Roberson's Interminable Ramble

Begin celebrating... Now!

BBC Wales and BBC Drama has announced that Bafta and Hugo Award-winning writer Steven Moffat will succeed Russell T Davies as Lead Writer and Executive Producer of the fifth series of Doctor Who, which will broadcast on BBC One in 2010.

Moffat has penned some of the series' most unforgettable and acclaimed episodes, including Blink, with its terrifying weeping angels, for which he was awarded the Bafta Writer Award 2008 on Sunday 11 May.

His previous work on Doctor Who includes The Girl In The Fireplace for series two, which earned him his second Hugo Award.

His first was for the series one two-parter The Empty Child, which became famous for its terrifying refrain "Are you my mummy?"

For the current series, Moffat has written Silence In The Library, a two-parter starring Alex Kingston which transmits on 31 May and 7 June 2008 on BBC One.

Moffat's episodes of Who these last few years have been amongst the best Who ever, and among the best SF television in general, and his Jekyll was flat-out awesome. That he would take over after RTD has been rumored (and never denied) for a few years now, but to have it confirmed is about the best news the Who franchise has seen since it returned to air.

Steven Moffat says: "My entire career has been a Secret Plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back 'cos the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven.

"Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light, and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television. I say toughest 'cos Russell's at my window right now, pointing and laughing."