Doctor Who: 13 Cool Details Revealed In Steven Moffat's Time Of Angels Commentary

7. The Beach Scene Switches Filming Locations Halfway Through

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith Amy Pond
BBC

When the Doctor and Amy first exit the TARDIS and have a chat with River, this scene - set on a beach on the planet Alfava Metraxis - was shot on an actual beach in Wales.

Then, when Father Octavian arrives later in this same scene, the characters are still supposed to be on that Metraxis beach. But in reality, the crew has now moved to a completely different location: one of Doctor Who's signature quarries.

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Father Octavian Iain Glen
BBC

This is why the conversation with Octavian - on the "beach" - has such a blurry background: the crew were trying to mask the shift in location.

The quarry was then used for the very next scene, where Octavian and his clerics have set up a base camp at night. But again, in the world of the episode, this is still supposed to be the Metraxis beach.

In this post: 
Doctor Who
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!