12:00 AM, 04-MAY-06

Who Blitzes WWII London

LONDON?Steven Moffat, who wrote the Doctor Who first-season episodes "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances," told SCI FI Wire that he was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response to the two-parter, which makes its U.S. debut on SCI FI Channel May 5 and May 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. "I have to be modest and say they did go over exceptionally well," Moffat said in an interview. The episodes were recently nominated for a coveted Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation, short form. "But you never really know," he added. "You end up doing interviews in which you explain how brilliant you are and how you thought of all these great ideas, but it's not like that at all. You really have no idea if it's going to be the biggest slop or the biggest success. I didn't know the story was going to be as powerful as it was, and I certainly had no idea there would be kids saying, 'Are you my mummy?' So that was all very exciting."

In "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances," the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper) travel back to World War II London during the Blitz, where they encounter an army of gas-mask-covered zombies, as well as Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a 53rd-century adventurer of somewhat ambiguous sexuality. "People always think of television as a series of very clever decisions you make, but sometimes it just happens," Moffat said. "If it's set during the London Blitz, you can more or less assume it's not going to be a musical. It's also 'Doctor Who does the Blitz,' so if you're going to tell that kind of story, it's almost impossible not to be 'Who Noir,' as we called it: '40s clothing, nighttime and bombs. So you've got 'The Empty Child' right there!"

The two-parter also features one of the show's early catch phrases, with the eponymous gas-masked child chillingly asking, "Are you my mummy?" "You have to remember that Doctor Who is at its heart a children's program," Moffat said. "So it's very important to remember children and the specific niche for Doctor Who, which is a kind of domestically scaled menace. You try and take ordinary things and give them one little twist to make them suddenly weird, so a little boy asking for his mummy is something you hear all the time. It's easily imitated, which is very important for Doctor Who monsters, because children have to be able to imitate them in playgrounds."

Moffat has also written an episode for the new second season of Doctor Who, which is currently airing on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. Moffat's episode, "The Girl in the Fireplace," debuts on BBC1 May 6. "I really enjoyed this one," he said. In the episode, the new Doctor (David Tennant) encounters French noblewoman Madame du Pompadour (Sophia Myles) in the 18th-century court of Louis XV. "Without the slight nervousness of the first one and the unfamiliarity of working on someone else's show, it was extremely enjoyable, and I think Sophia Myles looks stunning in the episode." ?Joe Nazarro

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