Steven Moffat Teases Next Year's Doctor Who

Steven Moffat's talking Doctor Who in the latest issue of SFX - not only exclusive insights into upcoming yuletide blow-out "The Snowmen" but also the next set of adventures arriving on our screens in 2013, the Time Lord's 50th anniversary year.

"We’re back at the movie posters thing," the Who supremo tells us, confirming that the next eight episodes will share the sense of widescreen ambition that powered this year's run. "No two-parters, so they’re all standalone stories. And they are all huge – there isn’t the budget-saver episode. I don’t know how we’ve done this. Possibly we’ll find out at the end when we’ll have no money left and will have to go to prison…"

So what sort of tales will we see as the show builds to its milestone anniversary?

"We have Doctor Who taking on the modern urban thriller, which is not very much like anyone else’s modern urban thriller!

"We’ve got your base-under-siege story in a new way.

"We’ve gone all-out to give you a fantastic alien planet, which is looking absolutely amazing.

"We’ve got a cracking ghost story, a really cracking ghost story."

And that's not all...

"We’ve got Neil Gaiman doing the Cybermen - part of the impulse there was to say “Have we fully exploited the creepy factor of the Cybermen yet?” I thought Neil would be a good match for that.

"You’re going to see "Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS", with more of the TARDIS than you’ve ever seen before.

"We’ve got Diana Rigg and junior Diana Rigg in an absolutely mental story by Mark Gatiss – all period drama will pale next to this monstrosity of nonsense! It’s absolutely glorious. You’ll watch other period dramas and say ‘When are they going to do the scary bit?’

"And then there’s the finale, which has got some serious fanboy-pleasing going on in it. My aim for it – which I’m about to humiliate myself at the tone meeting by saying – is to have slightly more than you think could possibly happen in one episode. Slightly more treats than you think you could be allowed…"

Nick Setchfield

For more of our exclusive Doctor Who interview with Steven Moffat pick up SFX 230, now in shops and available for digital download on Newsstand You can also order a print copy

Nick Setchfield
Editor-at-Large, SFX Magazine

Nick Setchfield is the Editor-at-Large for SFX Magazine, writing features, reviews, interviews, and more for the monthly issues. However, he is also a freelance journalist and author with Titan Books. His original novels are called The War in the Dark, and The Spider Dance. He's also written a book on James Bond called Mission Statements.