"One wrong move and it's all over."
Ever since it was announced that Steven Moffat would be penning an episode of Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the Doctor, fans have been anticipating its arrival on screens.
Titled 'Boom', the Doctor and Ruby Sunday find themselves "caught in the middle of a devastating war on Kastarion 3", and the Doctor becomes trapped when he steps on a landmine.
The question that lingers if is he can save himself, Ruby and the entire planet - all without moving.
The episode, which is undoubtedly going to be thrilling to say the least, leans into new stakes that the Doctor hasn't found himself in in the last two episodes, and Moffat has revealed what inspired him to tap into something different.
In the press notes for episode 3, Moffat explained that he began chatting to Russell T Davies when the latter returned as Doctor Who showrunner, and when asked if he wanted to do an episode, he kept thinking, "What have I not done?"
He explained: "I've done everything I could possibly think of on Doctor Who. But it occurred to me that Doctor Who doesn't often do suspense or tension – it does adventure, love stories and comedy all the time. It does just about everything, but not a lot of suspense.
"The Doctor kills suspense because he's funny and in control, which quickly ends any suspense."
Queue the landmine!
The idea for this episode stemmed from "a short sequence in Genesis of the Daleks" that Moffat loved as a child, and he thought about how it could work for an entire episode.
"The Doctor on a knife's edge, one wrong move and it's all over," Moffat said.
"It would take so much away from him – he can't run about, he can't bamboozle people and he literally can't move. I thought, 'That's something that I haven't done.'"
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Viewers will have to tune in on Saturday night to find out what awaits the Doctor, but Russell T Davies previously teased "a masterpiece of performance from [Ncuti and Millie]" in episode 3.
While being sure to not give much away, Davies said: "People will be talking about that for years to come."
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Doctor Who continues on Saturday 18th May on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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Katelyn Mensah is the Entertainment and Factual Writer for Radio Times, covering all major entertainment programmes, reality TV shows and the latest hard-hitting documentaries. She previously worked at The Tab, with a focus on reality TV and showbiz news and has obtained a BA (Hons) in Journalism.
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