Writer warns Timelord’s new series is even scarier than last time

The Scot behind Doctorr Who’s scariest episode has warned the next series will be even more terrifying.

Writer Steven Moffat is working on the new episodes starring David Tennant as the Doctor and says petrified viewers will once again be peering out from behind the sofa.

This is bad news for the parents whose complaints about the last series forced the BBC to issue a warning it was not suitable for children under eight.

Steven, 44, scripted the sinister two-part tale about a plague-infected “gas-mask boy” for the last series.

Many fans hailed the terrifying Empty Child episodes and the boy’s chilling line: “Are you my mummy?” as the stand-out of the series.

But Steven promises the new shows will be every bit as spooky.

He said: “I liked that the last series was scary. To children, scary is a recommendation.

“When I was a kid, Dr Who was the bad boy of children’s television.

“It was for the naughty kids. It was all flavour and no nutrition, just death and fear and screaming. Pure pulp… and it still is.

“A lot of kids’ television was very worthy, about nice children doing something fun and interesting in a barn.

“Doctor Who is still, to me, a bizarre idea, that you do these horrifying stories for children. You put Richard Wilson vomiting a gas mask out of his face in the Generation Game slot, up against Ant and Dec on ITV. “It’s insane when you think about it. Why would you try to do Hammer horror at seven o’clock?”

Steven, who also wrote the award-winning comedy Coupling, is writing for a new TV time traveller following the departure of Christopher Eccleston from the title role.

He has been replaced by Paisley’s Tennant and fans will get a chance to see the Casanova star as the Doctor in a short film for Children In Need later this month before he makes his full-length entrance in a Christmas Day special.

Like the new Doctor, Steven is originally from Paisley and both men were boyhood fans of the show – which has led Steven to offer some advice to his fellow Buddy. He said: “I tried to switch off from being a fan. You have to want to subvert it a bit and not treat it like a wonderful china ornament.

David Tennant has that problem, too, now. He was concerned what he was going to wear as the Doctor because he might go into total ‘fan-out’.” The Dr Who Christmas special is expected to draw a huge audience and it will be followed by a new series in Spring. Billie Piper will return as the Doctor’s sidekick Rose and the new shows will also feature some old favourites, including robotic dog K-9 and former Time Lord Tom Baker’s companion, Sarah Jane Smith.

The last series – which revitalised the show after 16 years off air – won three prizes at the National TV Awards last month and featured a new generation of monsters, including flying Daleks and sinister store dummies.

But Steven says he won’t be bringing back the spooky gas mask boy.

In fact, the father-of-two is not keen to see any villains from the past return. He said: “My story might have been scarier for adults than children. Kids are at home with the idea of creepy children, which is naturally more worrying to adults.

“The Empty Child is fundamentally frightening because there’s no reasoning with it. It’s coming to destroy you and it can’t be persuaded out of it.

“Even the Daleks will stop for a chat. This will not”My view of how you ought to do Dr Who is that you keep the mystery going right to the very end, so that the Doctor can continue to be the investigator.

“This is why I don’t care for bringing back old enemies. The mystery has gone from them and I wanted a big mystery. I want you to get to the end of part one thinking, ‘I have no idea what is going on’.”

Steven was also responsible for the introduction of controversial bi-sexual hero Captain Jack, played by John Barrowman.

Critics hit out at the character being a sop to political correctness and pointed the finger at Dr Who’s chief writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, who was also behind Queer As Folk.

But Steven claims Captain Jack – who proved so popular he has been given his own spin-off series, Torchwood, on BBC3 – was all of his own making.

He said: “There’s something very believable and right about a James Bond character who will literally s ** g anything… if a Dalek’s gota short enough skirt! I can honestly say Russell never egged me on to do anything camp or remotely gay.

“Every word was mine, including the Tardis going on Mauve Alert.”

Former teacher Steven, whose first TV job was writing the hit kids’ show Press Gang, is full of praise for his boss, who he says has brought back family viewing with Dr Who – despite the scary bits.

He said: “Imagine if Tom Baker’s Doctor turned up in the real world, striding around in his stupid bloody scarf. You’d think he was a total a *** .

“Russell takes this know-all bossyboots, who has to travel with the very young because nobody else can tolerate him, and puts him in the real world. It’s brilliant. I watched one episode – not one of mine – with my family, where the age goes from three to 74.

“Everyone thought it was their programme, that they understood it the way the others didn’t. That has sent a shockwave through TV.

“How many shows could be off air for 16 years and still come back? The difference after this series is that now we know it’s part of the national fabric.

“It might not always be on TV but it will always be there. It’ll outlive all of us. It’s there forever now.”

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series DVD box set is out on November 21.

Source: The Sunday Mail, Written By: Steve Hendry