Steven Moffat Speaks

The new Doctor Who production team's decision to reset the clock and call Matt Smith's debut season Series One, due for broadcast (spoiler) later this year, has created considerable online comment with fans confused about why it was not called Series Five as they had expected.

In an exclusive interview with Shouting Into A Well, new producer Steven Moffat reveals why this has happened.

"This may be the fifth series of Doctor Who since it returned in 2005, but it is also Matt Smith's first year, as well as, if you want to be pedantic, the thirty first year of the whole of Doctor Who or the sixth year of production.

So, why call it Series One? The reasons for this are simple. We've got the numbers 1,5, 6 and 31. Six plus five is eleven, which is also the number of Matt's Doctor. Times eleven by six and you get (clickity-click) sixty-six. Now six times five (the numbers that make eleven, remember) is thirty, add one and you get thirty-one; the number of the current series since it began in the 1960s. So, now we've got two thirty-ones, add them together, sixty-two, take sixty-two away from sixty-six and you've got four left. Take five away from that and it's minus one.

Add one to minus one and what are you left with? Nothing, or to put it another way, a prize that's worth nothing. That's right..! You've rejected Dusty Bin!"