Inspirations: The Eleventh Hour

Only once before in Doctor Who had we seen what could be termed a reboot of the series, in that a new season commenced with none of the existing characters from the previous year - neither Doctor nor companions. (The move from B&W to colour and the dawn of a new decade help to emphasise that a line has most definitely been drawn under the old set-up). 

The War Games ended with the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe all departing together, so that Spearhead From Space opened with a brand new Doctor, who would then meet a brand new companion. One element did cross over between seasons, but Lethbridge-Stewart was hardly a regular in January 1970. He had only been seen twice, a year apart, and was only the Brigadier, of UNIT fame, in a single story.

The Eleventh Hour would see a new Doctor, new companion(s), new showrunner and new producers, with no reference to the previous episode other than the resolution to the regeneration scene.

Steven Moffat began writing his first story as showrunner as early as January 2008 - an episode which he had provisionally titled "The Doctor's Return".

The companion, Amy Pond, was inspired by the character of Wendy in Peter Pan - a girl whisked away on an adventure still dressed in her nightdress. It was envisioned very early on that this would be on the eve of her wedding.

Amy's meeting with the Doctor first as a child, and then again as an adult, derived from The Girl in the Fireplace. 

An early draft had the Doctor forgetting about meeting Amy as a child due to the trauma of regeneration - so she recalled him, but he did not know her when they met up again later. This was when David Tennant was still contemplating staying on. The reason he did not recognise her was because she had actually first encountered him at the end of his Tenth life, and he would regenerate at the end of the 13th instalment - shades of River Song meeting the Doctor in reverse order.

Moffat plotted out a rough story arc of 13 episodes, which would culminate with the Doctor forced into a trap. If he failed to walk into it, a major conflict would worsen.

Once it was clear that he would be introducing a brand new Doctor, Moffat's idea was for the newly regenerated Time Lord to have a very short time in which to save the Earth - thrown into a situation when he had only just regenerated. This inspired the title - he being the Eleventh Doctor and the phrase "11th hour" referring to something happening at the last minute.

He originally set out to have an older Doctor, as Tennant and Eccleston had been relatively young men.

Matt Smith had originally auditioned for Watson in Sherlock, and Moffat had remembered him.

He decided to go with an even younger Doctor in the end - though one who could convey an old man trapped in a young body.

Smith looked at some old episodes and loved Patrick Troughton's Doctor, having seen Tomb of the Cybermen.

The "fish-fingers and custard" food scenes were inspired by AA Milne's The House at Pooh Corner (1928), in which Winnie the Pooh is woken up in the middle of the night by the arrival of Tigger who likes everything, as opposed to the Doctor hating everything until he hits on the fish finger / custard combo.

One of Moffat's sons had a crack in the wall above his bed - which inspired him to include this particular image.

Examining the crack, the Doctor says "You've had some cowboys in here" - the same phrase he had used when mind-reading Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace.

The extra door / hidden room in Amy's house derived from a childhood dream Moffat had of visits to his grandmother's house.

The setting of events in a village came about as a counterpoint to the inner-city London settings of the previous years. Moffat wanted something out of Trumpton, and in a draft version had the Doctor describe Leadworth as Balamory.

Moffat wanted a big TARDIS interior, and was able to achieve this thanks to the Torchwood Hub having been destroyed in Children of Earth - freeing up studio space. This allowed for different levels and doors going off to other areas, which might be developed later. (RTD's console room was retained, as Neil Gaiman was already planning The Doctor's Wife).

The exterior of the TARDIS was inspired by the Police Box of the Peter Cushing Dalek movies - bigger, darker blue, and with white paintwork around the windows, and the return of the St John Ambulance badge, last seen in Season 3. Mark Gatiss had suggested this. (He was working on his Dalek story, which would see a redesign of the Daleks inspired by the same movies).

The TARDIS swimming pool (described as a bathroom) had been seen in The Invasion of Time, but had been said to have been ejected, due to a leak, in Paradise Towers.

Ten's sonic screwdriver is destroyed on the village green for two reasons - in-story, to make the Doctor's task more difficult, but also to pave the way for a marketable new version.

The Doctor dressing himself from items of clothing found in Leadworth Hospital was a deliberate nod to that other reboot in 1970, when the Third Doctor had collected items from the cloakroom of Ashbridge Cottage Hospital.

As it's a whole new set-up, we have a sequence where the Doctor challenges the Atraxi, which allows for clips from previous stories - classic and more recent - to remind the viewers that this is the same programme. Bizarrely, the clips include Sea Devils, who have never "invaded" the Earth; Hath and Ood - who were quite friendly and have never been near Earth - and Vashta Nerada, who also have never threatened the planet.

The clips of old Doctors come from The Time Meddler, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Sea Devils, The Pirate Planet, Arc of Infinity, Revelation of the Daleks, Time and the Rani, the Paul McGann thing, The Parting of the Ways and The Family of Blood.

Next time: Moffat finally proves that he can write rubbish as well as award-winning gems...