Former Doctor Who showrunner, Steven Moffat, has revealed that his Series 14 episode, Boom, was inspired by the Fourth Doctor classic, Genesis of the Daleks.
In the opening episode of the Tom Baker story, the Doctor steps on a landmine and can’t move for a short time — something that also happens in the Fifteenth Doctor story written by Moffat. He explains:
“[T]he absence of the Doctor can create tension, and Blink exploits that hugely. It’s scary because the Doctor has to say, ‘Sorry, I can’t make it this time, You’re on your own!’ They’re the most terrifying words, because he’s not there. But if you’re going to keep it Doctor-centric, how do you keep it tense? Well, I ripped the idea off the first episode of Genesis Of The Daleks [1975].
“I said, ‘What if he runs out of the TARDIS, stands on a landmine, and can’t move an inch for the whole episode?’ Meanwhile, he has to turn off a war, work out what’s really going on, save everybody, unmask the aliens… but he can’t turn his head, or twitch, or even let his blood pressure get too high, because it’s a smart mine, that will detect anything. So, he’s in constant danger of immolating, basically! He just can’t do anything. And with a lovely, lively Doctor like Ncuti [Gatwa], that’s quite a dynamic difference – that he can’t move!”
Mulling over the pitching process, Moffat says that creating tension in the show can be difficult because the Doctor is just too good. He reflects:
“I suddenly had this thought, which I think is vaguely true, that Doctor Who almost never does tension. It doesn’t do nail-biting tension. It does romance, adventure, comedy, love stories, everything… but it doesn’t do tension, because the Doctor turns the tension off. He’s obviously going to win.”
And that’s a fair point!
Still, there are plenty of very tense Doctor Who stories, my favourite being the base-under-siege genre, which nicely ramps up the tension. Examples include The Moonbase, The Robots of Death, The God Complex, and Under the Lake/ Before the Flood — all of which I love. And I loved Boom too, so yup, I very much enjoy biting my nails.
