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Steven Moffat has blasted the BBC at the axing of Doctor Who Confidential.
It was announced that the BBC Three behind-the-scenes show would not return next year. And now the executive producer has criticised his BBC bosses for the decision.
Writing in his Production Notes column in Doctor Who Magazine this month, Moffat railed that:It seems hard to grasp. All shows have their time, and all shows end, but not, in all sanity, while people still watch and love them. I’m not supposed to say it, but I’m going to say it anyway: bad day, bad decision.Announcing that decision to axe Confidential, channel controller Zai Bennett had pledged to plough resources into more original commissions, which as well as the acclaimed likes of Being Human and The Fades include Hotter Than My Daughter and Young, Dumb And Living Off Mum.
Moffat pointed to the show’s recent Script To Screen writing competition as an example of the programme's value providing a "magic moment when television opened up and told so many children ‘yes you can do it now'. Describing the day when he, Matt Smith and producer Marcus Wilson visited the winners, saying: “For once we weren’t visitors from the impossible unattainable world if television – they’d seen that they could be part of it too, and they’d even seen it happen... among all those children who took part in Script To Screen, possibilities opened up and futures changed. Tell me what is more important than that."
Recalling his own experience, he continued: "When I was a kid, Doctor Who made me want to see behind the scenes. Seeing behind the scenes made me never want to leave and, one day, incredibly, got me the job of a lifetime. It did the same for Russell [T Davies] and David [Tennant]."
Damning the decision further, he continued: "I know these are straitened times. I know we're all at sea and the night is colder, but you don't start burning the lifeboats to keep warm. Or, to put it another way, you might want to think about the future if you're planning to live there."
An online petition to save Doctor Who Confidential has so far gathered almost 55,000 signatures.