Ever since fans first saw filming pics of John Hurt’s Doctor, many have speculated that his costume is a patchwork of Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston’s, suggesting he could be the incarnation that came in-between them, or the “8.5” Doctor.

However, in a recent interview with SFX, Moffat claims it’s coincidental with no connection to past Doctors: “I can see why people say that. Looking at it face to face it didn’t occur to me as a patchwork of previous Doctors at all. It’s a rougher, tougher Doctor. It looks like somehow he’s been through it a bit. We are saying ‘This isn’t a Doctor who’s just appeared, he’s been around, he’s been in this form for a while.’ So one of the notes was make it look as though he’s been knocking around in this incarnation for a bit.”

Speaking about Hurt’s beard: “It’s another indicator that he’s not a fresh-born Doctor. We didn’t want to imply that he’d just been around for a little while. There’s a whole lot of stuff you missed! It’s a nice thing to be able to say in the show, and for no one to be able to contradict you, that there were years that you didn’t know about… we lied and lied, there’s a whole big old chapter you didn’t know.”

On whether Hurt’s Doctor will be a darker, scarier incarnation: “Well, wait and see. I always think that the clown and hero are different levels in the Doctor – there is no completely straight Doctor. The folk memory of Hartnell is he’s a cranky old man, but when you watch him he plays the Doctor as a stroppy child. Very twinkly and he’s not crotchety, he’s sulky, the way that an infant would be. Ian and Barbara are sort of his parents, indulging him to go and behave himself a bit better. The Doctors are always like that. He’s either an extraordinarily youthful old man or an extraordinarily old young man. He’s always both.”