Steven Moffat and The Doctor...

[fajrdrako]

Steven Moffat on Doctor Who:

Doctor Who is a fairy tale -- not sci-fi, not fantasy but properly a fairy tale. And I don't mean Disney-style where the endings are changed and everyone lives. Doctor Who is how we warn our children that there are people in the world who want to eat them.

I like that as a description of the story. I don't like dark fairy tales necessarily, but I like dark fairy tales with happy endings. This is why, to some extent, I fear Moffat: I don't trust him for a happy, or even a satisfactory, ending. So far he's running better than 50/50 on Doctor Who. though, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with the character and the show.

The quote is from an article by Adrian Lourie in The Scotsman, sent to me by auriaephiala. That's a wonderful source, with its Dunnett associations. They publish good articles. More gems from this one:

[Doctor Who:] "the greatest fictional character TV has ever created" [I'll have to think about that... If not the Doctor, who?]

[Moffat's] also excited about Inverness-born Karen Gillan as Smith's assistant: "She can be incredibly feisty and sexy one minute and look like a 12-year-old the next. Matt has grabbed most of the attention, understandably, but Karen is our secret weapon."

Adrian Lourie's description of Russell T Davies:

Russell T Davies, who ended Doctor Who's 15-year deep-space sabbatical, transformed him from a geek idol into a hero for us all and, arguably, saved Saturday nights and the institution of the family as a result...

Giving us hope for the future:

"I don't think you can say that Russell has gayed up Doctor Who; you don't encounter any more gay characters in the show than you do in real life. And anyway, it's me who's been responsible for episodes where it's been love in long sentences and frocks, the campest things, and I also think I wrote the gayest Doctor Who joke ever, about The Master's 'rubbish beard'. Russell, on the other hand, had gorgeous women turning up in his stories all the ruddy time. He got Billie Piper into a maid's outfit; the man has no shame and is a proper television tart. But he knew who was watching and, believe me, I'll have scantily-dressed blokes in every episode if they'll bring me big audiences." [Do you think we can hold him to that?]

And in the biographical section:

[Moffat] gave a Press Gang character his wife's lover's name and made him the victim of painful mishaps. He'd learned the lover was a fan of the show, prompting a memorable response from Moffat -- "Well, did he have to f*** my wife? Most people just write in!" -- which he saved for Joking Apart, an entire series about a cheated-on writer.

[Moffat's sons] treat the show as a family heirloom. When I've been worried about episodes being too scary they go: 'No no, Dad, these are cool monsters.' During his last birthday party, Louis led a detachment upstairs to my study. 'We've come to watch you write Doctor Who,' they announced. But he's still only the second-luckiest boy in the universe. Straight after the scripts are finished, Joshua is always first to read them."

They describe Doctor Who as 3GTV: "three-generation television, appealing to children, parents and grandparents".

Terms in this article that I don't know:

• goggle-box for television
  
• Magnus Pyke - TV scientist in the UK
  
• Boffin - a scientist. I've looked this up before, but never remember it.