Jodie Whittaker: Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole’s Doctor Who exits “devastating”

Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh may be leaving Doctor Who after the holiday special, but at least it’s bringing back Captain Jack. The producers get into it:

Doctor Who is gearing up for its highly-anticipated holiday special on New Year’s Day. “Revolution of the Daleks” will feature the return of both old friends the Doctor’s most fearsome enemies,  and resolve the cliffhanger that left the Doctor locked up in space prison. It will also feature the final appearance of companions Ryan (Tosin Cole) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) as series regulars.

The two have been part of the main cast (including Mandip Gill’s Yasmin Khan) since Jodie Whittaker took over the role of the Doctor a couple of years back. But now we must bid farewell to them…and it’s not going to be easy.

In fact, Whittaker sounds heartbroken over the situation, as she explained to Digital Spy.

"[I’m] absolutely devastated Without going into any specifics about anything to do with character, or what happens, just purely knowing it was my last scenes with those actors… both of them had to carry me to my trailer, I haven’t cried like that for such a long time.Brad couldn’t cope with it at all. Tosin was like, ‘I really can’t cope with you getting so upset.’ That sums up how I felt, there wasn’t a sense of relief in any way. I said ‘Don’t leave me with her!’"

I’ve gotten used to Cole and Walsh being a part of the Doctor Who family, and it will be weird to see the Doctor with just one companion again, even though that was the norm for many years. It was nice to see the Doctor with more than one or two companions, and there was something about these four that just worked.

To say that Walsh and Cole will be missed is a huge understatement, but hey, you never know, perhaps in the future they’ll return. Maybe for Whittaker’s final Doctor Who episode…whenever that will be. For now, she is still very much the Doctor, and I’d like it to remain that way for as long as possible.

It wouldn’t be a complete shocker if the two ever did return to the series in some capacity. We’ve seen many characters return over the years. In fact, in the holiday special, John Barrowman is making his return as Captain Jack Harkness after appearing earlier in the season, in the episode “Fugitive of the Judoon.”

Showrunner Chris Chibnall talked to Digital Spy about how that cameo will play into the holiday special. “We knew he’d be coming back for this special, so we back laid him into the previous series, into the Judoon episode, in the middle. It was cooked up over lots of phone calls and secret meetings and not-so-secret meetings at John Barrowman concerts. He smuggled me backstage and we had a secret conversation.”

"He has a past history with Daleks, seeing as they killed him – small detail in his life – so he’s going to be up against those. He’ll be really important to Yaz, and Graham, and Ryan as well. The moment he finally meets the Doctor should be great, if that were to happen…I really wanted Captain Jack to meet the 13th Doctor, and it’d been a long time since he’d been on screen in Doctor Who, it was well overdue. You want the festive specials to feel like a treat, and there’s no bigger treat than John Barrowman as Captain Jack."

I cannot wait for New Year’s Day and to see what this Doctor Who holiday special has in store for us. Given the year we’ve all had, it will be nice to kick off the new one like this.

Be sure to check out Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks on BBC America on New Year’s Day at 8:00 p.m. EST.

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