As this special was for charity, viewers were given a phoneline to call to choose which of two characters would help the Doctor: Big Ron (
Ron Tarr) or Mandy (
Nicola Stapleton).
With calls costing 36p per minute, Mandy won with 22,484 votes (56%) against 17,044 votes for Big Ron (44%). Although the version featuring Big Ron would have been prepared to air in case he won, it was never screened as a result of the vote outcome.