doctor who
New adventures, new companion, new beginning –but the end is insight for Doctor Who’ s star and show runner. Nick Setchfield gets that Saturday feeling with Steven Moffat
“We’re introducing the Doctor all over again”
How does it feel to step inside doctor who?
It feels like this.
You leave a chilly, prefabricated corridor in the BBC’s roath Lock complex in cardiff Bay. Into the dark warmth of the studio you go, through the big, serious door, past the cables and the monitors, the crew and their hushed conversations, the telltale paint-and-glue tang of television makebelieve in your nostrils.
Look, there’s Mars, just ahead of you. You’re about to walk on Mars.
“Don’t wear your best shoes!” a crewmember warns you, a wry smile in the half-light.
too late, mate. the dust of the red planet is already caking your best shoes, the ones you wore because this is a special day, the day you step inside Doctor Who. It’s in the ridges of your soles, the colour of rust. “the cleaners are cursing us,” says producer Nikki Wilson, waiting there on set. “there are red footprints all through the building!”
You push through the jagged mouth of a Martian cave. there are pebbles scattered in the soil, tall ochre stalagmites just ahead. the rocky walls rise to touch the banks of studio lights above. this is a huge, immersive build and the obvious sweat-and-graft of it all makes it no less dreamlike. Just a few weeks ago, Nikki tells you, this space held Blackfriars Bridge and the thames riverbank of regency London. Worlds within worlds, times within times, an infinite police box of possibilities.
this isn’t just any old Mars, of course. It’s
Doctor Who’s Mars. So don’t be thrown as you edge a little deeper into the cave and spot a battalion of Welsh Guards in their Zulu pomp, all smart red tunics and pearl-white helmets, so casually incongruous it feels like hG Wells having an opium vision. In the distance, equally inexplicably, stands a giant mechanical device, a colossal drill, perhaps, its tip glowing in the studio gloom. one Saturday night, very soon, this will make perfect sense. Until then you simply surrender to the Doctor Who logic of it all.
there’s more. turn your head and you’ll see a half-naked Ice Warrior, waiting to be wrestled into the gleaming green torso that will complete his armoured, iridescent bulk. the towering Martian heavy is currently sat in a canvas-backed chair. he’s singing to himself. “camera rehearsal! Stand by!” Dry ice swirls and there’s a commotion in the cave. In strides a slender but commanding figure with a gallant shock of grey hair. It’s Peter capaldi. It’s the Doctor. Naturally someone’s about to shoot him. how does it feel to step inside Doctor Who? It feels deeply, unmistakably Doctor Who. Breathe it in. It doesn’t last forever. Not even if you’re the Doctor. or the man who tells his stories.
T“hat cave is amazing,” says Steven Moffat, on the line to SFX a few weeks later. “And those red coats on the red planet! It’s a design triumph. The main cave set will look just that little bit storybook, like a Hammer Horror set. I think it’s going to be a beauty.” Steven Moffat has stepped inside Doctor
Who more than most. One of the key writers behind the Time Lord’s all-conquering comeback in 2005 he took on the showrunner’s role with series five, casting three Doctors – yes, we’re counting John Hurt’s mayfly turn in 50th anniversary celebration “The Day Of The Doctor” – and putting a waggish, furiously clever stamp on the show he adored as a kid.
Now he’s nearing the end of his time in the vortex. He’ll take his leave with a Christmas special that will also mark the departure of Peter Capaldi, stepping down as the Twelfth Doctor after three all-too-swift years. But don’t look for the fiery glow of regenerative energy just yet. There’s a box-fresh 12 episode run of adventures to watch first – and a brand new TARDIS traveller to meet in the form of Pearl Mackie as endearing motormouth Bill Potts.
In fact, as Moffat tells SFX, consider this series a new beginning, a chance to stumble wide-eyed into that battered blue box all over again, to see it afresh through Bill’s eyes. “You can travel into history for the first time, you can travel onto a spaceship for the first time, you can see a monster for the first time,” he enthuses. “It’s all that. It’s about being new again.”
Does this feel like a relaunch of sorts?
As always with Doctor Who it’s massively different and exactly the same. Yes, it does feel different, because there’s a different co-star. I’m avoiding the word companion because it’s so deceptive. Pearl brings a very different energy, and as you know the Doctor sort of builds himself around whoever he travels with. So it feels like a different kind of Doctor, because he’s dealing with a different kind of person. It’s very consciously styled as “If you’ve never watched Doctor Who before, here’s everything you need to know.” Which is so little in the case of Doctor Who! There’s not a lot you actually need to know! And it’s the lovely, sunny, early stages of your next best mate
Doctor Who, because you haven’t learned what a screw-up he is yet!
Are there really people out there who haven’t given Doctor Who a go yet?
Doctor Who, contrary to what everyone says, has a very large audience [laughs] but there are
far more people who don’t watch it. That’s just true of any big hit show. Most of the country doesn’t bother, as I’m always saying about everything that I’ve ever worked on. Are there people who would like this sort of thing who haven’t given it a go yet? Yes, I think that’s true. And that message gets more and more complicated the older the show gets. When we do get new viewers – and it seems mad to imagine such a thing as a new viewer – they’re always slightly surprised by it, that it’s cleverer and better played and a smarter show than they were expecting. It’s not the daffy, pulpy children’s show people think it is. It’s a highly intelligent, rather sophisticated children’s show. So yeah, there are always new people. People who don’t know they’d enjoy this.
Given you’re so steeped in Doctor Who, is it hard to step outside it, to see the show from the perspective of someone who’s never seen it?
You have to. It’s part of the job. In some ways I used to be outside the show when I was growing up – I’d just watch it, it was just this thing on the telly. And obviously when you’re sealed into the bubble of making this show you can make the mistake of thinking everybody knows everything already, and that they are bored of the things that you always do and you must vary that. Particularly when everyone who reviews Doctor Who is inside the bubble with us. We very, very rarely hear the voice of the actual audience. I’m not sure we ever hear it, except in audience research and so on. So a show that breaks all the rules of Doctor
Who, whether that’s “Heaven Sent” or “Midnight”, will appeal massively to people who have watched Doctor Who all their lives and want something different – and visibly not appeal anything like as much to the people
It’s not the daffy, pulpy children’s show people think it is
who want the show about the lovely man in the blue box who turns up and fights the monsters, the one that they watch two thirds of the time that it’s on. Yes, I have to step outside it, and I think I can.
What does Pearl bring to Bill that makes her the right choice for the part?
A sort of edginess, a sort of modernity. Just a very different tone of voice. She feels like the last person you’d expect to be friends with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, whereas I always thought that Clara was the first person you’d expect to be a friend of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. She was quite like him, in a way. Bill just isn’t. They’re incredibly fond of each other and they’re great friends, but you sort of think, “You two? You two hang out? That’s surprising…” She’s slightly more combative with him, in a rather gentler, more amused way, not in the sort of angry way that the Doctor and Clara could be combative with each other. She feels very much like somebody from our world, who mysteriously has never seen Doctor Who, and has wandered into the TARDIS and is asking all the questions that people have been failing to ask for 50 odd years.
What sort of stories are you telling this year?
We start with a run of three stories that are big, colourful, boisterous Doctor Who stories of the mainstream kind. We’re introducing the Doctor all over again, with contemporary Earth and lots of other places. Then we go into the far future in a fantastic, exotic, futuristic city. Then we’re into Regency London, and a monster under the Thames. Episode four is a haunted house story by Mike Bartlett, very creepy and scary, but in the ghost train tradition of Doctor
Who. Then there’s a creepy outer space one from Jamie Mathieson, a quite scary one from me, a couple of contemporary Earth ones, then we’re on Mars, then
we’re in Scotland, then we’re on a giant spaceship! As ever with Doctor Who it starts in a big, bright, boisterous way, with a new companion, and slowly she sees how dark the universe can be. About halfway through the series she’s realising oh my god, the Doctor’s quite terrifying, really…
Episode two is by Frank Cottrell Boyce [writer of series eight’s “In The Forest Of The Night”]. What does he bring to the show this time?
One of his obsessions is AI and where that’s going – machine intelligence versus human intelligence and the disconnect between those two. AI is escalating and smart people are genuinely saying that could become a problem for us. We really wanted to cement Bill with the audience so a lot of that episode is the two of them wandering around a deserted but terrifying space city. People never think about this but we’re replacing 50% of our cast. That’s not easy. That’s not a small deal. For all the kids watching, and the parents watching with them, that girl they loved is gone. And who’s this girl? Do we like her? If you look at Doctor Who scripts, the co-star’s role, the role of the Doctor’s best friend, is as big, as challenging and eats up as much screen time as the leading man. At times it’s even a bigger part. So it’s a massive sea change. There’s nothing trivial about it. We really wanted you to know her and be with her as she gets to know the Doctor and gets to know the universe.
Does that carry on into episode three and beyond?
The big note I was giving, all the time throughout the series, even later on, is “What does Bill see for the first time this week? What does she learn?” She’s never actually seen anyone die. If you see someone die that would be a day you’d never forget. Has she seen the Doctor kill someone before? At what point does she realise he’s a bit of a swaggering hero? All those things are brand new for her and therefore, hopefully, become new again for us. If we do it right!
Why the Ice Warriors again?
I knew Mark [Gatiss] wanted to do it the year after he did “Cold War” for Matt’s last season. I just thought it was too soon. He was talking about an Ice Warrior hive on Mars, “Tomb Of The Cybermen” style, with explorers breaking in. We were jammed on how we could make that a little bit different, a little bit funkier than the many times it’s been done before. So when we came up with the idea of Victorians on Mars we were very happy! It looks amazing. It’s great fun as an episode, a great cast.
And you have the original Cybermen back this year, something Peter’s been lobbying for since he got the role. Did his persuasion pay off?
Well, to be honest, I just had an idea for a story that sort of needed them. But, yeah, I did ponder what Peter said, about updating that version, about making it work, and Peter’s always really smart about what works visually. In the end, though, I love ALL the Cybermen – except maybe the pouty-lip-slot ones in “The Wheel In Space”. But someone will write in and convince me they’re best and I’ll probably believe them and start writing angry letters to [new showrunner] Chris Chibnall – “Why oh why, do the Cybermen not have a pouty lip slot? What has happened to the magic of
Doctor Who?” But actually, thinking about it, I’m always trying to keep people happy. I popped the Zygons into “The Day Of The Doctor” for David – he got to snog one, which he’s always wanted to, the naughty scamp – and Karen specifically asked to be offed by a Weeping Angel. Pushover, me.
This is your final year as showrunner. You said you wanted to approach it in an upbeat way but did that change as you got closer to the end? Did it start to feel heavier than you thought it might?
Not really. I’m still working flat-out on
Doctor Who. One day I won’t be. And then whatever emotions I’m going to have will happen. Obviously the finale is an emotional rollercoaster of hell and damnation – that’s what we do in Doctor Who! And it puts people through the wringer, as it properly should. But immediately after that – right now, in fact – I have to write the Christmas episode, and it can’t be like that, it’s Christmas Day!
And this is Peter’s last series too. Did that decision change the way you approached this year?
I thought very hard hard about it. When Peter realised I was leaving, which was slightly before I announced it, I wondered if I needed to pressure him for a decision so that I could work out whether we had to off the Doctor at the end, as it were. And then I thought well, that’s kind of nonsense, because every series we’ve ever made could off the Doctor. It’s not that vital! So I didn’t pressure him. I just let him take his decision in his own time, and banked a couple of ideas about how I might do it. But it’s hard to imagine a bigger apocalypse than normal for Doctor Who. He’s always saving the universe – occasionally he gives his life to do so.
In the end, no, it couldn’t make a massive difference. And I’m not sure you’d want an entire third of a Doctor’s run to be devoted to “the end is near”. That’s kind of grim.
Was it a hard decision for Peter?
I think it was. I think it was quite an emotional decision for him. It was quite emotional for all the Doctors. They’ve all found it very difficult. I know David and Matt got in touch with him straight away when they heard, because stepping down from that role isn’t nothing. At the same time, from the day you get it, you know that day is coming. And if you’re Scottish you probably think about it every second day! This is going to end. Over the course of Doctor Who there have only been two Doctors who have done more than three years – and their first three years were probably their greatest. So there is a logic to three years. And for an actor of Peter’s stature and brilliance, he’s cracked it now. He’s done it. He’s done that job. And now he can go and do another one.
Is it a challenge promoting a series where the audience is already discussing who the next Doctor should be? How do you keep the Twelfth Doctor from feeling past tense already?
I don’t know. We just try very hard. I don’t think it’s a good thing. There’s a third of his run to go. He’s here till Christmas. He is the Doctor. But in this world where you can’t keep secrets, where it is absolutely impossible to keep secrets, there was no point in trying. I’d far rather nobody knew until the regeneration. That would be so exciting. But we just can’t do it. In terms of announcing that Peter was leaving we had to make a difficult calculation. We did it when we did it because there was still some time before the series comes back and most real people – as opposed to fans – will stop thinking about who the next Doctor Who is and then watch it. We didn’t want it to leak the week before we put the show on. My idea would have been to announce it halfway through the broadcast of the series and get a ratings spike as a result of everyone talking about Doctor Who, just at the time when it’s difficult to get people talking about Doctor
Who. You just can’t. You just can’t hold anything anymore, which makes me despair, but that’s the way it is [laughs]!
Back on Mars, back in time, we’re bracing ourselves for a bang. And not just any bang. A gold standard bang. A bang so big we’ve been advised to jam our fingers in our ears. And so
SFX hovers outside the set, by the glowing monitor screens, the world sounding as if we’re underwater.
“We’ll do wider of the bang, then postbang,” declares a crew member. “Well, it is Valentine’s Day…”
We wait in the dark, the seconds slowing, stretching with anticipation. And then, at last, the bang, as loud as the hype. On cue an oversized rock falls from above, trapping a luckless Ice Warrior in a Martian cavern. The red dust rises, swirls, settles again on the studio floor.
“That was classic Doctor Who,” Peter Capaldi tells SFX, a little while later. He’s grinning with clear relish. “Polysterene rocks! Yes, that was good.”
How does it feel to step inside Doctor Who? It feels like this.
Doctor Who is on BBC One from 15 April.