At last it seems the months of speculation, rumours and in some corners, fervent wishing have come to an end, and it has been officially announced that Steven Moffat will be taking up the keys to the good van Doctor Who from Series Five. By which we assume, the full series, and not the currently-being-filmed 2009 specials.

It is, of course, huge news – arguably the biggest since the series’ return, and though the impact on fandom on the Web has already been very large (we only appear to have just literally woken to the report here in NZ), there’s still a good deal we don’t know about what lies ahead. These are perilously early days, but it would appear that the days ahead, and the new series, are both in very good hands indeed. Moffat is for the mean-time a busy man – he is scripting the Tintin movies, and has a new series Adam and Eve in production with wife Sue Virtue. We’ve a year of specials (numbers of which depend on semantics) to get through first, and before then, the rest of Series Four. But fandom is an impatient beast, willing to leave half a plate unfinished to skip to dessert, and cheese, coffee and after dinner mints. If there was ever an example of rude haste, then we’re it. The remaining days of Russell T Davies’ vision of the revived series are yet to play out. We can assume however that the transition will be a gentle one.

So ZeusBlog‘s prediction for the months to come is more of the same, but in different ways. You’ll likely hear lots of cheering and a few hearts being broken, the odd “too soon!” and questions about whether this new broom will usher in a new Doctor with it (definitely a “too soon” question to be asked). People will recall Blink and The Empty Child and imagine them to be the template for the series to come. I disagree. Some will cheer the end of bottom and fart gags in the series, forgetting that Moffat also gave us The Curse of Fatal Death. As seen in his other series he’s a man of varied stories and interesting turns, and he will surprise us. So it may not be time yet to get out that Photoshop montage you’ve been working on for your Forum avatar featuring James Nesbitt as the Eleventh Doctor with his companion Sally Sparrow. The future is over a year away, and as usual, much of it isn’t yet written. In the mean-time, we can be grateful that the series continues to be popular and entertaining.

Here’s to the days ahead and those beyond.

PA 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under EDITORIALS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.