Script Doctors | Series 2 | Matthew Graham
It's rarely difficult to get writers to talk about their work; I probably shouldn't say so, but my job here at DWM is actually dead easy. Whether it's because these guys are natural storytellers, or because they spend their entire working life closeted away in solitude, or some combination of those factors and much more besides, I can't say for sure – but it seems all you have to do is point a microphone at a scriptwriter and say "Tell me about yourself!" and the piece more or less writes itself. It's proving a little harder today, though, because Matthew Graham is nowhere to be found. And, one hour after we were due to hook up to chat about his script for the new series of Doctor Who, he's not answering his phone. For a while I'm panicking that he's trying to avoid me, knowing as I do that he is snowed under with work. And then, in a moment of clarity, it strikes me that arranging this interview for the morning after the final episode of his marvellous recent series Life On Mars might not have been a good idea...
"I have a hangover," Matthew duly, and apologetically, confesses, once connection is finally established. "Nothing so professional as 'work'. The Kudos team all came round to my house last night and we drank like it was the end of the world. And I woke up this morning and it is the end of the world. In my head... I saw your interview with Toby Whithouse in the last DWM, by the way. A great magazine as well, I think." Well, shucks. Thanks for that. It's become a bit easier in the last couple of years, since there's been so much more to talk about. "Well, yes – you've got to have stuff to get your teeth into. As a Star Wars fan, I could see that before the new movies, the Star Wars magazines were really struggling. There are only so many times you can read an interview with Peter Mayhew about playing Chewbacca...."
Matthew Graham Like Russell, I came from soaps and popular drama as a sort of jobbing, workaday writer. I did several years on EastEnders, that was my big break. I was a wee lad of 23 when I got EastEnders, and spend five years on it. In a way I see EastEnders as my 'film school' – that was where I learned to write to deadlines, how to write around logistical problems, actor availability, rewrites, all those sorts of things day-in, day-out. And the other thing which was so important, and which I always say to new scriptwriters, is, don't pooh-pooh the soaps - because you get to see your work on screen, you get to see how it translates, you learn so much from writing and watching it broadcast and seeing where you're going wrong. How you imagine a story and how it then actually plays out are two different things. And there's no personal pressure on a writer to perform – you want your episode to be good, but you don't have the responsibility on your shoulders of the show succeeding or failing, and that gives you a freedom that's very useful. When I left EastEnders I went on to do This Life, which opened doors for me - it was very successful, very popular and critically acclaimed. So then TV companies were saying "We want the This Life writers to do their own stuff". And I love fantasy and adventure and desperately wanted to bring a little touch of the movies to television, so I pitched The Last Train, a sort of post-apocalyptic drama, to Granada. I look at Lost, now, and think if we'd made The Last Train a few years later it would have been a much more successful show. I mean, it was quite popular, but it didn't hit the zeitgeist, it didn't fire the public imagination the way Lost has or the way Life on Mars has, and I think that was to do with timing more than anything. I don't think the drama-watching public was ready for those shows then. And I think Doctor Who would have stuggled, I really do. Doctor Who needed to come at the time that it came.
That makes sense even if you think of the McGann TV movie – the world just wasn't listening, in 1996...
It wasn't. And the TV movie, to be fair, was awful, and did none of the things that Doctor Who is supposed to do – but you're right, it didn't even generate a lot of publicity. It wasn't like the world was excited and then disappointed – the world just wasn't that bothered. Whereas this time round everyone was excited about Doctor Who coming back. So I do believe in a zeitgeist, I believe in getting your stars in alignment and everything fits that it's the right time to show a programme. So The Last Train was my first foray into science fiction television – and ever since then... I'm effectively a multiplex writer. Most writers in television aspire to be great playwrights or to bring a touch of class to the screen – I don't want, I just want to be Peter Jackson, to do big movies. And if I can do little movies on television, I'm happy! So I did The Gentleman Thief which was an Edwardian adventure series, and a thing called P. O. W. which was essentially The Great Escape done as a series. And these did okay, but they didn't really connect. Life on Mars was the show where, finally, I wrote something that I felt was both satisfying to me as a geek, and satisfying to the public. And that's what you dream of, that connection.
Didn't it have quite a lengthy gestation period?
Seven years! We came up with it seven years ago. We were talkng about it last night, actually – Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharaoh came round as well. And Tony said "God – if we'd made this five years ago it would have flopped!" The first conference we had, the three of us, I'd brought some rushes of the train crash sequence from The Last Train with me. We'd just shot that and I was really excited about it and thought it looked great – so that's how long ago it was...
And TV's a really different world, now, isn't it? I just had a look over a bit of The Last Train to remind myself, and it just seemed to bear so little resemblance to anything ITV1 would show these days... even in presentational terms.
To be honest, I'm never sure that ITV were ever fully comfortable with the show. It was more about trusting Sue Hogg and Simon Lewis's judgement - they were the exec producers at Granada. I think the commissioner, Nick Elliott, thought SF was too weird and inaccessible. He may have been right back then, but if you look at the top grossing movies of all time, most of them are fantasy pieces - Star Wars, E.T., Lord Of The Rings, and so on. And all this success can't be just down to a few spotty kids! Globally, all generations of people love these stories. Good stories will always fire the imagination. And now ITV are indeed looking at developing more fantasy shows and have done with 11th Hour and Afterlife. They've switched on to it.
How do you think TV managed to get like that, given that in the sixties and seventies there was so much "culty", fantasy or SF stuff around on TV?
Fear, I think. In the sixties and seventies, everyone watched television. The Avengers was the most-watched drama on television, it was the number one show. And when you watch it now, it's bloody bonkers! It's incredible that this was a show that everyone in the country watched. I think what happened was, you could take those risks then because you had an audience. Movies weren't as big as they are now, no-one had videos, there were only three channels. No-one had anywhere else to go, you had a captive audience and you could try things. And yes, they had their failures – but people were basically indoors, and would invest in somehting like ten weeks of The Prisoner – which still amazes me! But what happened in the eighties was that the nation discovered other activities – people were going out, we had more money, multiplexes started up, channels increased, videos came along. And through the eighties and nineties, television executives got frightened. I know this, because I started in television in the late eighties and worked right through the nineties, and I've seen that fear. They would only ever talk to about new ideas in the context of other ideas that were already successful. In the late eighties everyone would tell you they wanted 'the new Hill Street Blues'. After This Life they would be saying "We want something like This Life" – and you would think, "No you don't! You just want This Life, and you can't have it – someone's already done it!". It's like in the eighties when Hollywood desperately tried to make the next Star Wars, and couldn't work out why it didn't work like that...
...and they ended up making things like The Black Hole...
...exactly! My God, those robots! Do you remember the eyes on the robots – they had these little floaty robots called something like Minky and Monky, and the eyes on them were the sort of things you get on cuddly toys, they had big Disney eyes. And I used to think, "that serves no electronic purpose whatsoever! It makes no sense!"... anyway, yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about, fear and nervousness about the next big thing just stymies creativity. And the nineties was terrible for television – it was the age where everyone wanted to do A Touch Of Frost. Everything was middle-aged. Not badly made, at all – A Touch Of Frost is a well made show, Morse, of course, is a classic – but it doesn't speak to people like me. Especially then, in my twenties. I wanted a buzz from television, I didn't want to be comfortable in my sofa, I wanted to be on the dge of my seat, excited or laughing. And now what's happened is that all the people I grew up with in television, who were starting out as editors and producers when I was a beginner writer - they're now running television. John Yorke is a big player in drama. Laura Mackie is a senior commissioner at ITV. These people have become powerful and as writers we've become powerful. And so when you get some power, you think to yourself, let's try and recreate the things that excited us when we were kids. It's no different, on a smaller scale, to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Coppola, Brian de Palma, growing up in the sixties, and then getting powerful in the seventies and eighties, and taking control of the industry. And that's what's happening in television – we're now saying, okay, let's make the fun telly we remember when we were kids. It's easy to think of Doctor Who as being 'play safe' because it's an old format, but actually it was a huge risk.
It could have gone horribly wrong!
Yeah – to not change the TARDIS, to imagine that kids still wanted to watch a man running into an old phone box. You can imagine the conversation they'd have had... "...maybe it should be a portaloo, maybe the Daleks should float all the time, maybe they should look sleeker...". And someone, presumably Russell, said "No! Don't change those things!" And that was a massive risk. But it all paid off, and now it looks like it couldn't have been any other way...
I recall you mentioning you'd at one stage been in talks to bring back Doctor Who yourself. How would you have addressed those sort of questions?
I went to see John Yorke – he's now a commissioning editor of drama at the BBC. When he was there in his previous incarnation a few years ago, I went to see him to talk about ideas, and I said I thought we should bring back Doctor Who. We also talked about Blakes 7! [see boxout] We had a big discussion about Doctor Who and he looked into it, and told me that the rights were all tied up in America – which they were at the time – and that there didn't seem to be any way they could do anything with Doctor Who just yet. So we moved on and did other things, and it never got any further than that. When I heard that they were doing Doctor Who again, I contacted the BBC to put myself forward for if there were any episodes going spare – but then Life on Mars took off, and Julie Gardner - who was exec-producing Life on Mars as well – didn't want me over-stretched, and told me to concentrate on that because I had my work cut out trying to keep this guy in 1973, rather than worrying about the TARDIS and Daleks! But after she saw what I wanted to do with Life On Mars, she got more confident about my abilities, and she said "Russell and I would really like you to come and do Doctor Who", by which stage it was on to the second series. Although my episode was never designed to be second series - it was planned for Season 3 - but Russell wanted to change the tone of this series towards the end, so my episode, being a relatively contemporary one, came forward to Season 2. Russell has very specific ideas about the shape of the series and how many episodes should be modern or historical or take place on other worlds, and he doesn't want to over-balance in one way or another. So he made a decision to move my episode up. Which was great for me!
Was your script just the most 'finished', so that it was able to be pulled forward?
Yeah! Also - and they've never said this because they're far too lovely and kind - I think they were waiting to see how well I got on with it as a show, because they knew it would take a long time to get it right. I had a meeting with Russell, and the way it worked was that Russell had an idea in his head for a story but it was very basic - something set in the near future possibly involving an underground bunker and something that was genuinely creepy in some way. And that was about it! So I came up with this story and pitched it to Russell and Julie, and bless their hearts – when I got to the end, Russell said "That's a very clever story. Do you have kids?" And I said yes. "How old are they?" And I said Daisy and Sam, ten and seven. "Would Daisy and Sam like that story?". Oh. I don't know. "You've got to write a story that Sam would love. It doesn't have to be stupid, it just has to be a story that kids will love. You've got a responsibility to make Doctor Who excite the imagination of children." And my story had been too 'science fiction', too clever for its own good. So we sat around the dinner table, and between us we came up with this new version of the story, that now is totally for children. And I think, if they pull it off, it will be very frightening.
You episode's finished shooting now, and was in a block with The Idiot's Lantern. It's surprising how much information is now in the public domain about that one compared to yours. Was yours all shot behind closed doors, or something?
I don't know if the security on my episode has been any greater. One of things is Russell hasn't made his mind up about my title yet! I think it's really good but he isn't sure it's a 'Doctor Who' title. So they haven't released the title yet, which is why it's still 'TBC' on your news pages… And I think that gives the show an air of secrecy that is probably a bit unrealistic. Another thing is, we've got no guest stars. Mark [Gatiss] has Maureen Lipman, and I think when you have a big name actor you have a hook to hang the news story on even if you don't have much information about the episode itself. What I can tell you, though, is that I feel it's a very emotional episode. And I've tried to make it as scary as possible. I've tried to embody what I remember about Doctor Who – it was my opportunity to write the Doctor Who episode that I never saw. And for me, Doctor Who was always about the TARDIS appearing at the end of your road – not on Gallifrey or Skaro, as exciting as they were. The thrill of opening your bedroom window and seeing the TARDIS in your street was kind of my starting point. So I deliberately set my story in an ordinary street in an ordinary location. It's basically 'The Doctor comes to Brookside'! But the story is very scary, and that's what's been so much fun about it. You always affiliate yourself to the Doctor that you grew up with, and for me that was Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, as it probably was for a lot of the writers on Doctor Who, we're all roughly in our late 30s and early 40s. Maybe Russell started with Patrick Troughton... and of course Jon Pertwee's era, the episodes I remember are the episodes with him on Earth. In fact, I've love to bring back the spiders. Do you remember them, on people's backs?
Oh yes. It's one of my earliest memories. I have a horrible feeling it scarred me for life...
Same here!
Perhaps a slightly contentious question, but forgive my curiosity – say you had been given the opportunity to bring Doctor Who back, three or four years ago. How would you have done it, and what would have been different about it compared to what we've got?
You're right, that is a contentious question. But luckily you catch me in a bullish mood, so the devil be damned! I would never have made it so funny, or as bright and breezy as Russell has. Anyone who knows Russell or his work will know he could never have done it any other way, that's Russell, it's a reflection of his personality, and he's been enormously successful at it. But I wouldn't have been able to make the Doctor as chummy. And I would have followed the old format and done four part stories. I was stunned when I met Steven Moffat at a party and we were chatting about his story. I was asking, so, is it a four-parter, or a three-parter, or what? And he said "No, it's a two-parter – and I'm one of the only two-parters, the others are all singles". And I said "You're kidding – you're going to tell a whole story in 45 minutes!?". "Yep! You can do it. Actually, those old episodes are too slow...". "But you've got no cliffhangers! Doctor Who was all about cliffhangers! You've got to wait a whole week!" So I would have done two, three, four parters, built up the big cliffhanger ending, and it would have been darker. And probably not as much fun, actually! I should point out, I'm not in any way criticising Russell's take, just honestly answering the question as to how I would have done it. And I wouldn't have been able to resist redesigning the Daleks - to keep the essence of them but to reimagine them the way Hollywood would. As it's turned out, that wasn't necessary. To me there'll always be something 1960s about that design, but my kids think the Daleks are the coolest things in the known universe - not to mention the scariest! I would have tinkered more, perhaps too much. I think the Cybermen will be really scary - I know what Russell's doing with the Cybermen and it sounds really chilling. I would probably have altered the Daleks and even the Cybermen too much, got it totally wrong and alienated a whole generation of kids!
On Life On Mars you have both the freedom and the responsibility of being an executive producer as well as a lead writer, but on Doctor Who – as on other shows you've worked on in recent years such as Hustle and Spooks – that isn't the case, you've just been hired as a jobbing writer. How do the two experiences compare?
That's great – I love it. It's not your show – I suppose it's like I was saying about EastEnders, you don't have responsibility for the show. I was very fortunate, I suppose, in that the first draft I wrote, Russell really liked. I suppose if he hadn't liked it, we'd have had lots of rows about it. But I never went into meetings in confrontational mood, thinking "Do they know who I am? This is my masterwork I'm bringing in here...". I would always be saying "What do you want to do, Russell? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Okay, I'll go away and fix that..." – and it was all just about having fun and making sure the script was the script Russell and Julie wanted it to be, and I really enjoyed that process. It's never, not once, been hard work. We've never disagreed or argued. Well, occasionally – Russell is so beady about every line, and occasionally he'll say "I think this line should be changed" and I can't for the life of me see why he'd want to change it... but I don't mind that he wants to change it! So I'll say "Okay, can we come up with something, let's bat it around and come up with a new line". And you could argue that it's pedantic of him or that I should fight my corner more that it was fine in the first place – but the point is, we're friends and it's fun, and why not let it be fun? It's Russell's show and he's earned the right to control it. He's proved that he can control it, that he can lead this show, so I'm quite happy for him to take that responsibility, really.
How does that compare to Hustle or Spooks?
It's different because on those shows you didn't have a writer/creator who was effectively in charge. Tony Jordan created Hustle, but Tony never got involved in my scripts – he would just do his scripts and I would deal with [producer] Jane Featherstone and the Kudos people. Spooks was the same – I would write my episode and deal with the producers. The crucial difference, therefore, I suppose, is that I was the only writer in the meeting. So therefore I was speaking on behalf of "the writing department"! Whereas when you're in a meeting with Russell and Julie, Russell is a writer and you're constantly aware that he can do everything you can do. One thing you usually have as a writer is a smugness – "You may be my producer, or you may be running the BBC, but you can't do what I do. You know how the engine works and you know how to fine-tune it, but you can't race it. I'm the only one who can race the car!" And that gives you a false sense of power. But on Doctor Who, not only do you have smart and imaginative producers in Phil and Julie but you have a producer, Russell, who can drive the car faster than you can! That's the great thing about Russell, he's ahead of you all the time, like a pace-setter. So when Russell says "I want to change this", it doesn't feel like producer-talk, it feels like one writer talking to another and you take it seriously. He's got very good reasons!
That's interesting – the impression I've got from other writers tends to be that they strive for autonomy, and cherish any autonomy or executive power they can get – whereas you seem to be happy to surrender yours at times, enjoying the different approaches.
I do – I think it's a very dangerous thing to think that you're always right, and it's been the undoing of great writers. Dennis Potter came undone after The Singing Detective when he started to think that every line that dripped from hi s pen was a work of genius. I'm a great believer in sharing ideas - in working with people rather than trying to take control of everything. I think even Russell has to watch himself, because there will come a point where no-one will ever say anything against him, and that's a dangerous position for a writer, or any creative person, to be in. Look at George Lucas! No-one was there saying, "Fucking hell mate, rewrite The Phantom Menace, it's appalling!" and it was only towards the end of those three films, where he started to get people like... oh God, the guy who made Clerks...
Kevin Smith.
That's him – Lucas actually invited Kevin Smith into the cutting room and said "Look – you've been so vocal in your hatred of these films. What's going wrong?" So he started polling their opinions, and look how much better Revenge of the Sith was. I mean, it wasn't as good as the original films, but it was so much better than the previous two, because he started to listen to people. It's common knowledge that he brought Spielberg in on the process, and Tom Stoppard was also consulted about the script.
I'm amused that you wanted to bring Blakes 7 back, as well...
It may still happen, mate!
Really!!!?
I did talk to some "people" about it a while back. But a lot of telly folk - especially the girls - hate Blakes 7. "Oh, not that awful show!" But there have been "talks". And my God it'd be fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! It would be a whole new set of seven, but with Avon. I would bring Avon back. I think Servalan kept him cryogenically frozen for torturing purposes. You remember the last episode where they all got shot? I think Servalan had all the soldiers wiped out, and took Avon – it's a bit Iain Banks, this – so she could torture him for her own amusement for the rest of her life... She's maybe found a way of re-growing his cells so that she can crucify him, and then regenerate him, and then boil him, and then regenerate him, and then hang, draw and quarter him, and then regenerate him... and this goes on for like, thirty years, so he's completely insane.
This may be single most disturbing thing anyone has ever said to me. I'm starting to get very worried about you...
[Laughs] Avon, though – what was fantastic was that he was the hero but he evil. What you want, then, is that you bring in a new bunch of freedom fighters, and they're like animal liberation types and they 'liberate' him, and so they call their ship the Liberator – and they bring him on board and he immediately takes control... and they go off and rob the galaxy! It would be totally mad. And very violent, and not at all like Doctor Who... lots of death and nastiness! I bet you wish you hadn't asked this question, don't you...?
That seems like an odd mismatch...
Spielberg has sent a lot of scripts to Stoppard, I've been told. Stoppard wrote on the scenes between Ford and Connery in The Last Crusade. They use Stoppard because they know he's a brilliant dramatist. Famously, Spielberg sent the script for Schindler's List to Stoppard for polishing, and Stoppard sent it back saying "Steven, you should know this script's brilliant and you don't need to touch it – just shoot it!". Anyway, sorry to digress – Russell is smart enough to know that you can't always be right, and that's the danger, that everybody just agrees with you because they can't imagine that you could be wrong because you haven't been wrong so far. That's when things could go wrong, but I don't think Russell will fall into that trap, he's too clever and, I think, too human as well. He's not a despot, just a massive enthusiast. Children adore him because he's like a kid himself. He once left an hilarious, lengthy rambling message on my answer phone and I played it for my son Sam - who hero-worships Russell almost as much as the Doctor - and Sam said "He sounds really really funny and a little bit mad". I told Russell. His response was "Nailed me - to a T!" And it's lovely to have someone who is so talented and so relaxed about it. He doesn't furrow his brow and agonise, he just has fun. So when he gives you notes, he's very good at making you trust him. I remember once I wrote some lines for the Doctor, and he said "Matthew, bless you, my darling, you've done exactly what all the writers do when they start on Doctor Who – you've made the Doctor sound like Jon Pertwee, like he should be wearing a ruff. You've given him all this florid dialogue." And I said, "I don't think I have...", and he said "Trust me, my darling, I know the Doctor!". And he uses that phrase quite a lot, and when he says that, you think he really does know the Doctor. It's like he's saying "The Doctor's my best friend, and I know him better than you do... and he doesn't talk like that!". And I always listen to those notes, I never argue them. He does know the Doctor, he literally does!
Talking of the Doctor – how early in the process did you become involved? Were you, at any stage, writing for the ninth Doctor rather than the tenth?
No, it was always... when I started, I don't think David Tennant was officially attached. It was the worst kept secret in television, everyone knew about it, but no-one was officially acknowledging it. And there were rumours going round about Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy, Richard E. Grant – but everyone knew it was going to be David Tennant. So right from the start I was writing with David in mind, and fairly soon after that it was confirmed. And that made it so much easier – watching Casanova, you just thought "Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is going to be great!" He is so good... and of course he's a fan, as well. He grew up with Doctor Who. I was talking to him the other day, and he said "When I was a kid I used to play at Doctor Who – I used to play at being the Doctor and now I am the Doctor!". What are the chances? That's another reason why I enjoyed the process – how could you possibly want to sully this experience? Why would I ever want to look back and think, "Doctor Who – that was the programme where I had all the rows with people"? The only thing I did, was when I started I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to do it and that Russell would have to rewrite it. And I didn't know how I would handle that, and I was very concerned. I was so concerned I phoned Russell and said "I'm really worried I'm going to mess this up, and you're not going to be able to tell me how I'm messing up, and you're going to have to rewrite it." And he was great - he said, "It's not going to happen on this show because you love it and you're coming at it with enthusiasm - that's the best weapon you've got." And he was right, because it was never a painful process...
And have you seen any of your episode yet?
No – I watched some filming. I took the kids down, and we spent a day watching them filming, and we were made to feel very welcome, they were great with the kids and everything. But I've only seen what we were shooting that day. I can't wait! There's one aspect of the story that's very scary – it's the 'gas-mask' moment, essentially – that I can't wait to see how they pull off. Without giving anything away, it could, if it works, be genuinely creepy, tapping into childhood fears rather than something that's esoterically scary. Something to do with children's bedrooms that I think could be very frightening... I'm dying to see how they pull it off!
And are you allowed to tell me this working title, or is that embargoed?
I called it "Fear Her". Which was deliberately designed to be a B-movie sort of title, RKO sort of feel to it. I suspect it won't be called that, though, Russell may well come up with a couple of suggestions and then we might pick one. I don't know – I haven't heard anything back from them for ages about it, and I noticed in your last issue it was still "TBC", so I'm assuming from that that they're still undecided.
And maybe once everyone's lived with it for a while, they'll come to like it?
Or maybe they just won't be able to think of another one!
I quite like it, though. It's not obviously a Doctor Who title, but it's a title that involves you – you want to know who "she" is and why you're scared of her...
Absolutely, that was the intention. It's interesting because I'm not steeped in Doctor Who like Russell or Mark Gatiss or Steven Moffat, so I guess in the end I just approached it like any other drama. I didn't try to write an episode of Doctor Who - just a story for this character and his assistant. When Russell and Julie read it they were like, "Oh. This has a very different feel for a Doctor Who script", and I was terrified I'd messed up - but then they went on to say that that was what made it interesting. So I'm dying to see how it plays out, whether people do think it feels like Doctor Who or not.
Or whether it even needs to...? After 25 or so episodes, surely we can all cope with one which feels a bit different to the norm? The mythos will be embedded in everyone's head enough to accept one that's a bit different...?
That's right, you're probably right. What is fun is that you have to put things into the script that fit Russell's big picture for the series, and you don't know what the big picture is!
Ah – this year's 'Bad Wolf'?
It sort of is and it sort of isn't. I know what 'the big picture' is now, but I didn't so much when I was writing. Russell would say "Matthew – at some point, the Doctor needs to say something like this!" and hand you a line. And you'd look at it and say "But, Russell, this doesn't make any sense...". "It will do, my darling, it will do...". He's got this devastating storyline for the end of the series, and of course mine is the last episode before the big two-parter, so he needed some lines at the end of the story that would segue into it. And it was great, because I had no idea what he was talking about and I just put the lines in. It was like I was writing a mystery story and not knowing what the answer was! I was a viewer and a writer at the same time – writing it and also being excited about what might happen next week! It's a unique show...
And would you be interested in coming back, say on series 3 or 4?
Yes, I would – I've been asked, and said, Absolutely, sign me up! How could you say no? It's writing Doctor Who, I can't imagine why I wouldn't. So I'm going to give it another crack, I'm writing a script later in the year. I think – everything changes on Doctor Who, but I think the plans will be I'll be roughly in the same area of the series, and episode 10 or 11 of season 3. I think! I have asked for it to be a single episode – having gone from being suspicious of the singles before the show went on, I now really enjoy them – and I think the two-parters are harder to get right.
So you've moved on from thinking that the cliffhanger was paramount?
Yeah. Well, now I sort of put my cliffhangers into the stories, so there are a couple of 'cliffhanger' moments within the episode rather than at the end. And for me personally, I loved doing the single episode, I loved the discipline of trying to do the whole story in 45 minutes, and I kind of want to do that again...
