A certain famous face made an appearance in the Doctor Who’s 2023 Christmas special.
It’s safe to say that there was a lot of anticipation when it was rumoured that Davina McCall would be making an appearance in the 2023 Doctor Who Christmas special this past summer, and now that it has aired, her appearance certainly did not disappoint!
In the latest episode of the long running sci-fi series, The Church on Ruby Road, McCall played none other than herself, and was part of a storyline that involved the Doctor’s new companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson).
In a bid to track down her family, Ruby appeared on a programme hosted by McCall which, no doubt, was inspired by Long Lost Family, the show of which McCall is the host.
Now, speaking on Doctor Who: Unleashed, McCall, Gibson and showrunner Russell T Davies have spoken out on McCall’s Doctor Who debut and the Long Lost Family references in the episode.
“Davina McCall is a boss,” said Gibson, “Her scenes are so sick. She’s the loveliest person ever, honestly, I loved my scenes with her. I kept saying to her, ‘I wish you had more.’”
“I kind of owed it to her to be in this because when we won the BAFTA for Doctor Who in 2006, it was Davina who presented it to us so I associate Davina McCall with Doctor Who very closely,” continued Davies.
“She does the Long Lost Family show on ITV and they’ve started doing foundling shows. I watched those and I started to realise how the life of a foundling is changing now.
“With DNA testing, they can find out who their families are and so that was the inspiration, so I thought it was just fair to pay that back and say, come on Davina, come and do the show.”
Meanwhile, McCall said: “It’s an honour. It was funny because I got asked and I was working all the way through and I was like, move everything. I used to watch it when I was a kid so Jon Pertwee was my first Doctor – that’s how old I am!”
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“What I really liked actually about the producers on the show was that they did contact Long Lost Family which is the show that I do and they definitely wanted to do it justice and we were really grateful for that.”
Unfortunately, McCall’s character met an unfortunate end in the Christmas special, in part due to some particularly chaotic Goblins, so we will likely not be seeing any more of her.
However, what with the arrival of brand new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa and the mystery surrounding Ruby Sunday’s mother which is sure to be solved, Doctor Who’s fourteenth season sure looks promising.
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