‘Doctor Who’ cuts ‘force creativity’

Steven Moffat has suggested that he is not too concerned about the budget cuts on his first series as Doctor Who showrunner.

However, the new executive producer also told BBC News that he could easily spend any amount allocated for the programme.

Moffat said: “There will never be enough money to make Doctor Who. We could spend Avatar‘s budget and still ask for more, because it’s a show that’s set in every point in history and every place in the universe.

“What we think is what we need to achieve, and how we’re to achieve it, given whatever financial circumstance we’re in. A lot of the most iconic things about Doctor Who are a direct consequence of financial shortcomings.”

He added: “They said ‘We’ve got a police box from Dixon of Dock Green – let’s make a box that’s bigger on the inside’, and thus was born the single best idea in all of fiction.

“Budget cuts are tough – I don’t like them, but they force you to be creative. You’ve seen that trailer. Does it look like we’ve had a budget cut?”

Of the new Tardis, he said: “So much was new, it would have been cowardly not to have a new Tardis as well.”

Moffat recently told The Guardian that Doctor Who was “subject to efficiency savings like everyone else”, but added “no one is going to say that it looks cheaper because it doesn’t”.