Doctor Who's opening episode had a bit more Peter Capaldi guitar-playing in its first cut...
One of the key factors I thought that really contributed to the quality of Doctor Who season 10 opener, "The Pilot," was the pacing of it. That a lot of information is got across, but without feeling like the show was zooming through it.
That’s down in good part to the writing and editing amongst other factors, particularly in the first half of the episode. But inevitably, to get that pacing spot on, things had to be sacrificed. In particular, an early scene in the episode, that its director, Lawrence Gough, took us through.
As part of his bigger interview with us, that you can read here, Gough explained that “there was a whole sequence in the bar scene, where Heather and Bill first meet, and we spin around them. When we spun around them, what was originally revealed was that the Doctor was on stage playing guitar. It’s a great sequence, it was lovely to shoot. She hears the guitar and people part, and as she goes to look who’s playing this eerie tune, which was Clara’s Theme, played in a heavy metal way. Then she runs to Heather, and the camera spins round to see the Doctor in-between them, as if he’s drawing them together. It’s all part of that time and space montage.”
He added that “It was lovely, and it was a really great sequence. Peter was great, and with all the extras, the place was packed out. He did this whole sequence on the guitar, and we filmed the whole thing. Everyone was really into it, as if you were in a club watching a band. In the edit, though, we wanted that bit to be montage-y and quite pacey, so it was one of those things that had to go. Something had to go, so that went.”
Whether we eventually get to see the scene as a deleted sequence on DVD remains to be seen…