Trivia / Doctor Who S33 E6 "The Bells of Saint John"

---

• Completely Different Title: The French title is "Enfermés dans la toile" ("Trapped in the Web") Insistently, this is not a Mythology Gag to the Great Intelligence story "The Web of Fear", as it was never exported to French-speaking territories.
• Defictionalization: Amy Pond's fictional 1954 book Summer Falls was released by the BBC as an actual digital novel on April 4th, 2013.
• Development Gag: The numbers in Clara's 101 Adventures book skip ages 16 and 23, years in the "classic" Doctor Who run the series didn't air. 16 years was the gap between the classic series and the 2005 revival. The numbers also imply Clara was born in 1989, the year the series was first cancelled. The first year skipped would then be 2005, when the series was revived, and the second 2012, when Clara first appeared on the show.
• First Appearance: Of Clara Oswald. Well, sort-of. If you don't count her echoes appearing in two previous episodes and Clara herself making a cameo at the end of the Christmas special.
• The Other Marty: The small role of Nabile was originally played by future Class (2016) regular Fady Elsayed. However, his scene needed to be reworked to incorporate some location filming and the role was recast with Manpreet Bachu.
• Stunt Casting: Celia Imrie as Ms. Kizlet.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Doctor was supposed to find passport photos in Clara's book instead of a leaf. It was changed last-minute to tie into "The Rings of Akhaten".
  • Miss Kizlet's client was never mentioned until later drafts where the Doctor learned over the course of the story that this was the Great Intelligence.
  • The scene where the Doctor answered the TARDIS’ phone was originally after Clara was being attacked by the Spoonhead. On the other line, a mysterious female voice told the Doctor, "Run you clever boy. And save her." The whispered female voice would presumably have been Missy's, although the original intention, when it was uncertain whether Clara would be in Series 8 or not, was for the "woman in the shop" to be one of Clara's echoes who had lived to old age, providing another explanation.
• Working Title: The title was originally announced as The Bells of St John, in keeping with the actual abbreviated spelling of "St John" on the logo.

---