Is Osgood returning to Doctor Who?
Ingrid Oliver’s UNIT scientist had an offscreen role to play in Christmas special The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Since her first appearance in Doctor Who 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, Ingrid Oliver’s bespectacled UNIT scientist (and Time Lord fangirl) Osgood has become a fan-favourite character, taking on the Cybermen and Missy while forging peace with the shapeshifting Zygons in a handful of popular episodes.
And now it seems as if her most recent appearance (walking off with her alien duplicate in 2015 episode The Zygon Inversion) may not be the last we see of her, after a piece of dialogue in the Christmas special suggesting that there could be more Osgood goodness to come.
In the final scenes of the episode, evil body-swapping brain aliens Harmony Shoal have been defeated and one is arrested, while the other abandons his host body (Aleksander Jovanovic’s Dr Sim) and escapes inside a UNIT soldier.
Seeing Sim’s empty body, another UNIT soldier (played by Joseph Vaughn) tells his fellow: “Wait here – I’m putting a call in to Osgood,” before walking away. Very cool.
Clearly, Osgood’s position and influence at UNIT have only continued to grow if she’s the number-one alien expert called on by operatives around the world – and considering the fact that the evil brains will probably be returning (given that one of them escaped), it’s not too much to suppose that Osgood would be tied into that storyline.
Then again, we haven’t heard any news of her involvement thus far and it could be that this was just a fun little reference for fans to look out for. Hopefully, we’ll find out the truth (whether it’s Osgood news or, er, Osbad news) in the months to come.
Doctor Who will return to BBC1 in April 2017
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
