Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: Anita Dobson, bbc, chris chibnall, disney, doctor who, EastEnders, Millie Gibson, Ncuti Gatwa, russell t davies, Tyrell Charles

Doctor Who: RTD Teases "Vital Object," More Last-Minute "Empire" Clues

As Doctor Who heads for a season finale, Russell T. Davies goes down to the wire with a blitz of tie-ins & teases to hype "Empire of Death."

The finale of Doctor Who is upon us this week and fans have been hyped for the first time in years. You can chalk that down to returning showrunner Russell T. Davies, who is the best ringmaster for the show when it comes to drumming up interest in the show, and he posted this on his Instagram account on Wednesday:

"The EMPIRE OF DEATH approaches 😱 What is the truth about Susan Triad? Who is Ruby's mother? And what vital object lies waiting on a distant planet with no name? Answers on their way! All beginning with, tomorrow night: Pyramids of Mars on BBC 4 and @bbciplayer. Friday midnight: the Empire drops on @bbciplayer in the UK and @disneyplus worldwide, and in cinemas in the UK, then Saturday night on @bbcone. Plus, Doctor Who Unleashed with the lovely shacket-wearing @steffanpowell, and a whole EXTRA half-hour Unleashed looking at the whole series, plus an in-vision commentary for Empire of Death on the iPlayer with me, @thebonnielangford and producer Vicki Delow, with more facts than you can shake a Sutekh at. Here we go!" Here's a look at a screencap of Davies's caption:

And here's his original IG post:

This is more than just hype and marketing for Doctor Who, which Davies understands more than anyone by now. We're spoiled for choice with all the fun videos on YouTube released regularly to tie into this season like Tyrell Charles' regular intros to the Whoniverse to new viewers as well as bite-sized videos on Tiktok and YouTube. This is a far cry for the Chris Chibnall era when promos were mostly cricket chirps in the night, probably due to budgetary issues and then the Pandemic, though the series was promoted better during Lockdown than most TV series.

So on top of "Empire of Death," we're getting the UK-exclusive Tales of the Tardis with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson bookending a new edit of "Pyramids of Mars' to tie into the finale, the UK-only making-of show Doctor Who Unleashed as well as a bonus episode overview of the first season and the real-time In-Vision Commentary where Davies, Bonnie Langford, and producer Vicki Delow watch the finished finale together which is only available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer. Don't worry; the key segments of Tales of the Tardis will be on the official Doctor Who YouTube Channel. Doctor Who Unleashed and the In-Vision Commentaries will be on the official DVD and Blu-Ray release of the series, which will, alas, only be available in the UK due to Disney+ having the global streaming rights, presumably for a certain amount of time.

And it looks like Davies is promising to answer the big questions of the season, so there will be a proper payoff. His tease is a clue. If he brings up those questions, it means he already planned to answer them. This is Doctor Who, and Davies knows how his story is going to end; after all, it's not Lost, where the writers had no clue what the endgame was and just made things up as they went along [Ed. Note: Hmmm…], and that series became a hit mainly because viewers were teased by the mystery and cared about the actors and their characters' relationships.

Meanwhile, here's Anita Dobson, who plays Mrs. Flood on Doctor Who, singing the theme to Eastenders in 1986 which was released as a single when she became soap opera royalty on that show. Yes, she's a singer too who has performed in West End musicals including Chicago. Bet you didn't know there were actual lyrics beyond the DOUSH-DOUSH-DOUSHDOUSHDOUSH of the theme did you? And fun fact: Sir Brian May of Queen played the guitar solo on that single and is the husband of Anita Dobson.

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