Despite having control over a character whose adventures and powers transcend time and space, there are some things not even Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat can do—namely, make the movie that people are apparently constantly badgering him about, despite the fact that Doctor Who is a show scientifically designed for ideal viewing from the privacy of a dimly lit basement.
Moffat addressed the problem in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, where he cited reasons both financial and practical for why you’ll never live your dream of seeing the TARDIS on the big screen. “How do we do it without leaching from the television series—which we’re not allowed to do, because Doctor Who is public-funded?” he asked, referring to the show’s BBC financing, which comes largely from British TV license fees and legally couldn’t be diverted to the production of a motion picture.
Moffat also questioned the practicalities of either filming with the same actors from the show—which would massively delay its production time—or casting a new actor to play the movie Doctor. “If it’s going to be a different Doctor, are we going to try and sell two Doctors at the same time? I know there’s been loads of Doctors, but there’s only been one at a time. You don’t have a James Bond on television and one in the cinema,” Moffat said, failing to add that a movie-Doctor probably also wouldn’t be allowed by studios to look like either a bobble-headed frog or an angry, vengeful owl, thus ruining more than 50 years of the show’s venerable traditions.
As he slashed through nerd fantasies with reckless abandon, Moffat went on to reiterate that the much-lusted-after crossover between Who and his other series, Sherlock, is also never going to happen, due to everyone involved who is not a 15-year-old girl or Steven Moffat thinking it’s an awful idea. Specifically, he cited Sherlock stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as roadblocks, getting in the way of Moffat’s classily stated desire to be “a tart” by giving his viewers what they want.