Earth’s Mightiest Heroes ventured into unknown territory in Avengers: Endgame as Iron Man, Captain America and friends had to travel through time in their bid to collect the Infinity Stones to reverse Thanos’ Snap. For one of the cast, though, this was same old, same old.
Nebula actress Karen Gillan previously spent 2010-2013 journeying through time and space during her stint on Doctor Who and while chatting to The Los Angeles Times, the Guardians of the Galaxy star credited her three seasons spent as the Doctor’s companion Amy Pond as the reason she could keep up with Endgame‘s revisionist time travel rules, which stumped many fans. In fact, Gillan wishes that she had thought to drop a reference to Doctor Who in the movie.
“I already had a good grasp of time travel from Doctor Who. I’m a time travel expert. I would say it adds up. But they definitely should have listed Doctor Who in that scene where they talk about time traveling movies. I can’t believe I didn’t pitch that in the moment!”
The scene in question occurs during the test run for the Time Heist (more on that in a moment). When Hulk explains how changing the past will create a new branch of the timeline instead of altering the future, War Machine, Ant-Man and Hawkeye argue that this isn’t the way it works in any of the movies, listing off a bunch of famous time travel films like Back to the Future, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Hot Tub Time Machine… and so on.
Still, at least Avengers: Endgame inadvertently features a nod to the BBC show all the same. The term “Time Heist” actually happens to be the title of a 2015 episode of Doctor Who starring Peter Capaldi. Still, it would have meant a lot to Whovians if Gillan had managed to get a namedrop of the series in there as well.
