- Doctor Who season 2 episode 2 will be a live-action-animation hybrid
- Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu explain how they prepared to play animated characters in ‘Lux’
- The chapter will feature a fully animated villain called Mister Ring-a-ding
Doctor Who‘s two main stars have revealed the unusual homework they were assigned to prepare for season 2’s next episode.
Speaking to TechRadar, Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu discussed the exciting but challenging process of bringing The Doctor and Bel to life in animated form. That’s because, if it wasn’t clear already, the iconic sci-fi series’ next episode will be a live-action-animation hybrid – one that’ll see the show’s lead duo turned into animated characters.
The second episode of Doctor Who season 2, titled ‘Lux’, will see the intrepid time traveler and his new companion travel to 1950s Miami. Once there, though, they’ll discover a local theater is hiding a terrifying secret. That’ll be Mister Ring-a-ding, a fully animated villain who, as teased in Doctor Who season 2’s first trailer, kidnaps humans and turns them into cartoon forms of themselves.
Mister Ring-a-ding’s appearances in that teaser and Doctor Who season 2’s official trailer immediately reminded me of the rubber hose animation style from the US’ golden era of cartoons. It’s an art form that was primarily used in the 1930s, with companies including Walt Disney Animation Studios, Fleischer Studios, and Walter Lantz Productions imbuing their animated offerings with its surrealist qualities.
While that animation form influenced some of the visuals in ‘Lux’, Gatwa and Sethu told me that the style used to bring their character to life actually takes its inspiration from another celebrated animation studio in Hanna-Barbera. With the legendary Time Lord and Bel being transformed into cartoon versions of themselves in the Disney+ show’s next entry, they were set some curious homework by showrunner Russell T. Davies before they filmed this season’s second installment.
“It was so much fun!” Gatwa enthusiastically replied. “It [filming ‘Lux’] was a highlight of shooting this season.
“In the script, each animation style had been noted down for us to see, so we knew the style of animation that was going to be used on our characters. It was like a Hanna-Barbera type of cartoon, so we spent our mornings watching Scooby-Doo.
“We’re serious actors – we do our research!” he continued with a laugh. “But, we needed that to get in the right headspace to act out those scenes. We filmed them in-person, so we had to figure out all of our animated form’s movements ahead of time. How does a cartoon think? What does it move like? When and how do we gesticulate like an animated human?”
“It’s a lot more heightened than how normal people communicate,” Sethu added about one of the best Disney+ shows’ next chapter. “So, we were told to watch Scooby-Doo to replicate those exaggerated movements. Those were animated later by our fantastic crew. It was so fun to see how the whole process worked and we were so excited to see what our cartoons looked like once the episode was completed.”
For more Who-based coverage, read my review of Doctor Who season 2 episode 1. Alternatively, find out when season 2 will premiere on Disney+ internationally and BBC One/BBC iPlayer in the UK, or learn more about how The Doctor’s dynamic with Bel differs from the one he enjoyed with Ruby Sunday.
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