Iconic episode Blink<\/a>, helmed by Steven Moffat, The Waters of Mars<\/a>, written by Phil Ford, and Midnight<\/a>, written by returning showrunner Russell T Davies, are just some of the times Doctor Who has turned a little terrifying. While fans love the show all the more for how those stories are handled, it seems the writers are no different.<\/p>\n Speaking to RadioTimes.com<\/a> to celebrate the publication of their Target novelisations<\/a>, various Doctor Who writers considered where the line is \u2013 and ultimately decided that, if tackled correctly, there\u2019s nothing too dark for Doctor Who.<\/p>\n Phil Ford, who wrote the terrifying David Tennant episode The Waters of Mars, recalled: \u201cI remember, I grew up with Jon Pertwee predominantly and, looking back, I remember stories like The Green Death being really quite scary for me as a kid.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not so sure that it\u2019s moved away from that so much, I have no doubt that there will be another Doctor Who story coming down the road that will be every bit as scary, if not more than The Waters of Mars.<\/p>\n \u201cI think scaring kids is what I\u2019ve always enjoyed doing! Whether it\u2019s in Doctor Who or Sarah Jane [Adventures]\u2026 I think Russell put it to me a long time ago that it\u2019s OK to scare kids, what you don\u2019t want to do is terrify them and scar them!\u201d<\/p> He added: \u201cI\u2019ve met at conventions an awful lot of kids that admitted they were scared by The Waters of Mars, but not so much to traumatise them! They loved it because it\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford went on to say: \u201cThe Waters of Mars, from my point of view, was always going to be scary because that\u2019s what I like to do. I think the team around Doctor Who then and now is just so good at what it does, I think we all have confidence in each other in knowing just how far we can go.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd certainly, whenever I went too far, I knew Russell was going to pull me up on something\u2026 my memory of Russell is not so much hauling me back on The Waters of Mars, but on other episodes, him pushing me harder to make things even scarier and even bleaker in some cases! Which is just wonderful, because he has this amazing opinion \u2013 and talent to back it up \u2013 that really there is no story you can\u2019t tell for kids. It\u2019s just a question of how you tell that story.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Harness, writer of The Zygon Invasion\/Inversion two-parter in season 9, added: \u201cIt depends on what kind of darkness it is\u2026 I think you can skate around nearly everything.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to do it on the nose but I think you can more or less, as far as I\u2019m concerned, cover most things because it\u2019s always been a show which has darkness in it and horror and nightmarish fairytale elements.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it gets quite close when that poor Zygon decides to electrocute himself but maybe we got away with that! That wasn\u2019t something that people really bumped against, I think they found it moving and horrifying but I don\u2019t recall anyone saying, \u2018Christ, that\u2019s a bit too dark.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think Doctor Who should be dark all the time, maybe I feel that my episodes in general were a little bit grave! I would have liked to have tried more light-hearted ones. But I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anywhere you can\u2019t go in Doctor Who.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Keith Temple, who wrote the David Tennant story Planet of the Ood, said: \u201cThank goodness we\u2019re past the days of Mary Whitehouse! There are other sorts of censorship restrictions we have to take into account but I don\u2019t think there are any topics that Doctor Who can\u2019t handle, as long as it\u2019s done well. Really, Doctor Who, if you look at every story, there\u2019s so much death and mayhem in it!<\/p>\n \u201cPeople maybe don\u2019t realise how much there is in the way of death. Doctor Who is a family show, there are a lot of young people who watch it, and children \u2013 you have to be careful as a writer and a programme maker that you address all those ages within the episode and that makes it quite a difficult show but as long as you don\u2019t patronise children, you can do anything, I think. There are no barriers to what you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Target novelisations of The Waters of Mars<\/a>, The Zygon Invasion<\/a> and Planet of the Ood<\/a> are available to buy now.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Doctor Who is available to stream on\u00a0BBC iPlayer<\/a>\u00a0with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox \u2013 you can sign up for a\u00a07-day free trial here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n For more, check out our dedicated\u00a0Sci-Fi<\/a>\u00a0page or our full\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013 <\/span><\/strong> subscribe now<\/a> and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen <\/span>to The Radio Times podcast<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Some of the show’s darkest episodes have become fan favourites. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":38441,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist.jpg",939,626,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist.jpg",800,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist.jpg",939,626,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/10\/nothing-is-too-dark-for-doctor-who-writers-insist.jpg",939,626,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Some of the show's darkest episodes have become fan favourites.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/38440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ingrid](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/01\/the-zygon-invasion-46857d8.jpeg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413\" "\\"Ingrid")
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