By now you’ve no doubt been made aware, but BBC America and Nerdist have produced a series of retrospectives of some of the greatest Doctor Who episodes of the past several series in a little something called The Doctor’s Finest. Each week until the premiere of Series 9 on September 19, BBC America is showing episodes that represent fan-favorite adventures in space and time, with interstitial segments hosted by Hannah Hart that feature interviews with celebrity Whovians.
For week 3, Hannah introduced the episodes “Vincent and the Doctor” and “The Doctor’s Wife” and sat down with master robot builder and former Mythbuster Grant Imahara to talk about the latter. It’s an episode which accentuates the TARDIS’ alive nature as more than a box that can travel anywhere and is bigger on the inside; it’s really a living and thinking entity with a strong connection to the Doctor. This is done when the TARDIS’ “soul” is transplanted into a woman, Idris (Suranne Jones), and she is finally able to speak to the Doctor. Hannah and Grant, as you can see in the above clip, talk about whether he talks to his own creations like they’re alive, and whether machines have souls.
Next week, Hannah is back to talk about one of the greatest episodes of all time (THE greatest if you believe the Doctor Who Magazine poll from 2014), the 50th Anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.” To join Hannah this time will be someone who was actually in that episode: Ingrid Oliver, who plays the UNIT tech and diehard Doctor fan, Osgood. She returned in the Series 8 finale and met an untimely end, but it looks like she’ll be back in Series 9… but how?!
Enjoy a brief discussion about Osgood and her confrontation with Missy below.
The Doctor’s Finest airs Saturday nights at 8:00pm ET/PT only on BBC America. As always be sure to read my preview of the episodes in question (as I did for Week 3) here on Nerdist on Saturday at 7pm ET. Catch up with clips from the specials, including looks at the new series, on the BBC America YouTube channel.
Do you think machines have souls? If you could talk to the TARDIS, what would you say? Let me know in the comments below!
