• 22nd March 2010 • Blog Post by Jonathan Capps •

Well, if talking about two different things actually classes as a ’roundup’, that is.

First, let’s mop up the last bit of big news that came out of of last Thursday’s press launch that we’ve not mentioned yet, which is the commissioning of a 2010 Christmas Special and series 6 in 2011.  I remember back in 2005 when series 2, 3 and two Christmas specials were commissioned just a few weeks into the airing of series 1.  It was massive, massive news.  Now, however, we’ve fallen into this cosy and slightly dangerous mode of simply assuming, and I think this is why this confirmation hasn’t been met with similar enthusiasm as back in 2005.  This is still a new Doctor with a new team, so it’s lovely to know the absolute minimum we’ve got to look forward to Quite A Lot, because Christ knows what’s going to happen to big budget drama when the Tories get their slimy claws into the BBC’s pocket.As we get closer and closer to transmission, we’re going to be absolutely swamped with interviews and the like and it would be a hopeless effort to try and keep up with them all, but this Guardian interview with The Moff is definitely worth a gander.  So, to kick off, and speaking of the fucking Tory/Murdoch trist:

As for the Murdochs, Moffat is mordant. “Are we really going to put James Murdoch in place of [the BBC]? Can you imagine how shit everything would be? Never mind the fine and glorious things that the BBC does, imagine how shit everything would be! Stuff would be shit! Let’s not have really good restaurants, let’s have Kentucky Fried Chicken!”

Eloquently put, sir.  Meanwhile, the big gay spectre of John Barrowman looms:

“Old favourites can return, provided you can do something new and exciting with them. There are no past characters coming back in this series, but I imagine that kids would love to see Captain Jack meet the new Doctor.”

Err, no past characters?  Even taking a very strict definitely of the term “character” (discounting Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels etc.), isn’t there that small matter of River Song?  Nit picking aside, I find his comment about Captain jack interesting.  While it’s certainly a throwaway thought, it’s got me thinking exactly how much I want Captain Jack to come anywhere near the new show.  When he first turned up, he was rooted in my mind as Moff’s character, and I was dying for him to write that episode about those elusive two years.  But it never came, and since then RTD has wrestled back his creation and he’s moved off in his own direction.  At this point, Captain Jack coming back to Doctor Who would be mistake, I think.  There’s nothing left for him to do, because he now belongs to his own continuity, in his own show (provided of course the rumours about Fox throwing their toys out of the pram over having an openly gay main character don’t get in the way of Torchwood‘s next chapter..)

Although he’s been able to fund a rearrangement of the theme tune, new titles and a new Tardis interior, Doctor Who is “subject to efficiency savings like everyone else. [But] no one is going to say that it looks cheaper because it doesn’t.” And despite the fact that “all we writers really want to do is write a script, toss it over a wall and go out with strippers”, Moffat is in charge, in his element. He may be known for the clever, darker episodes of Doctor Who but he has mischief in mind now. “I want to do more fun. I hadn’t done an episode one, which is a very different kind of episode, and I hadn’t done a finale either – and that was a hoot.”

And what happens in that? “Practically everything,” Moffat smirks. “And some of it twice.”

Blimey, can this man do one liners or what.