Doctor Who ’s alien time traveler can go anywhere , and any time , in the universe , but he needs Steven Moffat to steer his trend . We babble out to Moffat about taking over as Doctor Who ’s showrunner , and secret of the Time Lords .
We actually did this phone interview a while ago , but we held off on posting it because we ’d just hada video interview with Moffatfrom the U.S. launch of the series . So there are no spoilers whatsoever for any of the recent episodes . And if you need more of our conversation with Moffat , we also sat down with him one - on - one with him at Comic Con 2008 .
https://gizmodo.com/matt-smith-karen-gillan-and-steven-moffat-take-us-insi-5515735
https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-interview-with-doctor-whos-steven-moffat-5028464
You ’ve described the new series of Doctor Who as a dark poove tale . Do you think we still do it fairy taradiddle , in the era of video game and everything else ? Do they still have the same power ?
There are two thing to say to that . One , with my weapon up my back I come up with “ dark fairy tale ” — and the Word of God darkness is exclusively redundant when it comes to fairy fib , at least until Disney makes a version of them . And do fairy tale still have power ? Well , look at the pic that have been made . Yes they do .
But when I say “ faery story , ” a well way of saying it would be “ modern fairy narrative . ” It ’s not that it ’s like the old faery story , or that it resemble them , it ’s the modern combining weight . It ’s the elbow room we instruct our nipper that there are things in the world that might desire to eat them . It just feels like a fairy narrative : A man who fight back monster but never becomes one .
It ’s not that it ’s a spot like Red Riding Hood . It is n’t . But it occupies the outer space that fairy tales occupy . tiddler have nightmare and monsters all the fourth dimension , so we take that fact and spin yarns out of it , the means fairy tale always have . And just the elbow room that fairy narration of old would use the tangible humankind around them of wood and villages , and make them drab and mysterious and bring out danger in the shadows , so Doctor Who does that at its best . Because a lot of Doctor of the Church Who take the real - animation globe around you and twists it a act .
I ’m always tell — to everyone ’s boredom , I ’m sure — that Doctor Who does n’t take place in verboten quad or the future , it takes position under your bed .
Do you think the fairy tale aspect is at odds with the skill - fabrication vista , where everything has to have a scientific account ? Or do you think those matter go together ?
That ’s just how you justify it . It ’s a mechanism by which you justify what happens . There was magic in fay narrative back when people believed in thaumaturgy . That ’s just the machinery of it . That ’s not a trouble . There is n’t thaumaturgy in Doctor Who — there are sometimes [ laughs ] token scientific account for everything , yes . But I intend , you experience , he survive in a box that ’s biger on the inside than on the exterior . When he regenerate , he turns into somebody with a Modern hairdo and sideburns a particular length . excuse that , science ! When Doctor Who ’s really , really good , there ’s a feeling of magic about it . It ’s a magical - smell show . We ’ve get a justification for why this time machine looks like a battered one-time dispirited box with all the wonderful venire . But the explanation does n’t count so much as the esthetic of it . It makes it find like a wizard ’s box .
One of the things I get laid about your stories in particular is the whodunit aspect of it , where there ’s clues and there ’s puzzles . And puzzles in particular seem to be a big part of the texture of what make it like a fag tale . You have to solve these teaser to move on .
I think kids screw that sorting of thing . I ascertain Doctor Who with my kid , and they ’re always trying to figure it out . That ’s a thing they relish . They ’re not misanthropic , like adult who ’ll just sit there and say , “ Oh , it ’ll all be explained in the last view . ” They ’ll sit down there and suppose out aloud about what ’s going on . So I cogitate it ’s an crucial affair . But also , if you make it a puzzle or a mystery story , that ’s a smashing style of making sure the Doctor ’s at the heart of the activity . He ’s not a warrior . He ’s not that variety of hero . If there ’s a gravid big battle scene , he probably wo n’t be at the heart of it , because that ’s not his style or his skill . But if you make it a enigma to resolve , if you make the clinching thing for him to put all the piece together and figure out what ’s going on , then he ’s at the heart of the action .
address of activity , we talked to you before about the deficiency of multitude being kill on - screen in your stories . compare to Russell T. Davies ’ stories which had a lot more battue . Are you trying for a more insidious threat that ’s just outside the underframe ?
As I said before , it ’s not a deliberate decision on my part or on Russell ’s , that he should have slaughter millions and I should n’t . We did n’t have that word . We were shocked at our respective roles . I suppose if you contact each of us , you ’d put it the other direction around . No , it ’s not really . I think Doctor Who can get on , can do signally well with very , very little amounts of peril . I jazz the braggart risk stories , but “ Girl In The Fireplace ” flexible joint on a terror to one woman . And it ’s not even an evil threat , it ’s just some robots that seem very stupid . And yet it ’s not as if that feels less solid than another taradiddle .
You ’ve said that Doctor Who is n’t the Doctor ’s story , it ’s the companion ’s story . But we ’re follow off a year of David Tennant stories where he did n’t have a regular companion . And the previous years , Martha and Donna did n’t sense quite as central as Rose did in her clock time . Are you making an drive to get the companion back to the centre stage with Amy ?
I recollect Doctor Who just run that style . I think you ca n’t finish it . I can make that auditory sensation like a decision . But I mean it ’s the natural resting spot of the show . The Doctor ’s the champion , the guy with the skilful lines and grandstanding moments , but it ’s really the taradiddle of the people who come on plug-in . Never mind looking at “ Rose , ” look at [ original original ] “ An Unearthly shaver . ” Doctor Who does not start with the Doctor running away from [ his home satellite ] Gallifrey because he ’s world-weary . It starts with people finding the blue box . really , episode one in 1963 is just the same kind of episode one as “ Rose ” is and “ The Eleventh Hour ” is , it ’s where the narration naturally begins is with a new someone discover the Doctor and how it ’s move to convert that person . How their life-time is snuff it to spay as a result of their encounter with the Doctor . And that is a thrilling , amazing story , and one that you’re able to imagine yourself in . Imagine one day that the blue box landed in your garden , that would be exciting . What would you do ? Where would you go ? How would you oppose ?
In a way — in a shadowy room — I suppose it ’s kind of the history of the Doctor , but you know he ’s 907 . He commute a lot in one path , and not at all in another . He ’s not probably run to settle down , get kids and a Volvo . He ’s probably hold out to express on doing what he does . So it ’s the story of the mass he meet and the life he change . He ’s made his decisions , and he ca n’t really go back on them .
That ’s a really interesting way of looking at it . In the modern era , it seems like the associate has the hero ’s journey , where they start out as somebody average and then become something quite different .
I think you ’ve almost defined every taradiddle every told when you ’ve enunciate that . The transformation of an initially ordinary individual into something different almost define every story . And obviously , in the adorable risible strip human race of Doctor Who , that tends to be the journeying to great valorousness . Or anyway , to great understanding . Or something like that .
Both Rose and Donna had moments where they became almost god - like bod . I wo n’t demand if that ’s last to happen with Amy . But do you call up there ’s an ingredient of becoming post - human with the companions ?
I recall it ’s a peril . Because I think you ’d lose the someone to whom the story is happening if you did that . You want them , in a means , in a very canonic way , to be your representative in the TARDIS , experiencing the tale as you would experience it . The Doctor is extraordinary enough . Do we require other extraordinary people ? I think anyone who correspond to go aboard the TARDIS is understandably a chip of a loony , but aside from that , you want it to be average , recognizable citizenry .
How is it dissimilar writing humor in something like Doctor Who , versus in a comedy show like Coupling ?
I never really think about the humor . I care write comedy , and humor comes fairly — I hesitate to say this — it ’s not a stretch for me . I ’m good at funny . Because Doctor Who ’s a funny show , and you always desire to keep it peculiar . aside from anything else , the Doctor himself is bloody hilarious . I think it derive naturally . The only big difference is really in something like Coupling or in a sitcom , humor is all that you ’re doing . You have to make certain it ’s funny all the time . Whereas I ’m quite relaxed about humor in Doctor Who . If the scene bring itself to comedy , I ’ll take it quite far down that route . If it does n’t , I do n’t worry about it . I do n’t worry if I have n’t had a jest for 20 page , that ’s okay . I ’d worry if I had n’t had a joke for half a pageboy on Coupling .
Your stories often revolve around fourth dimension travel , much more than the show has in the past tense . Is there a peril in name Doctor Who too much about metre change of location , in that it becomes too meta or ego - referential ?
I think there ’s a danger of having too much metre travel , I do . On the other hand , it ’s a show about a time - traveller and that ’s kind of fun . But me pour down up once a year and doing a history that ’s centered a bit more on time travel is unlike from me belt down up six time a class and doing the same thing . You would n’t want to do it all the time . At the same time , an absolute underlie — I hate to practice the word “ root ” because it ’s rubbish — an underlying strand of Doctor Who is that he is a metre traveler and his familiar , as passengers on the same vehicle , have an odd family relationship with time , because it ’s not pass in the same fashion for them . I think it would be strange not to foreground that , or at any rate not to make it a strand of the account when uniquely , your entire unconstipated cast do n’t just have a clock time machine , they live in it . It ’s a very different kind of affair .
So are we going to get more of a sense of what it ’s like to live aboard the TARDIS ?
Not this metre around . I ’ve made it clear there ’s a spate more inside that TARDIS . But the true statement about Doctor Who . When it ’s really working , you ’re out those TARDIS doors as fast as you’re able to go and into the dangerous undertaking . That ’s what you do . You do n’t require to give ear around people having chat about decorating their elbow room . You need them to be fight giant galvanising slugs . That ’s what you bear your money for .
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