Russell T Davies - 6

Why do you have episodes of Doctor Who that hardly include David Tennant?

Every year we do an episode that has very little David Tennant in – that's simply because of cost. We used to make 13 episodes a year, and then when it became a huge success they gave us a Christmas episode as well, so we now have to make 14 episodes in the same time that we made 13. So every year we have to work out a way of taking David and the companion out.

We could pay everyone to stay on a few more weeks and do another episode but it's a very long shoot, and David goes off and does stuff for HBO or BBC1 in every break, so it gives your lead actors a chance to do something else. So it's part logistics, part cost, part interesting system, because out of that we've got some really interesting episodes. Some great ones, I think. It keeps everyone on their toes.

What is your favourite episode that you've written of Doctor Who?

Oh I can't answer that. Honestly I really can't answer that. It's like asking what's your favourite child. I like them for different reasons.

There's an episode called Gridlock that I really like, but I like that one because it was the first episode I wrote completely in Cardiff. I used to go to and fro from Manchester to Cardiff, carry scripts and disks and emails with me between two cities, and with Gridlock I was going oh I've had enough of that, I live in Cardiff, I'm going to do it in Cardiff. So that episode was a psychological breakthrough in a sense. You know the superstitions you have as a writer, you think here's my Manchester desk, I can only write at my Manchester desk. I used to believe that, for two years. And Gridlock broke that superstition and I wrote it in Cardiff. Now of course I'm stuck writing in Cardiff.

So I like that one, but for very different reasons to the one you mean. That might not be the best episode, although it is marvellous, but it's very personally good for me.

Are there any writers from the old Doctor Who series who are a great influence on you?

Robert Holmes, he was the greatest old Doctor Who writer. And it's a tragedy really, because he was a genre writer and when the history of drama is written he won't even be a footnote, apart from among Doctor Who fans. He was a brilliant writer. If you don't know your Doctor Who there's a story called The Talons of Weng Chiang, and the first episode of that, every line is perfect, every line is funny, or dark... There's not a word wasted. It's a masterpiece of writing, and good for Doctor Who fans keeping his memory alive, because he's dead now. If he'd been alive we'd have signed him up straight away, he was an absolute genius.

Are there any other writers from the past you would have brought back?

Not really, or I would have done. There's nothing wrong with them, but I've got my own people I wanted to put on screen, and people from years ago have had a career, to be honest. They're either still writing, or if they're not that's probably for a reason. But I've got people I wanted to put on the screen myself, like Joe Lidster who wrote Torchwood, that was his very first television script ever. And there's a writer called Helen Raynor who's written six episodes for us now, across Torchwood and Doctor Who, and they were her first. Before that she'd had a fifteen minute script on screen, but really they were her first ever scripts. Joe's just got two Sarah Janes coming out now that will be his second or third scripts ever on television and that fills me with joy. And I think I've done my job as a writer and as a person in this world, I've done myself proud by getting those people on board.

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