According the man himself, Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who could offer something very different.

In a feature for the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, the incoming Doctor Who showrunner, Chris Chibnell, has talked a little about what he has planned for the show.

The writer/producer, rightly famous for his work on Torchwood, Camelot and – of course – Broadchurch, says he “finally said yes because I love the show to my bones. I resisted it for a very long time, and [the BBC] really had to woo me.”

“But, in the end,” he says, “I had ideas about what I wanted to do with it. When I went to them and said, ‘This is what I would do’, I actually expected them to say, ‘Ooh, let’s talk about that’, but they said: ‘Great!’”

The article goes on to characterise his idea as a”daring conceit”, without giving anything specific away. Chibnall does, however, assert that “What the BBC was after was risk and boldness.”

When asked about the torrent of opinion and advice about who it should be replacing Peter Capaldi in the show’s central role, he asserts:

“I don’t read any of that. One of your jobs as a writer is to cut out the noise. All you have is your instincts and your process. The BBC came to me because they wanted those, and so reading coverage about the show is fundamentally useless and bordering on counterproductive.

“A TV show isn’t a focus group. It is great that people are speculating about who the Doctor will be… but it won’t affect in any way what we do with the show… The amazing thing about Doctor Who is that you can go anywhere and do anything. Within budget.”