Steven Moffat has spoken about the challenges of introducing a new incarnation of the Doctor. Although he believes that the Peter Capaldi’s opening episode will prove to be an easier transition than Matt Smith’s in “The Eleventh Hour”.

Speaking to Collider, he said: “The biggest pressure will always be introducing a new Doctor. And I can’t imagine it will ever be tougher than with “The Eleventh Hour” because everything changed. It’s not an ideal way to run television. It really isn’t. That was mad. All the execs left, the producer left, and all the stars left. You think, “Christ, how do you get away with that?!”

“We’re not in that situation this time, and it’s good that we’re not. People say, “It must have been great and exciting and marvelous that you had all that new stuff,” but not really. But, we got away with it. I just remember thinking, “Are people going to buy that this is the same show, when it clearly is not?”

Moffat also admitted it would be impossible to have kept Matt Smith’s regeneration into Capaldi a secret: “I’d love to, but that’s physically impossible. It was Russell’s plan not to tell anyone that Chris [Eccleston] was going to change in the last episode, but it leaked after one week. I wish it were possible. The fact is that those actors’ agents have to say that they’re available. They have to take jobs. It’s going to leak, so you have to take command of that story.

“It’s annoying. I’d far rather not tell anybody anything, seriously. If you’re telling a joke, you don’t want anybody telling the punchline before you get to the end. Sadly, I don’t think it’s possible now. Everybody wanders around with cameras now. A few years ago, no one had a camera on them. Now, every little human being goes around with a camera on their phone. How am I going to keep secrets with that?! It’s tough. It can be irritating, but what can you do?”