Doctor Who and the Significance of the Garden
By David Hill
It is a fairly common occurrence where a set will be used over and over again in a television show. Obviously, depending on the type of program, it is easier to use that same set in a sitcom set based around the same apartment or house, but that does not mean that the same set cannot be used in different contexts over different episodes. After all, how many planets looked the same in the original series of Star Trek?
In Doctor Who, the most common recurring set would be the TARDIS. It makes sense, as the spaceship is a central part of the program, changing only when the Doctor himself does. Yet, there have been other locations and sets that have been reused over the years.
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Perhaps the most obvious of these recurring locations in the recent history of Doctor Who is the garden that Missy in which made her debut. We first saw her in Deep Breath as she strolled through that garden, walking around the fountain and enjoying the flowers. Yet, this was not the first time that the location was used, as a more desolate and forgotten version of the garden was seen during The Girl Who Waited.
Is this a coincidence, and simply a matter of the BBC just using a location they are familiar with? According to Michelle Gomez, the location being the same is not a coincidence at all, and that there is a significance to the garden scene being used to formally introduce Missy’s character.
It could even be that the significance of this garden goes back even further. The location was used in the Sarah Jane Chronicles, during The Eternity Trap. Could it be that the groundwork for whatever the connection is had been set during the spinoff? And, what, exactly, is that connection? Could it be that the groundwork for Missy, and that surprise she will have for the Doctor, has been in the works for all these years?
Series Nine of Doctor Who had already promised to be filled with mystery and intrigue. Now, there may be a reveal coming in this season that had been built towards for years, as that innocent seeming garden, which already had been the topic of speculation, has a lot more intrigue than we may have thought.