Director Rachel Talalay shared a longer cut of the opening sequence she filmed for the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special The Star Beast featuring David Tennant (the Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble) and Yasmin Finney (Rose Noble).

Part of footage shows the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver draw himself a viewscreen in the air to get a better look at a spaceship plunging from the sky.

Talalay explained her rationale for removing this scene, which is echoed in a later scene where the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver in a similar manner when he meets UNIT science officer Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley).

“Of course, this whole area was cut out of the final version of the episode. And it’s not that it was bad in any way, but there was definitely a worry that the spaceship was in the sky a long time with Donna not noticing, and the whole opening sequence was too long.”

“Anyway, when I mentioned to editor Will Oswald that we should see what happened if we cut the whole sonic sequence, even though I really wasn’t sure if it’s going to work, he looked at me a little suspicious. I mean, that’s a big lift to the showrunner script. We were both surprised that it moved the story along so much better. I do miss this one epic rack focus to introduce the sonic.”

“I was scared to show it to [writer Russell T Davies] in case he took offence to my suggesting such a big edit, but it clearly worked. It left more room for crowd reactions and room to question the spaceship.”

Anther challenge Talalay mentions in the video is the choice of location. Camden was chosen because Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th anniversary Jubilee closed off more recognisable portions of London. Capturing the real-life Cyberdog shop in the footage was considered a potential distraction from the main action of the spaceship in jeopardy and because Cybermen are not the adversary of the special.

A scene featuring the Doctor and Shaun Temple (Karl Collins) in a taxi in a traffic jam never made it to the final shooting script due to time, money and because the scene was considered dispensable. The Doctor would have encountered a roadblock and shown his psychic paper to a policeman who agrees to let “my lady” pass.

Also discussed in the video are challenges with a tight schedule, the weather, a troublesome bystander, cardboard boxes and the trajectory of the spaceship.

Rachel Talalay has and upcoming directing credit for the mystery-thriller TV series Yaga based on the Slavic folklore myth of Baba Yaga.