Doctor Who star Matt Smith and series producer and writer Steven “The Grand Moff” Moffat were guests on Richard Bacon’s Radio Five Live show last Thursday, discussing the series and promoting the coming Christmas special, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.

One of the many topics that was discussed was whether or not Series 6 was too complicated for viewers. Steven Moffat was unapologetic, and for good reason; as far as he’s concerned, treating the audience as living, breathing, thinking, self-aware creatures is nothing to be ashamed of.

“The assumption that the audience is intelligent has paid off hugely for us, not just on Doctor Who, but on Sherlock. I’m doing two shows that assume the audience is reasonably smart, and they’re both doing incredibly well. Maybe the news is that people are clever.”

It’s an interesting point of view, one that will no doubt draw some interesting comments from people who claim experience of or contact with friends, relatives, etc., who claim that they’ve become “bored” with the heavy focus on time travel in this adventure series about, um, time travel. Matt Smith also seemed to have been surprised by these stories of boredom.

“Listen, people take from any series what they want. In America they embrace the complexities, because it has that kind of science-fiction culture where they like all those hidden meanings, messages and all the rest of it.”

You can catch up with everything Matt and Moffat had to say on Richard Bacon’s show via BBC iPlayer until 4.02pm on Thursday, 22nd December 2011.