Moffat on Series 7 Scheduling & Secrets
On the scheduling change this year:
“I don’t know, on this occasion, that the thinking particularly came from me, actually. I’ve always been open to anything that shakes [the series] up. I think that decision actually came from the BBC.
“But I’ve been well up for anything that we can do to shake up the transmission pattern, the way we deliver it to the audience and how long we make the audience wait, simply because that makes Doctor Who an event piece.
“The more Doctor Who becomes a perennial, the faster it starts to die. You’ve got to shake it up, you’ve got to keep people on edge and wondering when it will come back.
“Sherlock is the prime example, as far as that goes. Sherlock almost exists on starving its audience. By the time it came back this year, Sherlock was like a rock star re-entering the building!
“So keeping Doctor Who as an event, and never making people feel, ‘Oh, it’s lovely, reliable old Doctor Who – it’ll be on about this time, at that time of year’. Once you start to do that, just slowly, it becomes like any much-loved ornament in your house – ultimately invisible. And I don’t want that to ever be the case.”
On when we will learn who Jenna-Louise Coleman is playing:
“Christmas! But don’t expect to learn everything! We’ve got a good story and there are some proper legitimate surprises in it. I’m excited by it. I think we’re going to do some fun stuff.”
On trying to keep the new companion’s identity a secret:
“We can’t really contain everything, because people will crawl all over us with cameras and sneak views of scripts and call-sheets. Something will get out. But we’ve been fairly sly, so let’s wait and see.
“Again, a lot of the audience that I talk to specifically avoid any spoilers and I’m absolutely certain they have a better experience of the show. As I’ve always said, if I could make it on the dark side of the moon, I would, but you can’t do these things.
“I got pilloried by somebody at some deep level of naivety about the industry – they were angry that I’d revealed the fact that Amy and Rory were even going to leave! But y’know, actor’s agents really do have to advertise their client’s availability – I had no choice but to announce they were going to leave. But in an ideal world, you wouldn’t even do that.”
Moffat also confirmed that plans for the 50th anniversary had began earlier in the week.
