Steven Moffat has offered a possible explanation for one of Series 8’s loose ends: how can Orson Pink exist if Danny is dead?

Moffat explains in the new DWM: “I can think of several explanations, but the obvious one is that Orson comes from another branch of the family. He knows about Danny’s heroic sacrifice, because Clara got in touch with the Pink family after the events of Death in Heaven (because you would, wouldn’t you?), and told them what he did, and why. And she gave them the little soldier, as a keepsake of a great man and a great soldier – and because she knows the toy soldier has to remain in the Pink family line.

“Now all that strikes me as pretty inevitable – that’s what would have happened – but I’m not saying it’s right. Nothing is actual till it’s in the show. Knowing how the season would end, we were careful, in never to define exactly what the connection was.”

Moffat clears up a few other things. He says the Half-Face Man would have likely have been killed by Missy, rather than converted. He also reveals how he wrestled with adding a line about the Doctor being able to click his fingers to open the TARDIS in the Clara key scene, but ultimately thought it unnecessary. And lastly, he rules out Osgood’s Zygon duplicate theory as stating it wouldn’t have been killed so easily. Osgood is definitely dead.