Secret desert location beckons Dr Who

Roland Hughes

• Last Updated: February 13. 2009 4:35PM UAE / February 13. 2009 12:35PM GMT

ABU DHABI // In a long career of time and space travel he has faced many other-worldly challenges, from battling a monster made of sweets to tackling aliens.

So while filming in crippling sandstorms in Dubai this week may have proved troublesome for mere mortals, the cult sci-fi figure the Doctor, hero of the popular BBC programme Doctor Who, emerged victorious over the climatic horrors of planet Earth. Hundreds of production crew descended on the desert around the city this week to film part of an episode of the programme.

The location remained a closely guarded secret despite being in the wide open desert, with production company staff and all technical crew from Dubai required to sign confidentiality agreements.

Despite the secrecy, it is one of the biggest television productions ever to hit the UAE.

Images released by the BBC show David Tennant, the Scots actor who is the 10th to play the Doctor, and Michelle Ryan, the British actress, standing among the country’s famous dunes, unflappable despite the sand being blown in their faces.

The desert will form the backdrop for the first of four special episodes of Doctor Who that will be screened later this year. The episode, Planet of the Dead, will see the time-travelling Doctor and his assistant, played by Ryan, arrive on a desert planet when a bus takes a wrong turn.

Earlier scenes were filmed in Cardiff, the Welsh capital, where the majority of the series is produced.

The bus to be used in the episode was badly damaged by a crane on arrival in Dubai last month, so the script was changed hastily to incorporate the damage.

Tracie Simpson, the show’s production manager, said: “The locations in Dubai are a perfect match for writer Russell T Davies’ vision of the episode, and we expect to film some incredible scenes while we are here.” It is only the second time that an episode of Doctor Who has been filmed abroad since the show was first broadcast in 1963. An earlier episode, again with Tennant in the lead role, was filmed in Rome.

It is not yet known if, or when, the Dubai scenes will be shown in the UAE, with the Showtime network currently running an episode behind those broadcast in the UK.

rhughes@thenational.ae