Last Friday the press screening for The Bells of Saint John took place. A Q&A took place afterwards with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and Steven Moffat. A full and lengthy transcript is now online courtesy of LifeofWylie.

Here’s some highlights:

Moffat on The Bells of Saint John:

“The Doctor can never be Bond or Bourne – but if he tried it might look a bit like this.”

Coleman on Clara’s first meeting with the Doctor in The Bells of Saint John:



“Well, obviously, for her this is a completely clean slate. She is oblivious. She is meeting the Doctor as he turns up on her doorstep as a monk for the first time. So that’s her first impression. So, for me, it’s to treat it completely as a clean slate. But what I really love, and especially because that’s the first time we’ve seen…is that the dynamic is so different because there’s nothing worse the Doctor hates than an unsolved mystery. And that is what she is. So you can really see it arcing over the next episodes.”

On the differences between Claras:

Moffat: “We were going to have to do a modern day story to introduce Jenna yet again. But this time not kill her.” Coleman: “I suppose this is kind of take three. And then this is the Clara that we will be with for the next episodes. But with all of the Claras, there’s kind of an essence that’s the same running throughout. But this is the Clara that we will be with and know for the next…” Moffat: “Unless we kill her.”

On Moffat’s clever new monster coming up at the end of the series:

Smith: “I don’t want to give too much away but I think we might have one of those clever Moffat creations. One of the new classic monsters. And they’ve got a great name and they are so brilliant.” Coleman: “They are. They are absolutely brilliant. They’re a monster that…they don’t chase you, they just come at you slowly. And they’ve got a style which I find really quite terrifying. They’ve got a style to them. But I think that’s all we can probably say.”

On how much of the TARDIS we will see in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS:



Moffat: “You will go to the heart of the TARDIS. You will see more of the TARDIS more properly than you’ve ever seen it before.

On whether we will we finally see the TARDIS swimming pool:

Moffat: “Wait and see. There’s way more than a swimming pool. Wait ‘til you see what’s in there.”

On The Rings of Akhaten:

Smith: “That was fun, wasn’t it? With as many aliens as we’ve ever seen in one place…” Coleman: “Yeah. In an amphitheatre of aliens. So we’ve got so many pictures…we’ve got an entire day of us sat, kind of like all of you guys (the audience) but you all had prosthetic heads on as aliens.”

On the return of the Ice Warriors:

Moffat: “I always slightly thought they’re slow moving and you can’t hear what they’re saying. Is that the archetypal slightly silly monster? But then Mark (Gatiss) had been going on and on about it during a phone call which was meant to be about Sherlock, he started pitching this idea…a couple of very, very clever ideas of what we could do with an Ice Warrior. And I went for it at that point. But we were very concerned, as you’ll have seen in the clips, that that design hasn’t been seen enough to be updated in a way. So it’s a super version of the original. Sometimes you think a design should be upgraded because it’s so familiar. That one is slightly less familiar so you will be seeing the Ice Warrior in a familar form but with at least one big surprise.”

On the 50th anniversary:

Smith: “You won’t be disappointed. It’s my cryptic way of going…no, the thing is, much as we’d love to tell you everything, I read it and I clapped at the end. I think it’s hilarious and I think it’s epic and I think it’s vast. I’m telling you nothing more. But you will not be disappointed. I think it’s going to be the biggest, the best, the most inventive, the most exciting year for the show. And I think this script, it delivers on all those points that you want it to for where the show is at this time. It’s brilliant.” Coleman: “Reading especially the finale of this season as well, without giving too much away, it really is epic and I think it’s really a treat for the fans of the last 50 years.”” Smith: “It somehow manages to pay homage to everything and look forward. And I think that’s the mark, the genius of it.”

On the length of the 50th anniversary:



Moffat: “46 minutes…I’ve just said that for the sheer hell of it. Someone is going to write that down and create a whole blog of that. ‘Moffat Says 46 Minutes.’”

On how they will keep the 50th anniversary secret:



Moffat: “Random execution…we’re just very, very careful and we kill people. Was I smiling? Look, it’s difficult. What can I say? I’ll tell you, one length I’ve gone to, which I think is a really, really good security measure – I make sure I don’t get a script. Because I will lose it. So I forbid people to hand me one. It’s just on my computer at home under lock and key.”

Moffat’s greatest trolling tease yet?

