Doctor Who showrunner cut Susan Twist scene from 2-part season finale
The Legend of Ruby Sunday's initial script featured a big pre-titles montage.
The penultimate episode of Doctor Who season 14, The Legend of Ruby Sunday, finally revealed some answers in the mystery surrounding Susan Twist's multiple characters, as they were revealed to be a herald of Sutekh, The One Who Waits.
However, it turns out we almost saw a number of additional incarnations of Twist in the show, with the actor originally set to appear in a montage sequence at the start of the episode, starting the Doctor and Ruby on their trip to UNIT in a quest for answers.
In the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, it is revealed that The Legend of Ruby Sunday was originally written under the working title Chrysalis, and would have started with the Doctor and Ruby finding a version of Twist as a nanny in Pennsylvania in 1946.
She would have been seen pushing a pram through a park past Albert Einstein and Paul Robeson, at which point the Doctor would note: "Everywhere we go. The same woman. Everywhere in time and space. And right now she’s human…"
In the scene, the Doctor would have notably ignored Einstein and Robeson, and instead focused on Twist's character.
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Next, they would have met her as a blue-skinned waitress in an alien diner, followed by a human astronaut, venturing outside her space rocket on the surface of an alien world.
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That scene would have seen the return of the Zarbi from classic story The Web Planet, with Twist's astronaut addressing a crowd of them, saying: "I bring greetings to the Zarbi of Vortis. Greetings from the Earth Imperium of the Emperor Horatio!"
While we didn't get to see this sequence, the intro the The Legend of Ruby Sunday did include some additional characters played by Twist, as part of a reel of images the Doctor showed to the UNIT team.
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The final episode of the season, Empire of Death, will air on Saturday 22nd June, with the synopsis teasing: "The Doctor has lost, his ageless enemy reigns supreme, and a shadow is falling over creation. Nothing can stop the devastation... except, perhaps, one woman."
The latest issue of Doctor Who magazine is out now.
Doctor Who continues on Saturday 22nd June on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here.
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