What To Know
- Christina Chong reflects on her memorable role as Lorna Bucket in the pivotal 2011 Doctor Who episode “A Good Man Goes to War.”
- There have been some Doctor Who references on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
“A Good Man Goes to War” was a major turning point during Matt Smith‘s Doctor Who run in 2011. It was the episode that revealed just who River Song (Alex Kingston) is — the daughter of the Doctor’s companions Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) — and saw the Time Lord reveal just why you don’t want to make him angry or kidnap one of his friends and steal her baby (Colonel Runaway, anyone?).
It also brought someone back into the Doctor’s life that he admittedly didn’t remember helping in Christina Chong‘s Lorna Bucket, a soldier on the asteroid base, Demon’s Run, who met him when she was a child. (It could, however, be that they simply hadn’t met yet, given the timey-timey nature of his travels.) As she died, having switched sides, he told her he remembered her, and they ran, but the latter is really a given for anyone who encounters him. She was also the one to give Amy the stitched prayer leaf that had her daughter’s name on it — Melody Pond — in the language of the people in the Gamma Forests that, when translated, revealed it to be River Song.
Chong admits that despite only being in the one episode now 15 years ago, she still gets recognized for her work on Doctor Who.
BBC
“I didn’t realize it was going to be such a memorable character, but I still get people today who are like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Lorna Bucket.’ Looking at Star Trek thinking, ‘That’s Lorna Bucket,’” the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star tells TV Insider. “I’m like, ‘Wow, I was only in one episode.’ I’m very grateful for that.”
Looking back, “I just remember everyone being so kind and welcoming because it felt like an ensemble episode, that one. There was so many people in it. And I experienced my first alien in prosthetics — I wasn’t in those scenes, but there was a parade. I remember watching a parade of these aliens. I think the director must have been checking them, or they maybe had them on camera to see what they looked like on camera. I remember seeing this parade of aliens walk out and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in Doctor Who. That’s crazy,’” she continues. “So, yeah, it was an amazing time.”
Like us, Chong is disappointed that those Doctor Who references on Strange New Worlds in relation to Carol Kane‘s Pelia haven’t manifested into a crossover.
“I’m just upset they never got to do a crossover. I was like, ‘Guys, hello. I can be the one to bridge the gap,’” she shares. “Who knows? It could still happen.”
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
