"I'm the Doctor." "I'm the Doctor." " Who are you'?" " I'm the Doctor." "These days, Doctor Who is filmed in Cardiff, but when I was a kid growing up, it was recorded here at the BBC Television Centre near Shepherd's Bush in London." "When I was wee, this place seemed like a remote, mystical palace hundreds of miles away where the two Ronnies lived, probably in a little flat with Angela Rippon and Bruce Forsyth." "But it was watching programs from here that, in no small part, inspired me to become an actor." "And it seems to me that there are quite a few people working in television today who grew up as Doctor Who fans." "Quite a few of them have ended up working on Doctor Who." "So I'm on a bit of a quest to find out whether growing up as a Doctor Who fan makes you a better person, and how it might end up influencing what you do for a living." "Steven Moffat made his name in television writing about dysfunctional relationships in the 21st century." "But maybe what he always wanted to write about was malfunctioning spaceships in the 51 st." "So, Steven Moffat, television writer of some repute, where did you grow up'?" " I grew up in Paisley." " In Paisley." " Do you know it'?" " Just down the road from myself." "So, growing up in Paisley, in the windswept west of Scotland, how remote did television tend to feel to you'?" "Well, it was more Hollywood than Hollywood." "I mean, this place is more exciting to me to this day." " You grew up watching Doctor Who." " Oh, God, yes." " What was your era'?" " I remember Patrick Troughton being bewilderingly the Doctor and being confused by that." "Right." "And, really, from the start of Jon Pertwee," "I was watching every single episode devotedly." "This is Studio 8." "In this very studio," " this list here will tell me..." " All right." "Oh, very good." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, we've done our research on this." "Yeah." "In TC8, we had The Sea Devils was in here." "Planet of the Spiders was in here." "Jon Pertwee turned into Tom Baker in this room somewhere." "There were a few studios used for Planet of the Spiders, so..." "But let's just say he did..." "Let's just say the regeneration happened on this very spot." "Yes, it was here." "All those events happened" " in this dull, gray, very big room." " Well, quite." "I don't know, maybe like yourself," "I got interested in background stuff in television, how television was made because of Doctor Who." "Yeah, yeah." "It wasn't really background information on television I was researching," " it was, "How did they make Doctor Who?"" " Yeah, in this very studio." " Yes, how did they do it'?" " Yeah." "Here's another one." "This is TC7." "I think all the studios in the TV Centre have been used at some point for Doctor Who." "This is being used by Newsnight, but we're gonna invade it anyway." "So, Studio 7, Robot filmed in here." " Yes." " Yeah." " Tom Baker began." " This is where Tom Baker began." "In fact, this might be the very studio..." "Famously, I remember there was a sceneshifter strike, wasn't there'?" "And Blue Peter transmitted" " from the Doctor Who set." " From the set of..." "Yeah." "I remember my dad shouting from downstairs saying," "'Doctor Who is on!" I thought, "That's amazing, it's Wednesday,"" "or whatever day it was." "And I went running down and discovered it was just Blue Peter" " and burst into tears." " Oh." "Sorry, Blue Peter, but it just doesn't measure up to Doctor Who." "It's just not the same." "So, what do you think, what was it about" "Doctor Who in particular that fired your little infant imagination'?" "It was a children's program, it was also frightening." "There was no other show like this." "There really is no other example of this genre." "It works you hard as a writer." "But I think if you're prepared to work hard, it helps you." "Russell says that." "He says it's the hardest thing to write." " Why is that'?" " In Doctor Who you've got two minutes, if that, of the Doctor and the companion in the Tardis." "You walk out the door and it's a new world of some kind or other." "A whole bunch of people you have to introduce and dispose of in one episode." "It needs a big, strong idea every week." "I think you know you've got a good idea for a Doctor Who story if you think," ""Well, I've just blown that feature film idea forever, haven't I?"" "Right." " That's the size of story that gets you through 45 minutes of Doctor Who." "You were also charged this year with writing one in which the Doctor didn't appear much." "I used a story I had written for a Doctor Who annual." "Right." " Which was originally called," "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow, Aged 12 and a Half." "I thought, "Well, that's actually quite a good stow cause it's already taken the Doctor out of the thing."" "He's leaving messages in the past, and I added a bit more fear and terror." "And aged Sally Sparrow up a little bit." "Children like watching older children and adults." "They don't necessarily like watching kids their own age." "Don't take your eyes off that." "That's why they cover their eyes." "They're not weeping, they can't risk looking at each other." "We've also got DVD extras saving the universe." "Yes, well, that's bound to happen eventually, isn't it'?" "Which is a very post-modern idea, I suppose." " What is this'?" "Who is he'?" " An Easter egg." "Excuse me'?" "I've got the message in the wall." "I thought, "What else could he do?" And I thought," ""I've always found the idea of Easter eggs really quite exciting,"" "'cause I can never find them." "So they seem genuinely exciting and remote to me." "So, the Doctor being a ghost DVD extra," "I don't know, the moment I thought of it, that just sounds cool." "He is on 17 different DVDs." "There are 17 totally unrelated DVDs, all with him on, always hidden away, always a secret." "There's also something quite spooky about it as well, though, until the other side of the conversation is filled in." "Yes." "Something about a disembodied conversation is slightly creepy." "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." "It started well that sentence." "It got away from me, yeah." "And Steven is not the only writer for the series who grew up loving the show." "Ladies and gentlemen." "I am Richard Lazarus." "I am 76 years old and I am reborn!" "Why is it peculiarly hard to write an episode of Doctor Who?" "It's a tough balancing act, you know, particularly the Saturday night bear pit." "I remember having conversations about the seance scene in The Unquiet Dead, which so much I wanted it to be played almost in the dark with a little gaslight." "And it was like, "Well, we can't." "People might think the TV's gone off."" "All these things you never even consider." "You want to have a mass appeal, at the same time, try and do something different." "You want to have lots of fun, but you obviously want to scare." "Because the format of the show is unique, that's the difficult thing." "It's not like writing for anything else." "There are an incredible number of people now working on the show and working elsewhere in television today who cite Doctor Who as an inspiration." "You can't move for them." "What was it about that formative experience that has inspired people in this way'?" "I think it makes television look incredibly exciting to children." "The idea of having anything to do with something that looks as exciting as that." "Gareth, this is the third year, but the first year" " you've written an episode." " Yeah." "Miss Jones, will you accompany me to the theater'?" "Mr. Smith, I will!" "When you get home, you can tell everyone you've seen Shakespeare." "Then I could get sectioned." "I think when I got a copy of the finished episode and saw my name on the credits, that's a really strange feeling." "Right in the middle of the screen, as the time tunnel is going, it's you!" " Yeah." " And that was a really strange feeling." "Do you think you would both be doing what you're doing today without Doctor Who?" "It runs through my career like a skein of rock." " Yeah." " It's everywhere." "I don't think I would have been as inspired by classic period drama or The Brothers." "You didn't get the sense that there was a sort of imagination" " to be lit in the same way." " The breadth of the imagination." "And it's something you can aspire to as well." "I always felt the Doctor was easier to aspire to than a more conventional superhero type because it wasn't about being the strongest or the fastest." "But perhaps surprisingly, not everyone involved in bringing Doctor Who back to our screens grew up wearing Tardis pajamas." "Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, you're both very instrumental in the comeback of the show." "Why were you both so keen to bring it back'?" "Well, I think that there's something about Doctor Who that seemed so iconic, and there was something so magnificent of the idea of this time traveler in the Tardis, and it just seemed that because it hadn't been on the screens for so long" "that it was the moment to do it." "Were you aware that it had such influence, that it had such roots in a lot of people's professional careers'?" "Yes." "I mean that was one of the reasons why it seemed like a good idea to bring it back, because it's one of the most talked about dramas, television dramas, of all time." "When it was first announced that we were bringing it back, two things happened." "One was the tabloids ran loads of speculation about who we'd cast as the Doctor." " Sure." " And it was great fun, and that was the first time that you realized" " this is a massive show for people." " Yeah." " Front pages of the tabloids." " Did that take you by surprise'?" "The truth is we love all of that." "I mean, if you don't have that constant dialogue with the nation about who are playing these people and what's going to happen to them, and that constant tease and prolonged flirtation with everyone about it all then where would be the fun of it'?" "Okay, pop quiz." "Let's see how far over to the dark side you have come." "Can you list the 1 O actors who have played the Doctor in order?" "Oh, my Lord." "Right." "William Hartnell." " Into Patrick Troughton." "Into Jon Pertwee." " Yeah." " Into Tom Baker." " Into Colin Baker." " I get a bit hazy now." "No." "Hold on!" "Peter Davison!" "Yes, yes." "Peter Davison into Colin Baker." " Yes." " Into Sylvester McCoy." " Into Paul McGann." " Yeah." "Into Christopher Eccleston." " Into..." " Hold on." "Hold on." "Hold on." " That Scottish guy." " It does get hazy." " Into Ewan Tennant!" " Into Michael Sheen, wasn't it'?" "We tried to get him, and he wouldn't do it." "When Doctor Who moved down the M4 to set up production in Cardiff, head writer Russell T Davies and producer Phil Collinson found themselves working on the show they've been watching all their lives." "You both watched Doctor Who as a child." "Do you think that is where your desire to work in television came from'?" "Yes." "The first stories I used to sort of walk around and think up..." "We all used to play Daleks and Cybermen in the yard." "And I would think up stories." "I used to draw them." "Originally, I didn't set out wanting to work behind the scenes." "I wanted to be an actor." "But I think Doctor Who was one of the big reasons" "I wanted to be an actor." "So I suppose, by default, it's a big reason why I ended up being in TV." "What about you'?" "Did it make you want to act'?" "I think it did." "Yeah." "I mean, it's the same." "I grew up..." "It was watching the telly." "I was tiny when I decided I wanted to be an actor." "But without doubt one of the big shows that was influencing me, and probably the only show at first, was Doctor Who." "So, if you've managed to turn something you've loved as a child into something you work on as a grown-up, how does that feel?" "To be one of the people here making it, again, it's absolutely thrilling." "For me, the reason why it got into my heart is that I used to walk home from school when I was a little, tiny kid and you could walk around a corner and you could imagine the Tardis would be there" "and you'd run towards it." "That's why it got into my heart." "And why I still love it is that" "I honestly think you believe you can become part of the Doctor's voyages." "You can do that with no other program." "Do you think in 20 years' time, the industry will be full of people who are watching the show now" " as children'?" " I'd love to think there'll be people sat here making it in 20 years going, "I watched..."" "You must get the letters and the stories they write." "They're doing it." " Yeah, that is true." " They are doing it." "They're writing those stories now." "I get them constantly." "One imagines it will be reinvented again." " Oh, definitely." " I think it will, yeah, definitely." "I think now it's like Robin Hood, it's like Sherlock Holmes, it's like Tarzan." "It's a true British icon." "They'll be sitting here in 60 years' time going," ""That was a big success twice."" "And that's enough to say let's do it a third time." "That makes me really pleased, and I suspect that's not just because I'm in it now." "I think that would make me really pleased anyway." "Oh, yeah." "Me, too."