I knew from the moment I was offered it… one way or another, I’ll square it with Sue, square it with Hartswood Films. Therefore, I’ve now been thinking about Doctor Who for ten years!

Do you think the format of the show will always be television?

Whatever television is. I’m sure, in a good hearted, sentimental way that cinema will continue to exist. I think it’s a slightly bizarre idea to spend all that money to go to a big room, to watch it with other people, and you can’t pause it to go to the loo.

But have you noticed how good your television is? You used to have to go to the cinema because otherwise you were watching things in 4:3 with shit sound. My television, I sometimes consciously think that I’ll wait for that film to come out where I can watch it in my comfy living room with a glass of wine!

What is your television like? What kind of television does the man who oversees Doctor Who have?

It’s just a television! [Laughs] A big one with good sound! And we’re getting a better one, and going for a bigger one. Because I never think a television can be too big!

But look at what’s happening to posh cinemas, Big wide chairs, with maybe a place for your wine glass, and a bit of food. They’re building your living room. They’re terrified that your living room is a nicer place to watch cinema! And now that the screen and the cinema and sound can be every bit as good… but then there’s a stage beyond that.

I remember once finding my older son sitting watching a film on his bed on his iPad. And I said “do you want to come down and watch it on the big screen?” And he said “Dad”, and he took me downstairs, sat me in my chair and held up my iPhone in front of the television, to my face, covering the TV. And he said “You’re watching television on your iPhone! I’m watching it this size,” he said [holding up his iPad]. “And this is the big screen, and by the way, the iPad screen is better than any television you’re ever going to buy! So why would I come downstairs and watch it on that silly thing over there, when I could watch it on my iPad?!”

That’s what’s coming. I’m an old man. My son doesn’t think that going to the cinema is necessarily a very clever idea, when you can wait and watch it on your bed, on your iPad.

I talked to a film director a year or two back, and they had been offered a TV film with the criteria being that it only matters what’s in the top two thirds of the screen, because the backers anticipated people looking at their phone or iPad as they were watching it.

Yep. [looks horrified]

One of the things that I think really comes out of binge watching is people are, as they always have done, watching the show in very different ways. But in 2005, as you said, we all sat and watched it on Saturday night, and maybe bought the DVD.

I found a belated comment on our site about Lie Of The Land. I think the reaction the the episode on the Saturday night when it was shown was mixed to good. But I found this comment from a reader who had just suffered a loss, and watched lots of Doctor Who series 10 that day. And he got to Lie Of The Land, and he wrote that “it moved me a lot more than I think it would have done the day it actually aired”, and talked of how the memory of a loved one was so devastatingly strong for him, and how much he loved that episode as a consequence of that.

Does that go to viewing habits? Do you notice changes to the way people react to episodes, as a consequence – if you can gauge it – of the different ways people watch the show?

The trouble is we used to not know anything is the truth.

I’ll know in a few years. The ratings are fine. The AIs are fine. Gradually over time, you realise that stuck in someone’s memory, that didn’t. Nowadays, everyone reacts at once and very loudly, and you can mistake that for the reaction of the audience. It is not the reaction of the audience, any more than a conversation in a pub is the conversation in someone’s living room. It is not. It’s a loud clamorous competition to say the most outrageous thing.

That may not be a bad thing, it’s a social event. But you’re not doing audience research.

I know a very famous TV executive – who I’ll not name! – in America, who fired a showrunner because she said he was responding to what they said on Twitter. She said I’m just not having that. If you want audience research, we’ll do it. But we’re not doing things that people say at Twitter.

For me, I always remember the line “Just this once, everybody lives.” That’s the one that broke me, and still does. We talk about the emotion of an eight-year old. But the emotion of an eight year old is still inside an 80-year old.

Oh God, yes.

Just the 80 year old tries to hide it.

Yes, yes.

If we can quickly touch on Christmas. One thing that was said about Christmas episodes was that they were broader, you can have a lot more fun with them. But hasn’t that changed? Lots of people don’t watch a Christmas episode on Christmas day.

Okay, I’ll finally be honest about the Christmas episode! You know what’s different about the Christmas episode? It mentioned Christmas! That’s it! It’s just an episode of Doctor Who, and we’re going, can we get some snow in there or something? It’s all bollocks what we say about it!

It’s a bit more broader than the normal Doctor Who. Well fuck me! That’s a big thing to say! Have you seen the rest of the show! [laughs] I mean, really? It’s more broad than Robots Of Sherwood?! It’s just Doctor Who on Christmas Day with some version of Christmas in it. I think Last Christmas is one of the darker, scarier ones we’ve done, but it does have Santa in it!

I get trotted out every year to advertise the Christmas special. What’s different? Well, it’s more this, it’s more that. You have to take into account that some people are watching Doctor Who who don’t normally watch it.

Exactly like every other episode of Doctor Who! It’s just an episode of Doctor Who, on Christmas day. Nothing else!

I’m going to go to the Q&A at Christmas now and just ask exactly the same question, just to see if it irritates you!

It’s me! I perpetrate the lie! Or rather, I continued it after Russell started it, for the sake of having something to say! And then people say “I don’t like the Christmas ones as much”. But I wonder: what are you talking about? They’re not similar. Last Christmas versus The Christmas Invasion? Do they have anything in common apart from the fact they mention Christmas? Nothing! All bollocks!

How do you feel, then, about series 10 now? Do you have sufficient distance from it to cement your own feelings?

No. It seemed to have gone down very well. I was very pleased that people seemed to be keen on it. I was pleased people thought my last run was a good run. I was really pleased with the finale episodes. I’m not always pleased, but I thought they were really good.

But it’s funny, the progress through Doctor Who. People said that “season 10 is a return to form”. So I thought I’d just go and see what they said about the last one. “Season 9 is a return to form”! Season 8? “Return to form”! When was it off form? Wednesday?!

One last thing. One thing we try and do with our site is try and talk to people who are in a difficult place at the moment, and maybe struggling a bit. I’m always conscious that words from someone else will travel further than if they were from me, not least because Doctor Who fandom is so special. If there’s someone out there feeling like that, making a writer who feels the world doesn’t believe in them a little bit, is there a line you could direct to them?

Yes. You are mistaken in thinking that anybody else feels different than that. That’s exactly what the condition of being alive is.

I want to leave it just there, because that’s lovely. Steven Moffat, thank you very much.

Doctor Who series 10 is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday. You can order it here. The packshot looks like this…