Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill filmed their last scenes last year (Picture: BBC Studios/James Pardon)
Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker has opened up on how Yaz (Mandip Gill) and the Doctor’s story will end ahead of her emotional regeneration.
Showrunner Chris Chibnall has promised a ‘tear-filled goodbye’ to Jodie in the upcoming special The Power of the Doctor and we can only imagine that Yaz, who finally confronted her feelings for the Doctor in recent specials, will be no small part of it.
Asked about how the show will see out Yaz and the Doctor’s story, Jodie told Metro.co.uk: ‘I think that what Chris has done really brilliantly, in [Legend of the Sea Devils] and then going forward, is there’s so much action and there’s such an epic storyline and a roller coaster of events.
‘But within that, [Yaz] and the Doctor, they’re not lost. And there are real moments of stillness and connection and conversation, and I think that that’s really important.’
While Chris teased plenty of ‘big surprises’ on the way, Jodie is keeping shtum, even with fan theories being fired at her, including the idea that she could regenerate into David Tennant’s Doctor at the end of the episode (‘I don’t know! I haven’t seen it’) and the rumoured return of Bradley Walsh as Graham (‘I wish!’).
But she did add of the highly-anticipated special, which will see her fight her final battle against the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master (Sacha Dhawan): ‘I would say that this episode, because it’s feature length, it’s a huge celebration of Doctor Who in that it touches what has gone before, it touches on the now and then obviously because it’s a regeneration episode, it shows us the future.
‘And I think to celebrate and to coincide with the BBC centenary, it gives so much, particularly for Doctor Who fans about the canon of Doctor Who. You’ve got the Daleks, you’ve got the Cybermen, you’ve got the Master, you’ve got Ace [Sophie Aldred] and Tegan [Janet Fielding] and Kate Stewart [Jemma Redgrave].
The pair are saying goodbye to Doctor Who (Picture: BBC Studios, BBC Studios/James Pardon)
‘But then for us, it brings back Jacob Anderson and John Bishop’s character Dan is in it and it cements what’s gone before.’
Referring to Mandip, she added: ‘Also our relationship started in the first episode of our first season and it’s bookended with this and that seems like a first for a Doctor and a companion.’
And Jodie’s made no secret of the emotion of the episode and what it means to be leaving the role that she’s dedicated her life to for the past five years.
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‘For us, it’s really sad but it’s because it’s been such a joy to do everything – it’s gone above and beyond my expectations,’ she explained.
‘I couldn’t have imagined what taking this job – the gifts that we were going to get from it. Lots of jobs are jobs and they’re wonderful times but this feels as if it’s a moment in our life that we will forever treasure.
‘We felt like we had this amazing band that you didn’t want to break up,’ she added of the cast and crew. ‘It’s been wonderful. But I think because it’s been such an important time in our lives…I won’t care that in 20 years I’ll still be talking about it because once you’re in the Who family you’re not kicked out. So I do know it will be a reference point for a lot of people and that’ll never get old for me.’
But, thankfully, it might not be the last we’ll see of Jodie and Mandip, with both of them keen to return.
‘We’ve handed in our CVs,’ Jodie joked.
We wouldn’t have it any other way!
The Power of the Doctor is set to air on October 23 at 7:30pm on BBC One.
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Jodie promised that, within all the action, Yaz and the Doctor ‘aren’t lost’.
