In this weekend’s Doctor Who episode, ‘The Girl Who Waited’, Amy is trapped in a quarantine facility for victims of an alien plague – a plague that will kill the Doctor in a day. The Doctor can use the TARDIS to smash through time and break in, but then Rory is on his own.

He must find Amy and bring her back to the TARDIS before the alien doctors can administer their medicine. Rory is about to encounter a very different side to his wife. Can he rescue Amy before she is killed by kindness?

‘The Girl Who Waited’ airs at 7.15pm on Saturday 10th September on BBC One.

CultBox caught up with writer Tom MacRae to find out more…

> Read the first part of our exclusive interview with Tom.

How did writing for Matt’s Doctor differ to how you wrote for David Tennant?

“I’m not sure if it’s Matt or me or the template that was set, but I just instinctively got it. Writing for David, the show was so new then that we still weren’t sure what it was. I had my memories of Sylvester McCoy and that was a very loud voice in my head; that slightly dated version of the Doctor.

“I’d found it a real struggle trying to make it the modern version, but with Matt I just found it so easy. I could just hear him in my head doing it. Also, I do particularly love Matt’s Doctor. I mean, I thought David was the best we’d ever had, but now Matt’s doing it, in my mind he’s my Doctor. He’s just such a lovely guy.

“We’re both from the same town and have loads of the same friends. He’s lovely to just spend time with. I’m hugely impressed by not only his performance but also how good he is at dealing with all the pressure.”

Did you cry the first time you watched the episode?

“No, the first time I watched the episode it wasn’t finished, it didn’t have all the music and special effects on. The thing is… if there’s a scene where a character walks out of the TARDIS from the interior to the exterior… because I’ve been on set so much, I just know what the view out of the TARDIS set is!

“If you open the door, there’s this ramp and it’s how you get to the toilet. And I know what the inside of the police box looks like. Having done that, I now find it really hard to watch Doctor Who. Now that I’m inside the show, I find it very hard to watch it and believe it all because I’ve seen it being made.

“But yeah, if I hadn’t, then I’d have been crying my eyes out! On Saturday I think it’ll seem like something that’s actually separate from me and yes, I think I’ll cry.”

Are you able to watch ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ and ‘The Age of Steel’ now as a viewer or do you still just remember the creative process?

“I went to talk to a group in a school and I played them a bit and I was watching it just thinking ‘oh, it’s quite good!’ – I hadn’t seen it for a long time. It’s funny watching anything from a long time ago, you just watch it thinking about all the mistakes you made!”

Would you like to do another episode next year?

“Well, it’s very hard for me to answer that question without giving away the future, but I have had conversations about next year and I hope to have a continuing future with the show, but who knows?”

You’ve also been working on your comedy series, Threesome; has that finished filming now?

“Yeah, we finished about a week ago. It was a fantastically fun shoot with our wonderful leads. To tie up the sci-fi connection we have Emun Elliott who’s in Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s new Alien prequel, and he ends up with Adam Garcia as a love interest, who was in ‘The Christmas Invasion’. We also have Travis Oliver, who was Milo in ‘Gridlock’, and Pauline McLynn from Father Ted.”

When’s that due to air?

“It’s on Comedy Central from October 17th. I just saw the first cut of Episode 1 this morning and it looks great.”

Can you sum up the concept of the show?

“It’s very different from Doctor Who! It’s definitely a grown up show, it’s a lot ruder. I’m doing Russell’s career in reverse, you see, this is my Queer As Folk. It’s just a good fun adult comedy.

“It’s about three best friends – Alice and Mitch, who are a couple, and Richie, their gay best friend – and they live in a flat together. On Alice’s 30th, they take lots of ecstasy and have a threesome! Alice then falls pregnant and it’s about the three of them having a baby together and growing up, having to become responsible and leave behind their chaotic younger years.

“The story’s all about how the ways in which they succeed or fail to do that, building up over the nine months of the pregnancy over the first series, with a rather spectacular final episode!”

Do you have a vague plan for how the story would continue if a second series was commissioned?

“Yeah, I’ve worked out Series 2 and Series 3 if we get that far. It’s always good to plan ahead.”

Were you involved in the casting and were the actors how you envisaged the characters in your head?

“Yeah, I’m a producer on Threesome as well so I was involved in everything really. It’s very hard to cast three best friends when you’re looking at three actors who’ve probably never known each other, trying to find that kind of warmth and chemistry. You can find lots of talented performers, but for the threesome to blend is very difficult.

“We were very, very lucky with our final three. We had the most amazing cast, a phenomenally funny director and a brilliant production… in fact we’ve got half the Doctor Who production team! Doctor Who is a show you never leave, we’re all still telling stories of nights out in Cardiff, it never goes away.”

Did you feel any pressure with it being Comedy Central UK’s first homegrown commission?

“Hugely, yeah. They’re trying to create a show to hang that channel’s brand identity on, so this has to be the sparkiest, funniest thing they’ve ever been involved in. This isn’t like BBC Three where they’ve got ten new shows coming up, we’re the only one.

“We had a very direct relationship with the bosses to get things done quickly, but yeah, there’s a certain pressure.”

What else have you got coming up?

“I’m waiting to hear about a second series of Threesome, I’m beginning another TV thing which I won’t say what it is at the moment, then I’m off to LA. I’m doing a film and I’m lucky to be working with one of the highest profile producers in the world at the moment, which is very exciting for me.

“I’ve got a book out too, can I plug that?! I write children’s picture books, it’s my third one and it’s called ‘When I Woke Up I Was A Hippopotamous’. It’s for ages 2-6 and it’s a very sweet, non-scary, non-Doctor Who story!

“But everything began with Doctor Who, it’s still my favourite show in the world. I hope I’ll be returning to it for the rest of my professional career. It’s not something I’d want to leave behind for anything else!”

> Read the first part of our exclusive interview with Tom.

> Buy Tom MacRae’s ‘When I Woke Up I Was a Hippopotamus’ book on Amazon.

> Order the Series 6 Part 2 DVD on Amazon.

> Order the Series 6 Part 2 Blu-ray on Amazon.

Watch the trailer for ‘The Girl Who Waited’…