Anyone looking to find out the name and character of the Doctors new companion – played by Jenna-Louise Coleman – had better not ask Steven Moffat. If the showrunner had his way, the show would be produced on the dark side of the moon, far away from prying eyes and potential spoilers.

New Doctor Who companion Jenna-Louise Coleman

Speaking to Digital Spy recently, Moffat told fans that the earliest they would expect to learn anything about Coleman’s character would be when she makes her first appearance at Christmas:

“We’ve got a good story and there are some proper legitimate surprises in it. I’m excited by it. I think we’re going to do some fun stuff.”

Obviously, that might not be the case:

“We can’t really contain everything, because people will crawl all over us with cameras and sneak views of scripts and call-sheets. Something will get out. But we’ve been fairly sly, so let’s wait and see.

Again, a lot of the audience that I talk to specifically avoid any spoilers and I’m absolutely certain they have a better experience of the show. As I’ve always said, if I could make it on the dark side of the moon, I would, but you can’t do these things.”

If it wasn’t for their respective agents and the nature of the business, Moffat wouldn’t have even told us of the Ponds’ impending departure (can you imagine how special a moment that would have been?):

“I got pilloried by somebody at some deep level of naivety about the industry – they were angry that I’d revealed the fact that Amy and Rory were even going to leave! But y’know, actor’s agents really do have to advertise their client’s availability – I had no choice but to announce they were going to leave. But in an ideal world, you wouldn’t even do that.”

Bless.