Just days after revealing that Matt Smith is to leave Doctor Who, the BBC today stunned sci-fi fans with news that his replacement will be gloomy Scottish F1 jockey Paul di Resta.
BBC spies say di Resta won the coveted role after lengthy screen tests in which he impressed producers with his carefully media-trained responses to the dialogue delivered by other actors. ‘Paul really made the part his own,’ said one Beeb insider. ‘For example, when another character said the line “The Cybermen are attacking!” the script called for the Doctor to reply, “We’ll see about that”. But what Paul said was, “The Cybermen are attacking, and that’s definitely something that we’re addressing but, you know, we’ve made good progress this weekend and the guys have done a great job so it’s fair to say I’m feeling confident in the circumstances”. Those of us who hadn’t fallen asleep half way through were really impressed.’
Although future storylines are kept tightly under wraps, it’s believed that di Resta’s first adventure as the new Doctor will see the dour Force India driver struggling to get to the distant planet of Mornthraw and looking set to arrive on time only to suffer some misfortune which causes him to find that 13 or 14 other time lords have got there first.
As a further shock for Who fans, it’s believed that the new Doctor’s assistant will be played by F1 pit lane reporter Lee McKenzie whose job will be to sit around in the Tardis until the Doctor returns from another unsuccessful mission and solemnly ask him if he is ‘bitterly disappointed’.
