Steven Moffatt confirms the next season of the hit sci-fi drama is somewhat underway.
In an interview with Documentarist Ed Stradling at a convention last week, Doctor Who’s main showrunner, Steven Moffatt discussed the upcoming season in very brief terms, saying only that it’s confirmed to run (not that there was much doubt) and that he’s already thinking about where it will go. “I’m just starting planning the next [season], and it’s like I’m swinging a different way again,” he said, referring to the decision between making season-long arcs or stand-alone stories. “And every time, I always think, ‘Well this is clearly how it’s supposed to be!’ and then I sit around selling that to everybody else.”
Additionally, he discussed his feelings about the current season and where it’s taking the character and the cast. He enigmatically indicated to Stradling that Matt Smith will be holding the role of the Doctor “forever and ever,” and then seemed unwilling to discuss further. It seems doubtful however that Matt Smith has signed any kind of permanently exclusive deal. More likely this is just Moffatt’s way of brushing off a question that he’s likely tired of answering.
When asked about the possibility of Doctor Who’s previous showrunner, Russell T. Davies coming back to write an episode, Moffatt said, jokingly, “I get really resentful if I hear that he’s written anything that is even vaguely around the Doctor Who area because I’m saying ‘Bring it over here!’ Are you kidding? … He’s the best writer breathing, I think, in terms of television. He’s absolutely superb … So, believe me, the offer is continually made and I’m getting nowhere. I think he did his duty … for Doctor Who, so he’s maybe wanting a nice long rest from it – not a rest from being a fan, by the way, just a rest from being a writer.”
Another interesting note is how Moffatt feels about the return of the Ice Warriors. “I wasn’t Tremendously persuaded.” He said of Mark Gatiss’ pitch to bring back the classic Who villains. “I wasn’t; I’ll be honest. I thought they were maybe the default condition for what people thought of as rubbish Doctor Who monsters – they moved very, very slowly and spoke in a way that meant you couldn’t hear a word they said.” However, he relented in the face of some “very clever ideas” from Gatiss regarding how they should be used. “It’s going to be a great episode,” he continued.
Through the rest of the interview, Moffatt discusses some of the other cast members and characters, expresses his excitement about the upcoming episode in which we will get to see a lot more of the inside of the TARDIS, and he answers a few questions from fans on Twitter. If you’d like to see it, you’ll have to check it out over on Stradling’s Youtube channel, as he’s disabled embedding of the video.
The second half of season seven of Doctor Who will begin in April 2013, while filming of the 50th Anniversary special is slated to kick off in the spring so it can air after the end of the season.
