Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat was worried the series could be left behind by big budget competitors
“A show that generates as much money as Doctor Who should be getting more of it back”
With fierce competition from the likes of HBO, Netflix and Amazon Prime, offering big budgets and slickly made dramas, former Doctor Who boss Steven Moffat has revealed that he harboured concerns during his time on the show that the BBC1 sci-fi classic could be left behind.
Moffat, who took the reins from Russell T Davies in 2009, left Doctor Who last year, with Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall now running the series.
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Chibnall’s Doctor Who, with Jodie Whittaker starring as the Thirteenth Doctor (and first woman in the role) has so far been a commercial and critical success.
But Moffat says he felt during his tenure that a series that generated as much money as Doctor Who – thanks in part to its global appeal – should have had more of that cash ploughed back into it.
Speaking in an episode of the Sitcom Geeks podcast released earlier this month, he explained, “That (was) the big challenge of Doctor Who… running the risk of looking as cheap now as it did (during the original series), compared to what the rest of TV is doing, unless they put a whole lot more money into it.
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“A show that generates as much money as Doctor Who should be getting more of it back, frankly.”
He added, “Television didn’t use to look the way it looks now. When we watch now, we watch something that’s quite often better than cinema.
“Have you seen the recent Game Of Thrones? I haven’t seen anything in the cinema that matches their battle scenes.”
Doctor Who is currently enjoying some of its highest ever ratings, with Whittaker’s debut attracting a staggering 8.2 million.
Last week’s ground-breaking episode, Rosa, was also highly praised for its informative and sensitive observation of racism in 1950s America.
