Russell T Davies and David Tennant tease 'shocking' Doctor Who special 'Wild Blue Yonder'

There was something wonderfully familiar about Saturday's first Doctor Who 60th anniversary adventure "The Star Beast" with David Tennant and Catherine Tate returning as the Doctor and Donna to battle an alien threat on the streets of England. So should fans expect more of the same from this week's episode "Wild Blue Yonder"? Apparently not.

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies reveals that, just before speaking with EW, he was watching video from the show's official podcast, whose hosts had just seen the episode. The executive producer delightedly reports that they were left shaken by the experience.

"It’s like watching three people in shock, it’s one of the greatest experiences of my life," says Davies, who is himself returning to Doctor Who after more than a decade away. "They’re supposed to be people who have opinions, and attitudes, and sass, and they’re just sitting there wide-eyed at the shock of what they’ve just watched."

Several aspects of "The Star Beast" were well-publicized ahead of the premiere, including the return of Tennant and Tate, the casting of Yasmin Finney as Donna's daughter Rose, and the appearance of a seemingly adorable alien called "The Meep." Almost nothing is known about "Wild Blue Yonder," which suits Davies fine.

"We’re trying to keep it secret until transmission," he says. "Can we do that in this day and age? Is that remotely possible? So far! So far we’ve managed it. Even the very first scene is a surprise."

The showrunner does tease that the show is "a much more weird story, it’s set far away from earth, it’s a very mysterious episode. It’s a bit weird, it’s scary, it’s freaky, it pushes the show into areas it’s never quite been into before."

Tennant is similarly delighted that the show's creators have successfully managed to keep the nature of the episode a secret.

"It was the only [show] where we didn’t leave the studio," says the actor, of the second special episode, which will be followed by a third anniversary show, "The Giggle," the following week. "Usually, on Doctor Who, you end up announcing things because you’re going to be filming them on the street, because you know you will be observed. Doctor Who fans are very enthusiastic. If you’re filming Doctor Who on a street corner, it will often end up being photographed for the newspaper. So it was weird to be handed the opportunity of an episode that was entirely inside, and therefore we had the very rare thing where we didn’t have to announced any of it before hand, so we didn’t. Nobody knows almost anything about that episode, which is so rare in the world of Doctor Who, where every detail is craved by the audience, and it often leaks ahead of time. It’s rather joyous to think that nobody knows what’s coming. I feel it would be churlish to change that."

Can Tennant tease anything about what we will see on the show?

"Um, what can I tell you, what’s a nice little teaser?" he says. "There’s a very fun scene with an apple very early on!"

"Wild Blue Yonder" premieres on Disney+ Dec. 2 Watch the episode's teaser trailer below.

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