The Cast of 'Doctor Who' Recap the Show in 16 Minutes | Vanity Fair

Subtitles section Play video

- Shall we tell 'em what they say?
- Oh yeah, tell 'em what they say.
- Let's do it together, one, two, three.
- Exterminate.
[Doctor Who theme music]
- Hi, I'm Jodie Whittaker.
- I'm Mandip Gill.
- And I'm Tosin Cole.
- And we're here to explain the latest adventures
of Doctor Who.
[upbeat music]
Doctor Who is
an epic sci-fi adventure
that transcends physical boundaries,
time boundaries, universe boundaries.
We have the ability as adventurers, to go anywhere.
So this show isn't limited to the town
that it's originally set in,
because we have this extraordinary time machine
called the TARDIS.
[eerie music]
- We're home.
We're actually home!
- Yes.
- What she said. Yeah, what she said.
[Jodie laughs]
- Who are you?
- Yes, I'm glad you asked that again.
Bit of adrenaline, dash of outrage, and a hint of panic,
knitted my brain back together.
I know exactly who I am.
I'm the Doctor.
Sorting out fair play throughout the universe.
So,
who is the Doctor?
I have the ability to travel through space and time.
I'm continually curious.
I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey,
I have two hearts and I can regenerate,
hence why I am the current Doctor.
- Doctor.
[dramatic music]
- I let you go.
[dramatic music]
- So what you witnessed there is the 12th Doctor
regenerating into the 13th Doctor.
And regeneration is very much a huge theme of Doctor Who.
So we've had 12 previous Doctors spanning over 50 years
and so it's a Timelord trait
that you can move from one body to the next
but you don't have the control of the body
or know until you open your eyes and see your
reflection in the console what you're going to look like.
And my reaction to that was "Oh, brilliant."
Double thumbs up.
It's debatable in some Whovian circles how many
Doctors there has been.
John Hurt is a Doctor in an episode so it's,
there's Matt, David and John Hurt so it's like,
what number is he? - Yeah.
- Or is he the older version of?
- Them, yeah. - Who are you talking to?
- Myself.
- How can they all be there?
- That's what I'm saying, so is he a regenerated
body or is he...
Is he another Doctor?
- Good afternoon,
I am looking for the Doctor.
- Well, you've certainly come to the right place.
- But I'm claiming 13, lucky number 13.
[TARDIS engine roaring]
[heavy breathing]
- My beautiful coast monument.
- TARDIS is a time machine.
It's a police box and inside it's bigger
than what it seems on the outside.
- So the TARDIS stands for time and relative
dimension in space. - There you go.
- How do you fit all this stuff inside a police box?
- Dimensional engineering.
- This Doctor's TARDIS is really colorful,
it's got lots of dials on for her to fly the TARDIS.
It's got lots of little egg timers on,
loads of little switches, which I'll be honest,
I've no idea what they do because--
- I know. She doesn't let us touch them.
[Jodie chuckling] - Can I press any of these--
- No.
- And for me, the most exciting part is
it has like a custard cream dispenser.
- Oh yeah, that's the sneaky best bit.
Also, all the dials are all covered in Gallifreyan text,
so I am able to translate every single
element, The Doctor, but for these guys,
it's essentially a foreign language to them.
[wistful music]
- Tada!
[Sonic Screwdriver exploding]
- Ooh!
Should be fine.
So my Sonic Screwdriver is unique
because I've built this one.
Now, my Sonic which I may have worn in my inside pocket.
Ah!
My Sonic!
So, I will do an example.
[electronic buzzing]
- Oh, wow.
- So, I read my information here and it tells me
that you are human with one stone, cold heart.
[laughing]
No, with a very big heart and ooh, you're healthy!
It basically is a gadget to be able to,
it does a bit of everything!
Scanner, diagnostics, tin opener.
More of a Sonic Swiss Army knife.
Only without the knife, only idiots carry knives.
[dramatic music]
[Doctor Who theme music]
- What?
Actually, my favorite scene.
It's the most exciting entrance into
any TV show I'm ever, ever, ever gonna get.
I've had things like in Broadchurch, I just sat up in bed.
Doctor Who, I got to fall through the sky
and through the roof of a train
and
stand up into shot to the iconic Doctor Who theme tune.
Which when I saw that in post,
nearly made me wanna cry because it was so brilliant.
Um...
- Right, get away from the door.
Grace get to the back of the carriage!
- Those guys are absolutely terrified
and have got this alien creeping towards them,
when another alien falls through the roof
and buys them some time but this entire scenario,
I suppose for them, is completely out of this world.
Literally out of this world whereas for me,
it's probably just another day at the office.
Put the gun down, Ryan!
- What's your better idea.
- Outthink them.
- You can't outthink bullets.
- Where's the reload?
Where's the reload?
Ryan Sinclair is a kid from Sheffield
who is studying to be an engineer.
His grandma past away, so now he lives with Graham,
which is his step grandfather.
He suffers from dyspraxia, well not suffers,
but he goes through dyspraxia which is a condition
that affects his balance and coordination
and so he can't ride a bike,
like you saw in the first episode.
He went to primary school with Yaz.
- Name, sir.
- Ryan Sinclair.
- Wait, Redlands Primary?
- Yeah.
- Yasmin Khan.
- Oh my God, Yaz!
Wow!
- I know!
- [Tosin] Who--
- Forgot about him.
- Yeah, yeah, she forgot about me,
you know what I mean, life goes on.
[laughing]
[dramatic music]
- Yaz!
Be careful what you say back there.
The wrong word in the wrong moment,
you could interfere yourself out of existence,
do you understand?
- You know there are aliens here, right?
In the Punjab during Partition,
and you're worried about me being gobby?
- I play Yasmin Khan.
Yaz is a police officer from Sheffield.
She's only just starting out but she really enjoys her job.
- Tell me you don't get hassle.
- Course I do, especially on the job.
I get called a Paki when I'm sorting out a domestic
or a terrorist on the way home from the Mosque.
- Yeah, exactly.
- But they don't win, those people.
I can be a police officer now because people like
Rosa Parks fought those battles for me, for us.
I think they have a nice relationship,
I think sometimes they do annoy each other sometimes.
You know, you'll see scenes where it is just
Ryan and Yaz going away and talking about
their feelings, I think there is sort of like
a level of understanding between them because
of where they've come from and their age and what not.
You find out about her background and why she is
a police officer and what it means to her.
But then it also explains why she's really excited
by meeting these people
and going on these journeys with them.
In our first series, sometimes she's a bit apprehensive
about going into situations because she is
a police officer, you know, you don't always
run into difficult situations,
you kind of have to assess it.
But then, she becomes really confident--
- Oh yeah.
- In the Doctor's abilities and her own abilities.
I think she becomes a better police officer in space
than she could've done in Sheffield.
- Oh, that's good.
- She's got like a normal sister relationship
with her sister, Sonia, who happens to find Ryan cute.
- Are you and Yaz--
- Mates.
We were at primary school together.
- Just mates then?
- Yeah.
- That's good.
- Which in a way annoys me, that's just because
I feel like maybe she's trying to get into my new life
and these are my second family.
- Everybody wants a bit of Ryan, you know. [laughing]
You know.
- Don't panic, not the end of the world.
Well it could be the end of the world
but one thing at a time.
- Are we supposed to understand anything you're saying?
- She thinks that thing is an alien.
- Don't be daft, there's no such thing as aliens.
Anyway even if they was,
they ain't gonna be on a train in Sheffield.
- Why not? I'm alien and I'm here.
Graham O'Brien, played by Bradley Walsh.
- Yes, sir.
Sad times, he isn't here.
We meet him at a particular stage in his life.
He's newly, happily married to Grace,
which is Ryan's grandmother.
- Just beat cancer.
- Yeah, he's just beat cancer.
He met her when she was his nurse when
he was going through recovery.
And he's at the start of his retirement
from being a bus driver, in Sheffield.
Best be quick and thank you to Kevin,
the bus driver, for location intel.
- See, always ask a bus driver.
- He ends up being sort of like
a grandfather figure
to both of us.
- There is such a fear factor, he represents that,
the opposite of you, which, you know, the Doctor
likes to ask questions and assess and go in.
Graham would wait a week and then open the door
to see if anyone was there
and have a little sandwich in between.
- These days, I always carry a cheese and pickle sarnie,
you know, just for emergencies.
- Tim Shaw?
- Tzim-Sha.
- Tim Shaw?
- Tzim-Sha!
- Yeah, he basically goes around killing people
and then every time he kills people, he like,
collects their teeth and, as you can see,
his face is like full of teeth.
So that's like his war trophy, in a sense.
- A Stenza warrior wears his conquests.
- In our defeat of Tim Shaw, we feel like
we have seen the last of him and he is the cause
of Grace's death, which is Ryan's grandmother.
Unbeknownst to us, we have potentially caused
an even bigger drama because he becomes exiled
from his own planet and so sets up home
somewhere else and is misidentified
as a God.
And so all his horrific wishes are being carried out by
people who believe themselves to be doing
the right thing because they're following a God.
Ugh, not that.
[gasps]
Yes! Now that's what I want.
- That's what you're going with?
- Yep.
- The Doctor previously had said she was going to go off
by herself but I was like, um, I think you might
need to get some new clothes-- - Guidance.
- Before you leave, so Yaz and Ryan take her
to a charity shop - helping the environment,
recycling clothes - and we pick out loads of stuff
for her, as you can see, I've got like a handful
of clothes that I think will be really good,
that match each other.
- That was another thing about the regeneration
between Doctors is that you regenerate
into the previous Doctor's costume.
And it was actually Peter's costume,
so it was all a bit big, you know, the trousers,
I mean he's not a curvy guy, but I am a bit smaller
than him and so like the trousers were always
a bit big and the shirt cuffs and everything.
- So she's been in the changing room
for a very long time and then she--
- Unsupervised.
- Unsupervised and then she comes out with this
amazing outfit that she's put together herself.
- You think it's quite bold.
- I, well, it's very bold.
[laughing]
It's very bold and it's very blue.
- And so to finally be in something that
we, as creatives, had spent a long time
building and collaborating on, it felt like second skin.
And I absolutely adore my costume.
And it's so interesting having the time off
between seasons because like day one,
going back into my costume, I'm just like,
got my hands in my pockets, I feel like I'm at home.
- Afraid of your own newness.
We see deeper, though, further back.
The Timeless Child.
- What did you just say?
- She doesn't know.
- What are you talking about?
Who is the Timeless Child?
What is the Timeless Child?
How is that connecting any of us?
And I suppose,
that may, or may not, get answered.
[doorway exploding]
[dramatic music]
So, a Dalek is the ultimate of the Doctor's foes.
And it's the one for the Doctor,
it's haunted her and his journey throughout
space and time and can never seemingly be defeated.
So, in this scene, the Dalek doesn't recognize
the Doctor either, because I've regenerated.
So it's about the reconnecting
of the Doctor's ultimate villain and discovering
what it is that the Dalek wants.
Which is always the worst case scenario:
to kill humanity and to take over the universe.
- Exterminate!
- Doctor, I did say, look for the spymaster.
Or should I say spy...
Master?
[dramatic music]
- So this episode is basically the Spyfall episode.
Come back, you know what I mean,
the gang is reunited and basically O,
to cut a long story short, O is this guy
that we follow along, tryna find out what's going on
in the mission and then we get this big revelation
that he is the Master. - Master.
- And obviously the Master and the Doctor
go way back from Gallifrey, they used to be friends
and now they're not friends anymore.
- [Jodie] But you don't know who he is at that moment.
- So, obviously, we don't know.
- That's my name and that is why I chose it.
So satisfying.
- It's the ultimate trickery because
Sasha has been playing another character called O
throughout who has been-- - Our friend.
- Our friend who has guided us, given us information,
all to trick us into ultimately, what he wants to be,
our untimely deaths.
[melancholy music]
- What did the Master reveal?
- That he destroyed Gallifrey.
- We are not who we think.
You or I, whole existence of our species,
built on the lie of the Timeless Child.
- Why?
- Because our entire existence is built on a lie
and through his rage, he destroyed it.
And he destroyed where we're from, where he's from.
And not only does he say he's done it,
I see that he has done it.
And so for the Doctor to see Gallifrey burning
is incredibly traumatic.
We all saw it with our own eyes.
- And that was everything you need to know
about the latest adventures of Doctor Who.
- Now we just need to explain the first 26 seasons
of Classic Who, the TV movie and the first 10
seasons of the new series.
- No, I'm fine. Nah, I'm alright, thank you.
- Aw, come on guys, fam!