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Kelsey's Choice was the fourth serial of Season 48 of Doctor Who. It was written by Simon Nye, directed by Nick Hurran and starred Peter Capaldi as the Thirteenth Doctor, Gemma Chan as Kelsey Haule & Tom Ellis as Richard McIntyre.

Synopsis[]

It has been five years since Richard & Kelsey last travelled with the Doctor. However, when he arrives by accident and they have a reunion, Kelsey is left questioning what is real. Is she actually living with her husband Richard in Ashwell, 2017, or is she still travelling with Kelsey and the Doctor in the TARDIS? Which is real and which is fake? Dream or reality? Only one thing is clear: it's Kelsey's choice.

Plot[]

To be added.

Cast[]

Crew[]

To be added.

Worldbuilding[]

The Doctor[]

  • The Doctor says he is over two thousand years old.
  • The Doctor claims to hate himself more than anyone else in the universe, after realising the Dream Lord is his dark side personified.
  • The Dream Lord talks about the Doctor's many relationships with different women.
  • Kelsey says, "Can we not do the running thing?", which the Doctor and his companions often end up doing.
  • Kelsey mentions the musical Oklahoma! and that she became pregnant so she did not have to sit through a local production of it.

TARDIS[]

  • The Doctor states that he threw the TARDIS Instruction Manual into a supernova because he 'disagreed' with it. He has mentioned before that he disagreed with it.

Time travel[]

  • The Doctor initially assumes that the TARDIS has jumped a time track.

Species[]

  • The Eknodine are an old race which hid themselves in elderly humans.

Notes[]

  • A working title for this story was The Dream Lord.
  • Technically, the entire episode took place in the TARDIS, however, it doesn't meet the requirements for a bottle episode as it uses locations and sets other than those already standing for production.
  • The sign outside the old peoples' home reads "Sarn Residential Care Home". The planet Sarn was the setting for TV: Planet of Fire and Sarn was also the name of a character in TV: Time and the Rani. (However, there is no on-screen evidence to suggest that there is any significance in this.)
  • Gemma Chan had to wear a latex prosthetic stomach bump for the scenes which depicted Kelsey as pregnant.
  • The Eknodine was inspired by Simon Nye's childhood fear of old people. However, he made clear that he did not intend to make children scared of their grandparents.
  • The Eknodine were CGI and the scenes were simply filmed with the actors opening their mouths.
  • Nainby was the surname of one of Simon Nye's contemporaries at Collyer's School, Horsham.
  • In the Eknodines, Simon Nye conceived monsters which could be straightforwardly realised, although there was some indecision as to whether it should be one eyeball or two which would emerge from the mouths of the possessed senior citizens.
  • The scene where the children visit Skenrith Castle on their school trip was originally set in a primary school playground.
  • The frozen console room was achieved using a spray of wax and plastic.
  • Simon Nye attended read-throughs of previous episodes to capture the character and "voice" of Kelsey.
  • Simon Nye admitted to restraining himself in the change from comedy to science fiction, but said it was "fun" and "hugely liberating".
  • Paul Cornell originally gave Simon Nye the premise of the episode for it to fit in the series arc, which was to challenge the Doctor and his companion's relationship.

Continuity[]

  • The Dream Lord teleports around much as the Valeyard did in TV: The Ultimate Foe.
  • The Dream Lord refers to the Doctor as the "the Oncoming Storm", two of his epithets. (TV: Love and War et al.)
  • The Doctor initially assumes that the TARDIS has jumped a time track, as it did in TV: The Space Museum.
  • The Dream Lord says, "I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog", an oblique reference to K9.
  • The Doctor refers to throwing the TARDIS Instruction Manual into a supernova because he "disagreed with it". The Fourth Doctor had an instruction manual in TV: The Pirate Planet and disagreed with it, with him even tearing a page out of it.
  • The Doctor's TARDIS has been captured before. (TV: Blink, The Resurrected)
  • The Dream Lord taunts the Doctor with, "I bet you're a vegetarian!" in a butcher's shop and then by calling him "veggie", perhaps referring to his failed vegetarianism. This originated at the end of TV: The Two Doctors.

Home video releases[]

DVD[]

  • This story along with the other stories in Season 48 were released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Eighth Season in 2012.
  • This story along with the other stories in Season 48, Part 1 were released as Doctor Who: Season 48, Part 1 in 2012.

Blu-ray[]

  • This story along with the other stories in Season 47 were later released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Eighth Season on Blu-ray in 2012.
  • This story along with the other stories in Season 47, Part 2 were released as Doctor Who: Season 48, Part 1 on Blu-ray in 2011.
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