You'll never guess what the Doctor does in this unused scene from Mummy on the Orient Express
Along with a further appearance from Frank Skinner's fan favourite Perkins, the cut scene sees the Doctor go for a very unusual stroll...
Forget Tim Peake, it turns out the Doctor was set for a spacewalk of his own a long time before the British astronaut stepped out into the void...
An early draft of series-eight episode Mummy on the Orient Express, shared by writer Jamie Mathieson, reveals that Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor originally had an extra scene with Frank Skinner's enigmatic train engineer Perkins.
The Doctor has been locked up by the Orient Express's captain, Quell, but after an oblique tip-off from Perkins he discovers an unusual escape route – by going outside the train...
According to Perkins, the train is surrounded by a "permanent air corridor" which allows the window cleaners to do their jobs without being sucked away into the vacuum of space.
"Around the whole train," says Perkins. "Held there by force fields. Thirty to forty foot high on the roof. But it’s still there on the sides. Seven foot or so out. The window cleaners use it. Quite a sight."
He also happens to mention that the door to the exit ramp has a broken latch... The Doctor has found his escape route and, if the scene had been kept in, we would have been treated to the following striking image...
THE DOCTOR walking impossibly on the side of the train! Gravity is obviously set to make any surface ‘down’. Dynamic hero shot as he strides toward the engine. A man on a mission.
In the end it was decided that the passage didn't really advance the plot. But while cutting it out sounds like the right decision, it will leave many fans wondering whether the sight of the Doctor, striding along the side of a train as it hurtles through space, might just be one of the best Doctor Who scenes that never was...
Read the full scene on Jamie Mathieson's blog
