Doctor Who may reportedly be experiencing a little public transport trouble but showrunner Russell T Davies believes that the location shoot in Dubai will bring a spectacular otherworldly sheen to the Easter special, Planet of the Dead.
"We needed a desert, simple as that," the Who supremo exclusively tells SFX. "I loved the Roman stuff that we did in The Fires of Pompeii - I thought it gave it a size and a breadth that we hadn't had before.
"It's a proper alien planet, and it's so hard to do alien planets because of the cost of our effects shots. If the Doctor stands against an alien castle you see it three times and then you go inside it - that's always going to be a factor in every television production. You're never going to escape that. So to have a 360 degree horizon is marvellous.
"We're only there for four days, but we're going to shoot a lot of material. It's going to feel new. You can see the pictures - David Tennant, Michelle Ryan, in the desert, blue sky, yellow sand. It's going to look stunning."
