Doctor Who: 13 Cool Details In David Tennant & John Barrowman's Last Of The Time Lords Commentary

2. This Mysterious Hand Was Played By The Production Manager

Doctor Who Last Of The Time Lords the Master's ring
BBC Studios

Whenever you see a shot of a character's hand, foot, or leg (basically, any body part that looks quite nondescript) there's a good chance that this scene was filmed with a random extra or a random member of the crew - just anyone who happened to be around on the day.

There's no point calling in the lead actor just to film a two-second shot of their hand, after all. It's often quicker and easier to just use someone else.

Doctor Who has utilised this trick a few times - for example, in The Eleventh Hour, Steven Moffat once pointed out that the Doctor's hands weren't played by Matt Smith - and it happened again in Last Of The Time Lords.

The hand that picks up the Master's ring at the end of the episode wasn't played by an actress - it's just production manager Tracie Simpson, with her fingers decked out in a few layers of red nail polish. Very sinister indeed.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.