“I felt it was more heartbreaking.”
Former Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall has admitted he might have made the wrong decision in the finale for the Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan.
Fans of the show had been shipping for a kiss between the Time Lord (Jodie Whittaker) and her companion (Mandip Gill), but the moment never happened despite the pair showing a romantic interest in each other.
In an interview with the RadioTimes, Chibnall revealed that the idea of a romantic moment was considered, but the writing team felt that the story was better served by leaving the relationship as unrequited love.
“We discussed it. I think it’s an unrequited love story – I don’t know whether that’s the right decision,” he explained. “I felt it was more heartbreaking. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any sense of ‘they’re not allowed to kiss’ or ‘they’re not going to kiss’.
“Dramatically [and] emotionally, it felt slightly more wrenching if they didn’t. And also, I think if they kiss, you don’t get the final scene on top of the TARDIS, because that scene was always sort of the kiss really.”
“It’s a really delicate kind of pressure because it could have happened. And who said [it] didn’t happen? But it wasn’t any sort of conscious decision to not to have it for anything other than ‘is it going to break your heart if they never quite get there?’” he added.
The BBC show will return later this year for a series of 60th anniversary specials starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate, with Ncuti Gatwa and Yasmin Finney making their debuts as The Doctor and Rose Noble respectively.
“In this series, I was scared when I saw some of the things,” Finney said, recently teasing her role. “It [sends] shivers down your spine. But, I can’t tell you too much. What I can say is it is going to be full of scares, full of laughs, full of all of it.”
