“I’m going to be saying ‘I’m not telling you’ a lot,” warns Steven Moffat, the newly appointed showrunner of Doctor Who. He may be happy to participate in a “conversation” at the Edinburgh TV festival (he was unwilling to use the festival’s preferred term of “master class”), but that doesn’t mean he’s going to tell us anything about what’s coming up on the series.
What can we expect from the next companion? Not telling. Which villains will we see? Not telling. Will David Tennant be returning? Definitely not telling. After a very entertaining hour spent with Moffat, the crowd leaves smiling, but hardly well-informed. That’s the way Moffat likes it.
He initially tries to evade all question by insisting that answering them in detail “would mean there’s some cognitive content [in the session], and I’m trying to avoid that.” Pressed, he gets a bit more specific, explaining that he thinks spoilers damage the show. He refers to the end of the recent episode “The Stolen Earth,” when the Doctor appeared to regenerate, a powerful cliff-hanger that would have lost its impact if we knew Tennant was contracted for two more seasons. Turning to face the audience, he begs us, “Shut up! Don’t give it away!” He’s well aware that it’s a public show, filmed on the streets of Cardiff, and spoilers are available if someone looks hard enough for them. Those that tell such secrets, however, are compared to “the whining boor in the pub who gives away the punch line” the second before the joke teller does.
It’s clear that the audience, quite rightly, loves David Tennant in the role and wants to know how much longer we get to keep him. Moffat gives nothing away. He compares the Doctor to James Bond, another character with a rotating crew of actors. Whether we like it or not, we know there will be a new Doctor someday, and Tennant is no different. He just won’t tell us when someday is.
What will he tell us? The schedule, at least, isn’t a state secret. Although 2009 has been reported as a Doctor Who gap year, it’s anything but. In addition to the usual Christmas episode, there will be four more specials over the course of the year, and the series will resume its normal schedule in 2010. “So stop complaining!” he laughs.
He also confirms that the Daleks “will always return to Doctor Who,” despite some reports that he planned to do away with them. He has no idea how that particular rumor got started. “Even if you were a drunk Russian with a memory problem, you would never have heard those words come out of my mouth.” The Daleks are a part of Who history, and Moffat is as interested in what came before as in creating something new. It’s that mix of old and new that partly explains the show’s appeal. Everyone, regardless of age, has memories of their Doctor and their villains.
When asked whether the show’s tone will be slightly darker, based on Moffat’s own episodes (”Blink”, “The Empty Child”, “Silence in the Library”), he shrugs. “I like Doctor Who being scary,” he admits, but also disagrees with the idea that he’s the “dark” writer, citing Russell T. Davies work on “Midnight”, an episode in which “people are fundamentally vile,” and the relationship Davies created between the Doctor and the Master. He also mentions his own work on “The Girl in the Fireplace,” a relatively light-hearted episode. Besides, he points out, you can’t take the show too seriously. “If your main character lives in a telephone box that’s bigger on the inside, you’re going to have to put some jokes in.”
He’s already written the first episode and has a plan for the entire series but – you guessed it – he’s not telling us what that is.
He’ll speak a bit about what came before, but even then he equivocates. He refuses to name a favorite Doctor, insisting that it changes every day and, in the end, “there’s only one Doctor and he changes his face from time to time.” He’s a bit more forthcoming on the matter of favorite companion, naming Sarah Jane Smith and Rose. He’s particularly fond of the latter, because she “changed the shape of the show.” Still, he points out that the Doctor/Rose arc had to end, as there really wasn’t a future for a 900-year-old Time Lord and a 19-year-old human. “He’s going to turn into someone else, she’s going to turn into her mother.” A beat. “Actually, that’s most marriages.”
Between his Who duties, Moffat has a few projects lined up. He wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s adaptation of Tintin, and was scheduled to write two more before Who came calling and he begged off, preferring to work with the Doctor. He also speaks briefly of a Press Gang reunion show, a project that would make the devoted fans of the British kids’ show ecstatic. “I’ve always thought it would be tremendous fun” to revisit that show, he says, even though he imagines the current version would feature a “middle-aged and saggy” cast. He speaks of getting very drunk at the Jekyll wrap party and pitching the reunion idea. He doesn’t much remember the pitch, but apparently it was successful. Whether or not it will ever go into production is another matter. Right now, his focus is all on Who, and even the prospect of a Who film doesn’t get much of a response. He admits that it would be fun, but refuses to do anything that would take away from the show.
He readily admits that “of course there’s pressure” that comes with the job, not just from the fans, but from himself as well. “At age 45, you’re offered the job you wanted when you were 7,” he points out. Like David Tennant, Moffat is a huge fan of the show and considered not taking the position for that very reason. “I hope I don’t break it.” Despite his misgivings, Moffat was unable to turn down what is “literally the best job in television. Except for David’s. He gets to pretend to be Doctor, while I have to do it at home alone at night.”
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August 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Press Gang Reunion! Oh, how happy that would make me.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Stellanova, I think there are many people that feel that way. Sadly, it didn’t sound like something that would be going into preproduction anytime soon.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I think it’s funny that Moffat might be considered “dark,” considering that almost NONE of the characters in his stories actually die, while RTD is killing people off left and right! Moffat once said jokingly of RTD that “he writes really interesting characters and then he kills them.” (sic) After the bitter cynicism of Midnight and the metaphorical death of Donna by RTD, I actually think Moffat will give the series a more hopeful tone.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Susania, I thought the same thing. I mean, the Doctor himself said so in “The Doctor Dances” when he gleefully announced, “Just this once, everybody lives!” Moffat writes the spookier, scarier episodes, for the most part, but he also writes the more optimistic ones.