Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Nikola Tesla’s Night Of Terror
3. Why Did The Alien Queen Feel Familiar?
If the Skithra Queen looked vaguely familiar, it’s likely to be because of the resemblance to the Empress of the Racnoss, a one-off villain from the David Tennant Christmas special, The Runaway Bride. The Racnoss was a giant spider, so perhaps the two races were interbred and related in some way. The similarities are certainly striking enough for some to have assumed from the trailer that the Racnoss were making a surprise return.
In an episode which features a repurposed alien gadget, and an enemy who commandeers technology from other species, it would be quite the irony if for budgetary reasons an old costume and design has received a makeover.
The fact that the queen looks different from the rest of the hive, with her unique human-like features, could suggest that like some of her drones, she too is ‘wearing’ the guise of another. It could be a projection she is hiding behind, which borrows from the Racnoss and others, or maybe before she went looking for an inventor, she’d found a surgeon to have some major work done, using alien body parts.
For those in the know, the actress Anjli Mohindra will just about have been recognisable behind the prosthetics. Mohindra played Rani in The Sarah Jane Adventures, and it looks like some of the villains from that series have shaped her performance here.