Monsters You Didn’t See

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (out now) has revealed that a lot more monsters were originally meant to be seen, rather than just name checked, in the Series Five finale.

Steven Moffat’s original script for The Pandorica Opens called for the Doctor to be surrounded by “every monster he has ever faced”, but the production team simply couldn’t afford to show them all.

The article states that the CGI monsters, like the Pyroviles and Vespiform, were the first to go as they cost the most money. That money instead went on the spaceships.

Using old costumes from the classic series was considered but Doctor Who’s Prosthetics Designer, Neill Gorton, said, “There was a bit of talk about seeing if old costumes might be suitable. Sadly once you shake off that lovely nostalgia and look at them, they don’t really hold up when you put them alongside what’s possible today.”

In particular, Gorton said would have loved to bring Draconians back, “We obviously couldn’t afford to do so, but I would have loved to have handled the Draconians. They had a really great look about them and we could make them look almost exactly as they did.”

“There’s a problem with that though – what if next series the team want’s to bring back the Draconians, for example? They might then want them updated in some way – in the same way we did the Silurians. But then they wouldn’t match the Draconians in the Pandorica chamber, so once again you realise that this stuff needs more thought than expected.”