Think a Victorian Silurian spin-off from Doctor Who sounds like a good idea? Steven Moffat agrees
Did you watch Doctor Who ’s mid-series finale “A Good Man Goes To War” and sense some serious spin-off potential in Victorian lady-lizard Madame Vastra and her katana-twirling maidservant Jenny?
You weren’t alone.
“I instantly pitched it to Ben Stephenson [Controller, Drama Commissioning],” showrunner Steven Moffat exclusively tells SFX . “He just said ‘…Yes!’. And then I said ‘I obviously don’t have time to do this…’ [laughs].”
But our screens may not have seen the last of the sapphically-charged 19 th Century investigators.
“I think I might revisit them,” reveals Moffat. “They were great fun to write. Obviously the first person to think about a spin-off was me, when I was writing ‘A Good Man Goes To War’… A Victorian Silurian? Her lesbian maid? Come on!
“I was pleased by the reaction to them, but not surprised. They really cut through as characters, given how little screentime they had. I certainly wouldn’t be averse to them returning. It’s just a thing that worked, isn’t it? I love that Victorian setting, and having kicked it out of Sherlock Holmes I can always kick it in somewhere else!”
