Steven Moffat Talks Doctor Who, Continues to be Steven Moffat

Amy and Rory are gone, the Doctor is considering retirement, the new companion bears an uncanny resemblance to a dead Dalek, and— now what? With less than a week until the Doctor Who Christmas special (airing December 25 at 9 on BBC America, sans Ponds, sniff), Vulture rang up series boss Steven Moffat with all our burning questions, and boy did he oblige. He spills on what’s next (the Doctor on a submarine!), why he doesn't believe his version of Who is all that complicated, and how it would be “intolerable” for David Yates to bring the Tardis to the big-screen. Of course, we threw in a question about the delay to Sherlock. Read on to see why he pretty much told us to keep calm:



One of the things critics who cover Doctor Who have said of the Eleventh Doctor seasons is that the stories have gotten overly complicated. River Song’s timeline, for example. Do you think that’s true?

Well, we haven't actually had any complaints from the general audience at all. Not one single bit of audience feedback has even mentioned complexity. I don't know, I think people just say things. They used to go on about Russell's “gay agenda” and that became a subject discussed endlessly and you'd look at the show and say, “Where is it? What gay agenda?” He never had a gay agenda but people started saying it and everybody else started repeating it.

Doctor Who can be complicated at times, it absolutely can be — but it's supposed to be. You're supposed to pay attention. I'm also addressing children, hugely the case in the U.K., and children are demanding of complexity. So no, I don't think it's true. I think we do some complicated stories, we also do incredibly simple stories. I always think this: I don't care if it's complicated or too scary or too grown-up or too childish or whatever they are saying this week, so long as they never say it's too boring. If anyone says "Oh, it was a bit dull this week" is when the show will start to die.


David Yates attached himself to a Doctor Who film a year ago, one that would not stem from the current series. You’ve since shot that report down, but could it ever happen?

Well, first of all, when? We spend all year making the series. The thing that I would find intolerable is that you get a film instead of the TV series because the TV series is more important.And I don't think any showrunner or future showrunner of Doctor Who would tolerate the idea that David Yates was talking about, of rebooting it and having a second continuity. That's just nonsense. Absolutely insane and a straightforward insult to the audience. We'd never, ever do that. The question would be how could we do it without delaying or harming the TV show?

So the idea of a movie isn’t offensive, just the idea of rebooting it?
I think it could be incredibly exciting to see that Tardis fly on the big screen. It would just be how do we arrange it? And how do we make sure we have … no offense, but you suddenly take American money and they expect to tell you what to do and all that. I wouldn't be happy with that. But it will happen someday, I'm reasonably confident.




The whole interview can be read at the source

Source

*Sorry mods, I cut it down.