FEATURE BY BENJAMIN COOK
“I’d often wondered if we could do the Christmas Armistice in Doctor Who, but I always worried about trivialising that event”, says Steven Moffat. “By making the Doctor a material part of it, are you saying that he was responsible, rather than the people who were actually there? By making it a minor strand in the story, however, I sort of felt that we could justify it – so that’s what I did.”
The resultant adventure, Doctor Who’s 2017 Christmas Special, is Steven’s last-ever episode as showrunner and head writer, after almost eight years in charge. “Also, I like the idea that this is where the Doctors make peace with each other, and the First Doctor comes to realise what a ‘Doctor of war’ actually is. And maybe, potentially, if we get away with it, in an episode that scrupulously avoids Christmas until that moment, we make Christmas a surprise when you start to hear those carols on the battlefield…”