Doctor Who: Steven Moffat Talks Season 7 and more: First Episode Compared to “Die Hard”

By / Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 12:24AM
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doctor who magazine In the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Who showrunner Steven Moffat spoke on next Fall’s Season 7 and more.

Sounds a bit different than the previous two – and dang more exciting!

Moffat compares the first episode to the movie Die Hard. In addition, he comments on having two-parters, and how they are basically no good.

Now that is stating something!

Here are some excerpts:

”The big thing is, nothing in the next run is starting out as a two-parter, At this stage, everything is a single episode, and the only reason anything will become a two-parter is if we think it needs to be; not so much that the story is too long for 45 minutes, because nothing is too long for 45 minutes, but if it feels as though there are two distinct stages to the story…
 
“I was looking at the facts and stats and it’s not true that the two-parters save us money. We’ve assumed it for years. They don’t save us money at all. Not a penny. So what’s the point in them? The viewing figures always go down. The AI [Audience Appreciation Index] goes down, even if the second episode is the better one. The press coverage goes down. The trailers are a bit boring. I want to be able to say, every week, we’ve got a big standalone blockbuster, and then a trailer that makes it look like nothing compared to what’s going to happen next week! That’s the form for next year.”
 
“Everyone is expecting us to do another year like 2011. You’re not going to get that at all. You’re going to get the biggest, maddest set of episodes ever.”
 
“Our plans are fluid, because they can be, We’re making more episodes than ever before, we’ve got other things planned for the big year [2013, the show’s 50th anniversary]…”
 
“I just think, ‘What haven’t we done yet? How do we mix it up?’ And questioning our own assumptions, like that hardwired assumption, absolutely in my brain, that two-parters are essential. They’re not. This year, we used a lot of cliffhangers and mysteries to pull people through, but then I remember the moment, at the end of A Good Man Goes to War, when we put up the title Let’s Kill Hitler. That was so exciting. I’m thinking, ‘Can we do that every week?’ You can sod off with poetic understatement.”
 
“I want slutty titles and movie-poster plots. I want big pictures and straplines. The first episode I’m writing is called [Spoiler] of the [Spoilers]. And it’ll feel a bit like Die Hard, that first episode.”