The recent five episode run to kick off the seventh season of Doctor Who ended with the bittersweet send off of the Ponds. The second longest running companions for the Doctor in the new run, and the thus far only traveling mates of the Eleventh Doctor, the Ponds were fan favorites whose presence on the show will be missed.
That last paragraph contained no spoilers, as it was well publicized that they would be ending their run in the 5th episode of this current season. Going forward there will be spoilers for that episode, so if you somehow missed how the Ponds met their ends you might want to bookmark this story and come back once you watched the episode.
Some how the great Steven Moffat managed to essentially kill these two beloved characters while at the same time giving them the happiest ending possible. Even though they were trapped in the past during a time the Doctor is unable to ever visit (which were sure will be retconned sooner rather than later), they were both given full, seemingly normal lives to live together for decades and decades. The love story of Amy and Rory Williams, which has seen their love forged over thousands of years, over several deaths and over a parallel lifetime finally settles long enough to let them live out the rest of their days in loving peace.
That is where the show left us, a sucker punch to the gut that had the sweetest of aftertastes. However, the Doctor Who writing crew is not one to leave well enough alone, and that has been proven once again in this newly released story board animation of an unfilmed coda scene to that episode.
Check it out after the jump.
One lingering thread after the end of the Ponds was Rory’s dad, who has played a rather large part in several of the past five episodes. In the second to last episode, written by Chris Chibnall, Brian Williams implores Rory and Amy to go with the Doctor. This unfilmed scene is most likely originally meant for that episode, as it is also written by Chibnall, and features a really nice parallel to one of the last things Brian said in the episode.
It makes sense to cut the scene from the fourth episode, because it kind of kills some of the drama of the fifth, but it is curious that such a powerful scene that provides such sweet closure for these characters would be completely left unfilmed. This could have easily been a nice little post episode webisode to help bridge the gap between now and Christmas.
Our best guess as to why it remains in this form and never actually filmed is that Moffat himself has plans for Brian Williams and how he discovers his son’s fate. It would end up being a powerful moment for Eleven to encounter Brian while toting along a new companion, trying to explain why he let what happen, happen.
Or not, this is all just rampant speculation. Why not enjoy this sweet moment as it is, and let the grand plans of the Moff unfold for us in real-time when the Doctor returns for the rest of season 7 at the start of his 50th anniversary year.
