10 Simple Doctor Who Scenes That Were A NIGHTMARE To Film

Series 5 finale The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang takes viewers across the galaxy, and back-and-forth through time. But by far, the biggest logistical and budgetary issue were the scenes set at Stonehenge.

After being fortunate to be granted permission to film there (which wasn't guaranteed), they were only allowed to shoot for a single night. Luckily, most of the story’s Stonehenge scenes were also set at night, except one – the moment where the Doctor, River, and Amy first investigate the monument.

This simple conversation sequence could only be filmed as soon as the sun had risen – which fell within that night-time shooting mandate – in a narrow, 45-minute window of daylight. And as you can imagine, that resulted in a mad rush to get everything done.

Director Toby Haynes told Doctor Who Confidential that a scene like this would usually take up to two hours, which was problem one. Problem two was that heavy equipment such as rigs and cranes were banned, in order to protect the site. And problem three was that they could only light the scene from ground-level, rather than from above.

All of these restrictions made those 45 minutes the most tense and difficult of the entire shoot. In spite of the challenges, Haynes concluded that they were "pretty lucky to get away with shooting there”. And he’s not wrong!