Filming on the final episode of the Russell T Davies/David Tennant Doctor Who era finished yesterday and, to mark the occasion, the BBC talked to Davies about his time in charge of the Time Lord.
Charlie already covered the spoiler-friendly parts of this interview in Morning Spoilers yesterday, but I can't let this part, where Davies remembers the risk of failure, pass without drawing attention to it:
My main worry, because I've been a Doctor Who fan all my life, so my worry was, if we get it wrong, then it'll disappear, really disappear, and might take another fifty years to come back or something. So, I really was aware that, never mind the forty-year-old men out there who remember it, there's a whole generation of children out there who didn't have Doctor Who, didn't have a Doctor, that they were the ones to reach. That's who we targeted, because we wanted everyone to have this British, eccentric, pacifist hero... Such an icon, I think, and such a role model for children. And so, there was a lot at stake for me. I really, really wanted it to work. And it did, if I can say so myself! I can say it now.
Oh, Russell. That lack of humility at the end is well-earned, and makes me love you just a little bit more.
Doctor Who returns in November with "The Waters Of Mars".
Saying goodbye to the Tardis [BBC News]