I remember others which were TBA'ed in the Radio Times (early on or prior to the series getting under way) - wasn't The Wedding of River Song, for example? - and I'm sure in the first series when they did the pull-out special in week one there was at least one that was TBA'ed, Bad Wolf maybe?

They sometimes change the title before it airs, viz River's Run to Forest of the Dead.

'In The Forest of The Night' really is a gorgeous title for an episode. I'm picturing something visually stunning, I hope it delivers.

Unless it involves the Doctor facing off against the evil Tombliboos, I'm going to be disappointed.

Only 12 episodes as opposed to 13 for a full length series?

Deep Breath is 75 minutes long, effectively a double episode.

I'd pay good money to see that!
How about a Children In Need episode set In The Night Garden?

It's actually 80 mins or so, 19:50 - 21:10

The leak is just under 76 minutes long, it's not got proper titles, a next time and is missing some cgi heavy shots.

The cinema version is 97 minutes 35 seconds, featuring as it does 'an introduction and 'behind the scenes' extras'

Yes .... the finished, full broadcast version is closer to 80 mins (the broadcast slot length) as I posted.

I picked up on that too. It's an exciting choice for an episode title! Here's hoping the title is being literal - if it's just a case of the poem being read out at some point during the episode, I will be very disappointed.

Episode 10 filming description for those curious:

Remembrance of the Daleks beat The Caretaker by 26 years.

If you know what I mean

Didn't the Doctor call himself the Caretaker in that Christmas special with Bill Bailey and the trees that I've tried to wipe from my memory?

"I'm the Doctor, or the Caretaker, or get off this planet..."

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night:

~ William Blake (1794)

Ah - you beat me to it!

It would be great to see the Doctor meeting William Blake though ....

Robot of Sherwood; Mummy on the Orient Express....Does anyone else cringe & groan at those punning titles that hark back to another piece of fiction?

Not wanting to sound too reticent but the Gatiss episode sounds Pants!!

Not much confidence in his writing ability for DW Im afraid.

The Moffat co-credits are very strange. I presume he must have heavily rewritten those scripts but it's not the usual practice to get a co-credit in that situation. It's still normally credited solely to the principle author and he has never taken a co-credit before. It makes me wonder if there are disparate parts of those episodes: ie perhaps an ongoing sub-plot or something written entirely by Moffat and broken up and inserted into those episodes.

Some seem to realize and others seem not to that 'In the Forest of the Night' is from a famous William Blake poem:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172943

RTD, as mentioned said in the Writer's Tale it was in his contract that any script he worked on- which was almost all of them in series 1-4- had to go out as written by him as well as the other writer if RTD wanted, which he didn't in most cases.

Presumably Moffat had input to most of the series 5-7 scripts anyway, I'm not sure the fact he's now credited makes a difference.

That's why I find it strange. Like RTD, he's almost certainly had input into all the scripts before now. Why is he suddenly taking co-writer credits when he hasn't in the past?

One explicitly mentioned past example I can think of is 'The Lodger'. I remember an interview (or perhaps it was a commentary) with Gareth Roberts where he mentioned that the twist of the top floor of the house being a TARDIS-like craft was Moffat's idea.

I've always strongly believe that 'Amy's Choice' was ghost-written in large parts by Moffat. I've no evidence but it was strongly Moffat in style, was a very important character episode and was written by a writer new to the series who has never been asked back since, which is strange given it was such an acclaimed episode.

Neil Gaiman has also given Moffat a lot of credit for 'The Doctor's Wife', saying 'he made it what it was', which is partly graciousness of course, but he wouldn't say it if Moffat contributed nothing to the script.


This is purely speculation and I'm genuinely asking the question as I don't know the answer: is the onscreen writing credit necessarily the same as the writing credit in the BBC's official documentation? Ie. could co-writers both be paid the fee for an episode but only one be credited onscreen if they both wished it to be the case? I would have to assume they could be. In fact, I remember Neil Gaiman commenting that Steven Moffat was erroneously credited as the writer of the short episode 'Planet of the Rain Gods' on the Season 6 (I think) DVD but he didn't mind as it was a genuine mistake and he was still paid as the author.

I wonder if Moffat is credited as co-writer in terms of receiving writer's fees but was not supposed to have an on-screen credit and the BBC has made a mistake on the announced titles? Again, that is total speculation. We'll see what it says when the episodes are broadcast.

Maybe he really has just had much larger input on three scripts than he ever has previously.

I've had a quick flick through the script of Time Heist, and it is a bit wibbley wobbley timey wimey; not really a surprise Moffat was involved.

It's amusing if he has co-written it because in the last Doctor Who magazine, previewing this episode, he was talking about what a genius Steven Thompson is and how inadequate he is in comparison

I don't think it's a bad thing if he's been more strongly involved in the episodes than previously. Actually, I think they need this series to be very tight and they can't afford weak scripts after the lukewarm reception of a lot of last season.

Sorry, bit a lurker here - So, might have been mentioned...

Wasn't this mentioned by Matt Smith in one of his early episodes? Is it related?