True Doctor Who fans might hate me for saying this, but I was one of those Philistines who only tuned into the show when David Tennant was in the lead role (my apologies to Peter Capaldi, who was undoubtedly much more of a Whovian).
So you can imagine how excited I was to find out the BBC have released multiple scripts from the show in their BBC Script Library, leading to multiple discoveries among Whovians about episodes that could have been.
For instance, a deleted scene from season 4, episode 8, Silence in the Library, shows an unaired moment between the Doctor and Donna.
What happens?
The Doctor and Donna talk in the Tardis about a trip to a beach with “intelligent sand.”
According to the Doctor, it “dries you off when you’ve been for a dip, clears
away the lolly sticks by night, and remembers your sandcastles in the morning. And you’re allowed back in swimming straight after you’ve eaten.”
Of course, this magical-sounding beach has its downsides. “Exactly once a year the beach gets hungry, dissolves all living matter into a protein slime and drinks it ― but you can have fun long as you keep your eye on the date,” the Doctor tells Donna.
But the duo’s chat is interrupted when the Doctor gets a worrying message on his psychic paper, and changes the topic from beaches to books ― “What do you need on a beach? You need a book.”
The message he’s gotten on the paper is the first of its kind he’s had in a while, the Doctor says.
They then head to the library where the rest of the episode takes place ― and where fans meet River Song for the first time.
I appreciate they had to streamline the episode, and what was aired was formative for the Doctor; but am I the only one who really, really wanted the Whoniverse to be expanded just one psychopathic beach more?!