Editor’s Note: This interview contains spoilers for Doctor Who Season 1, Episode 3, “Boom.”

The Big Picture

Steven Moffat’s return to
Doctor Who
brings a masterfully tense episode exploring war, capitalism, and faith in a gripping story.
Moffat discusses crafting the tension and trust between Ruby and the Doctor, taking the Doctor out of his comfort zone, and introducing Varada Sethu’s character.
Moffat also reflects on writing nearly 50 episodes of
Doctor Who
and teases his new comedy series
Douglas Is Cancelled
.

From “Blink” to “Heaven Sent,” former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has written some of the franchise’s greatest episodes. Now, returning under the expert guidance of Russell T. Davies, Moffat is back with another incredible story for the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). When the titular Time Lord finds himself standing on a landmine, he and his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) must race against time to deactivate it to save all their lives. The episode, titled “Boom,” is a masterclass in tension, and it digs deep into war, capitalism, and faith.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Moffat to dig into some of the episode’s juiciest moments. While he remained somewhat tight-lipped on some subjects, like Ruby’s would-be death and his upcoming Christmas special, he was able to confirm that there is definitely a plan with Mundy Flynn, the new character played by Varada Sethu. He also dug into how this episode allows for a sort of role reversal to the Doctor and Ruby’s typical relationship, why he likes pushing the Doctor to extremes, and whether he still likes to avoid spoilers from future episodes when he’s not the showrunner.

Doctor Who The show follows the adventures of a Time Lord “The Doctor” who is able to regenerate, and the Doctor’s human friends. The Doctor and companion’s journey through time and space in the TARDIS – a time-traveling ship shaped like a police box – saving the universe with a combination of wit, bravery, and kindness.Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 14 Studio BBC America Streaming Service(s) Disney+

Anyone who’s watched Moffat’s seasons as showrunner knows his companions all have one little thing in common: they all die…sort of. A running theme of Moffat’s work on Doctor Who is how death isn’t the end. While Amy, Rory, Clara, River, and Bill all technically “died” in their companion exits, Moffat also gave them ways to keep on living, even if they couldn’t keep traveling with the Doctor. When Ruby is shot in this episode, it appears as though she’s about to meet a similar fate. It’s a beautifully devastating moment, as the Doctor can only watch in horror, unable to move or react in the way that he normally would. Despite her requiring revivification treatment in “Boom,” Moffat promises that what happened to Ruby was just a “sharp scratch” to quote the ambulance bot. “She just gets terribly injured,” he said. Laughing, he went on to say, “I mean, frankly, if you really believe she’s going to die in episode three…”

Beyond Ruby’s fragile lifespan, fans may have also spotted a familiar face in this episode. “Boom” introduces Mundy Flynn as a major player in the events at hand, and she just so happens to be played by Sethu. Just ahead of the Season 1 premiere, it was officially confirmed that Sethu would be joining Season 2 as an additional companion alongside Ruby and the Doctor. When asked if he knew that she’d be coming back when he wrote this episode, Moffat played his cards close to the chest. “Let’s leave all that for the future, shall we?” Having the utmost respect for his colleague Davies, Moffat decided to err on the side of caution when it came to this big reveal. He explained:

“Well, I mean, Russell’s in charge of that, what he wants revealed when. And I have tremendous, almost awestruck respect for the job of
Doctor Who
showrunner. So I would never dream of getting in his way.
There is a plan, it’s all planned,
but you’re gonna find out one way and one way only, and that’s by watching
Doctor Who
.”

Mundy is an Anglican Marine and this episode brings her to a sort of crisis of faith as she clashes with the Doctor before he completely up-ends her whole worldview. Having genuinely enjoyed her introduction, I let Moffat know I think he stuck the landing with her. “Good,” he said, “I’m glad, I’m really glad.”

Why Steven Moffat Decided to Put the Doctor on the “Knife’s Edge” in “Boom”

Far and away, one of the best scenes in this episode is the moment in which Ruby slowly walks right up to the Doctor so she can hand him an urn so he can counterbalance and put his foot down without setting off the bomb. When asked to dig into the making of this scene, Moffat noted that the surface layer of it is the “practical consideration, ‘cause I had him on one leg, and he had to get one leg down. Ncuti is a fit young man,” he explained, “but even he can’t do that.” He went on to say, “There was another thing: I wanted a scene where you demonstrate how hard this is if you’re standing on a landmine. You know, in other words, even shifting his weight could set it off. So you have a — it was necessary to see how that’s how dynamic and how — what a knife edge you’re on.”

On top of showing the severity of their situation, the moment also serves as a captivating look at the relationship between Ruby and the Doctor. With the Doctor vulnerable and afraid — and quite literally unable to move — their roles are somewhat reversed, allowing Ruby to look the Doctor in the eye and tell him no. The Doctor is brilliant and wonderful and mad, but he’s not always right and some of the show’s best moments come out of scenes in which the companion sort of puts him in his place a little — all out of love, of course.

Moffat says:

“It’s
a great character moment for Ruby
. You know, she takes command for a moment because he’s helpless. It really just allows her to contradict his orders. His plan of catching it is stupid, and she knows it. And she says no. And I’m trying to work out remembering the first two episodes. But there is a point when, you know, a
Doctor Who companion has to turn around to the Doctor and say ‘No, your plan is stupid.’
‘Cause he is crazy. They always think they can do things he can do.
So it’s a necessary learning moment, you know? This guy is not always—
this guy’s a genius, but he’s crazy, and he’s not always right
. So that was quite important, but also just the huge connection, the friendship that comes out in that. And she’s seeing him nakedly afraid, you know, that’s…that’s big, that’s big. I mean, she sees him afraid and the other ones, but there’s something very sort of visceral, and relatable, and real about [the] fear of just being blown up in a heartbeat if you sneeze, you know?”

Some of my favorite Moffat episodes are those he wrote for Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor. With episodes like “Oxygen” and “The Zygon Inversion,” the Doctor took on the horrors of capitalism and war, fighting against the futility of humans tearing each other apart for money and power.

With those same themes present in this episode, I asked Moffat about taking those big swings. “Well, first of all,” he was quick to point out “I don’t really go after them. The Doctor does.” With as much history as the Doctor has witnessed, it stands to reason that in some areas his opinions may be somewhat fluid. “That’s a particular set of slightly variable views. The next day he might be rejoicing in capitalism and its ability to raise people out of poverty, it’s done more of that than anything else,” Moffat claimed.

He went on to say:

“A man is not at his most rational when balanced on a land mine, is one thing I’d say about that, so he tends to be a bit sort of
explosive
about things, particularly in this episode. I never expect consistency from the man. So, it’s a character thing. I mean, stating that war is bad is pretty reliable, you know, I mean, I don’t know anyone, anywhere in the political spectrum who doesn’t think war is bad. You have to literally be Hitler to think that war is a good thing. And
everyone’s agreed on that: war sucks
.
So when the Doctor says that, that’s fair enough. But you know, he also sort of seems to have a go at faith, but he sort of changes a bit by the end, as he always does. ‘Cause the Doctor has faith in many, many things. So
he’s got no business criticizing somebody else for their faith
, but he does it because, you know,
he’s a rampant egotist, frankly
. I don’t think he likes the idea of God, ‘cause he thinks it should be him.”

Steven Moffat Reflects on Crafting Nearly 50 Episodes of ‘Doctor Who’

This is hardly Moffat’s first time writing an episode under Russell T. Davies. With episodes like “The Girl in the Fireplace” and the “Silence in the Library” / “Forest of the Dead” two-parter, it’s easy to see why Moffat would then go on to serve as showrunner himself for five seasons. When he was originally writing that two-parter for Season 4, Moffat asked Davies not to tell him anything about the final episodes beyond what Easter eggs he needed to include in Donna’s story. With his return, I had to know if he still preferred that Davies not spoil the coming episodes for him. “Where possible, where possible,” he said. “It was a very particular circumstance in the ‘Silence in the Library’ one because I knew I was— I knew by then that I was taking over, and I was sort of coveting and cherishing those episodes that I knew nothing about,” he explained.

“You know, I was thinking, ‘Oh, don’t tell me things, don’t tell me things. Any minute now — and as it turned out for six years — I’m gonna know everything.’ So I know enough about what’s going on. I know a fair bit, to be honest, so that I could get it right. You need to get it right. Occasionally, not often, but every second Tuesday we try to be professional about making the show, you know, so I have to sort of check out what’s happening. But
there’s still stuff I don’t know
. And I’ve got—
I’ve enough treats coming
, I think. So. That’s all right.”

While it was assumed that Moffat would just be back for this singular episode, he recently revealed that he’s also written this year’s Christmas special, in a conversation with TV Choice. “Joy to the World” will be Moffat’s 50th episode — depending on how you count it. While he couldn’t say more than “it’s going to be on a Christmas Day,” with a laugh, he had some further musings about his legacy of episodes. “It’s sort of my 50th script,” he said. “That’s my old friend, Tom Spilsbury who used to edit Doctor Who Magazine, pointed that out, but he’s including co-writes, you know, among those.”

He went on to explain, “To me, and I don’t quite count them, or at least I think you should count them as half or something, you know, [or it’s] rather dismissive of your collaborator. So I tend to count it as ones where I have a single credit as the writer, and not ones I’ve co-written or in many occasions completely rewritten, and that was not uncommon. So I would say that it’s my 44th episode, not my 50th rather boringly. But, you know, one likes to keep ahead of the numbers, and you can go with 50th if you want.”

As thrilling and mysterious as Moffat’s return to Doctor Who is, these episodes are not the only television offerings he has on the horizon. He’s written a new satirical comedy series titled Douglas Is Cancelled which sees former Doctor Who stars Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston teaming up with Hugh Bonneville. The series is expected to air “soon” in the UK on ITVX, and Moffat had high praise for Gillian’s performance in the new series. He said:

“Oh,
Douglas is Cancelled
! Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston reunited, but not as friends. It’s a story about a newscaster who tells a dodgy joke and is overheard and is at risk of cancellation, and the ripples it sends out through his personal life, in his marriage to a tabloid editor, and his very social justice warrior daughter, and his tense but close relationship with his co-presenter played by the magnificent Karen Gillan. It moves on from cancel culture really, really, quite quickly. And is about…well, it can be tough to be a woman in the workplace, I guess. But wait until you see Karen in this, Karen is astonishing in this. Astonishing. And it takes quite a few twists and turns. I hope you enjoy it. It’ll be coming out pretty soon.”

“Boom” is available to watch now on Disney+ and new episodes will hit the streamer on Fridays at 7 PM ET.

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