Former showrunner, Steven Moffat, has said that a full reboot of Doctor Who would be a “bad idea.”

With the show being put out to tender, no one quite knows what the future holds. So might the show reboot itself completely? Moffat thinks that’s a terrible plan. He says:

“It’s not because I’m obsessed with continuity, or because I’m a hardcore fan. It requires more explanation than a soft reboot. Normally, when you reboot something, you can tell it’s a reboot. In Sherlock, I didn’t need to explain that Benedict Cumberbatch is not playing a continuation of Jeremy Brett, because he’s a different actor.

“You don’t really expect Daniel Craig to be continuing the story of Pierce Brosnan. Because there’s a new actor, you instantly reset and say, ‘We’re starting again, it’s a new version.’ With Doctor Who, the fact it’s a new actor doesn’t tell you that at all. Then they’ll say, ‘Why doesn’t he know who the Daleks are?’ And you start getting confused. You’d have to keep reminding the audience, ‘We started from the beginning again.’

“Unless of course you did the nightmare option – which is exactly the wrong thing to do – which is starting with Doctor Who stealing the TARDIS and running away from Gallifrey. That’s a terrible beginning for Doctor Who.”

And I can’t think of many fans who would want the series to reboot completely, starting off with a fresh First Doctor. In general, we like our continuity and we like the Doctor to be this mysterious being with a long life. Anything that threatens that is typically seen as disrespectful of the past.

Saying that, the other day I typed “Seventeenth Doctor” and thought to myself, “Crikey, this is getting a bit out of hand”…

Plus I’m sure we all have periods we’d rather the show didn’t mull over — for me, it’s the Timeless Child nonsense. I’d rathe forget that ever happened, thank you very much.

What do you think, DWC readers?