Moffat Talks The Night Of The Doctor

As with the review of the episode, you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT READ THIS until you've seen Night Of The Doctor. Which you should do immediately. It's really rather good...

So, for those of you who've seen it already, and have calmed down enough to read, showrunner Steven Moffat has been talking to the BBC about the episode. Here's what he has to say:

"We had our new ‘hidden mystery’ Doctor and I was thinking, what else can we do for our anniversary year… I thought… Why don’t we get Paul McGann in and regenerate him into John Hurt? I’d like to see that! I’d love to see that! And we had this possibility that we could do it as a surprise, so we got in touch with Paul who was dead keen and I’m delighted to say he was so happy to join in with the idea of keeping it secret. He was childishly excited about it! Paul came along and shot it – it was the last two days of the shoot for the fiftieth, actually. He did a wonderful job. It was great! We designed a new costume for him based on his old one. Howard Burden did a fantastic job with that.

We were phenomenally secret with the making of it! And I’m sure some people are a bit cross that we were so secretive but the fact is, there is only one way to ensure you keep a secret, and that’s to keep it! So, we kept it very tight and we hope it all came as great surprise to everyone."

When asked about the return of The Sisterhood Of Karn (who, like the Zygons who will return in The Day Of The Doctor, had their first and only screen appearance back in Season 13), Moffat said:

"I was terribly excited about having the Sisterhood of Karn coming back which is why I did it! But I should probably learn to have a little more faith in the fact that what gets me excited as a sad, old fan will get other people excited as well! And okay, the Sisterhood are unknown to the kids, but I was a kid when I first saw the Sisterhood and I thought they were great! So I’m hoping other people will like them!"

And, in case you were wondering, The Moff also cleared up some confusion about "Ohila", the leader of The Sisterhood - for the record, no, it's not supposed to be Ohica off of The Brain Of Morbius.


And finally, when discussing the joy of finally bringing us McGann's regeneration, Moff said:


"It was a complete treat! It was always frustrating that we never got to see more of him! The completist in me… the ‘box set man’ in me wants every box ticked and I wanted every regeneration scene! And we get to see the Paul McGann Doctor regenerate into the John Hurt Doctor! I love regeneration episodes – there’s nothing more exciting! And in the anniversary year we get to see two regenerations… That’s pretty cool"

Does "every regeneration scene" hint that we're going to see Hurt regenerate into Eccleston in either The Day Of The Doctor or The Last Day?

Or are we just being greedy now...?