Mark Gatiss Talks Sleep No More Sequel, Not Caring About Continuity, More

Mark Gatiss has been doing the media rounds ahead of this coming Saturday’s broadcast of Empress of Mars, the second Ice Warrior story from the Sherlock co-creator.

Speaking to Digital Spy, Gatiss said he would be sad to see Peter Capaldi leave the role of the Doctor:

“Peter’s been magnificent. I love him this year, particularly - I think he’s just completely in his groove. I think the season is excellent - really refreshing and fun - and I think he’s just on fire, really.”

But Gatiss is looking forward to the future:

“But the show depends on change and it’s exciting as well – not just the new Doctor but a whole new approach and a new team. It’s always exciting and a little frightening, but also thrilling because there’s all that to look forward to. So I can’t wait to see who [the new Doctor] is - but I have no idea who it is!”

But if it were HIS Sherlock and continuity was screwed he would care.After reading his stuck up interview I am never going to look at his writing again with an open mind.He said he used to be one of us then SHIT on that.Plus he wouldn’t have brought up this Season at all if he didn’t know it was horribly written.Where are the Zygons at during this horrible MONKS story?

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Jason Michael Nowakowski

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Speaking to the Radio Times meanwhile, Mark reveals that Empress of Mars wasn’t his first idea for Series 10:

“I was going to do a sequel to Sleep No More. I had this idea I’d like to do the double in a kind of Yeti way, to have two stories about the same monster. Although it was still in space, [Sleep No More] was originally going to be on a trading floor; it was a stocks and shares thing, with these executives who were trying to stay awake in order to be more productive, and then it sort of changed into the sleep research station. I thought there was something in that, and actually maybe I could do a modern day one, set in the City, where they’d invented the same process but actually thousands of years earlier, and it had the same effect.”

Still with the Radio Times, Mark also says he doesn’t bother about fan reaction to continuity in his stories or the wider canon:

“Having always been one of those viewers, and also having been in my time a militant fanboy, I don’t give a monkey’s. The people who complain if something contradicts The Wheel in Space are always going to watch the show in order to complain about it. You only have to worry about the people who didn’t know that the show existed before 2010. Or even 2016, effectively. It’s ancient history – 6 months is ancient history in television terms.”

Mark believes that instead of being worried about the details, fans should simply enjoy the ride:

“I mean there’s no point in being perversely cruel and say I’m going to totally rewrite the history of the Daleks… Unless you come up with an idea which is startlingly brilliant. It’s all one big happy thing, surely. Should be. And you shouldn’t fret about stuff like that. That’s why we sit around tables in pubs arguing about things, and people always have! Is that it’s quite fun. And you’ll always find a way.”

Doctor Who will return this Saturday at 7:15pm on BBC One in the UK and airs on BBC America at 9/8 Central.