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.
AMY: Maybe he's a clone
or a duplicate or something.
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?
(WHISPERING) Do you know who this is?
I know it's a trick, so wake up.
Come on, wake up.
Wake up! Please.
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.
It was 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, we see them more
often this year, facing the consequences
of that extraordinary lifestyle
with the Doctor,
that people do die and sometimes
it'll be the wrong people
and sometimes it'll be
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'll 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 what we did was we split the scenes.
We 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.
And it was really, really moving,
actually.
Who are you?
-Why have you come?
-For the same reason as you.
Dr Song,
Amy,
Rory,
I won't be seeing you again.
But you'll be seeing me.
It did feel like the
end-of-the 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.
GIRL: "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 sort of 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 that we're
putting into play at the beginning,
a lot of clues, things that are going
to pay off later in the series.
-Who's that?
-Well, now it's starting.
And we are, over the course of
these 13 episodes,
going to find out who they are and what
they want and what they're up to.
You will tell the Doctor.
Answers are coming,
big answers are coming.
How can you be okay with this?
Not to every single question.
The Doctor's death doesn't
frighten me. Nor does my own.
You 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.