Steven Moffat on Christmas 2010 and River Song's true identity

SFX have posted a snippet of an interview with Doctor Who Showrunner Steven Moffat from Doctor Who The Brilliant Book 2011 online. He discusses this year's Christmas Special, the current story-arc, and River Song's identity...

On the Christmas Special:
“This one’s incredibly Christmassy. That’s true of the previous ones but I wanted to go for broke. It’s easily the most Christmassy thing you’ll ever see. It’s a huge, sentimental, lovely, jeopardy-driven story. It’s the Christmas special I’d like to see. It’s like a compilation of every Christmas movie. A big Christmas treat. But that doesn’t mean it’s without scares, and that doesn’t mean it’s without heartbreak. It has genuine tragedy in it.”

On the story threads left hanging from last year:
“Nothing will be left hanging forever. Some things will be addressed relatively quickly. We’re going into the silence and what they [out italics] are… There’s been a sort of tradition, which I semi-followed through with the crack, of there just being a sort of meme through the series, and I think, actually, a bigger mystery and a bigger story is possible now. I’m going to handle it slightly differently next year.”

On River Song’s true identity:
“That’s absolutely coming. You’re going to find out very soon, and that means we have to do it next series, really… The critical thing here is I want to explain who she is, not explain away who she is. If you don’t deliver on most people’s expectations, and you just say, ‘Ooh, she’s a specially programmed android who believes she’s the Doctor’s wife,’ people will go, ‘That‘s a cheat.’ Youi can’t do that… It’s a really good story, and it’s sort of the story of next year.”

The Doctor Who Brilliant Book 2011 will be published on 30th September 2010.

(Source: SFX)