The doctor is in

Just as the actor playing The Doctor changes periodically, so too do the staff behind the scenes.

Rarely, though, has anyone behind the scenes had as much of an impact on Doctor Who as Russell T Davies who quit as exec producer this week.

He’s moving on to other things, as is to be expected, following the most astonishing comeback in TV history. Forget wossname (hah) waking up and finding her dead husband in the shower on Dallas. Forget Magnum waking up after walking off into the clouds. Nobody in their right minds expected a Welsh writer to revive TV’s oldest SF show and make it into a drama for grown-ups as much as a homage to the children’s TV show it once was.

That Davies is moving on is sad news, but not a surprise. He had a career before The Doctor and he’ll have one after.

The great news is that the man shoulder tapped to take over is Steven Moffat, the writer behind such episodes as Blink and who clearly loves the show as much as Davies and as much as the fans.

From the BBC story:

“Moffat, … said the whole of his career was ‘a secret plan to get this job’,” which is just lovely.

Even Neil Gaiman weighed in with a post on it, although I prefer his ode to David Tennant playing Hamlet as The Doctor. Scroll down a bit.