Neil Gaiman (‘Coraline,’ ‘How to Talk to Girls at Parties’) wrote one of the most popular episodes of ‘Doctor Who.’ Gaiman has now admitted that his experience left him with “a bad taste in my mouth” saying he was given no say over the finished product.
The author wrote ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ in 2011 and ‘Nightmare in Silver’ in 2013. Gaiman revealed in an interview that the experience made him determined to take creative control over his new show ‘Good Omens.’ He said:
“I did two episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ over the last decade, one I loved and it won awards, one I do not love and it is widely regarded as having some good bits in it but being rather a curate’s egg.”
Whovians can easily guess the two episodes he is talking about are ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and ‘Nightmare in Silver.’
He continued, saying:
“As far as I’m concerned both of the scripts were of equal quality but the biggest differences were having a say in what actually got to the screen, a say in what got changed, a say in what got rewritten, a say in the colour scheme, a say in all those things.”
Gaiman’s new series, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, is based on the book he wrote with the late Terry Pratchett. Before he died in 2015, Pratchett asked Gaiman to make it into a show. Gaiman said:
“I’m glad my second ‘Doctor Who’ episode left me with a bad taste in my mouth because that is why, when Terry said ‘You have to make this thing’, I was like ‘If I’m going to to do it then I am going to be showrunner because I can’t just write the scripts, hand them over to somebody and hope that I get something fantastic back, I may or I may not. If this is going to be f***** up it’s going to be f***** up by me personally with love and dedication. And I hope that it isn’t but it needs to be done properly and I need to care.”
While Gaiman has signed an exclusive deal with Amazon Prime Video to stream ‘Good Omens,’ he says he will never work in the same way on another show again. Gaiman explained:
“I am never going to do what I’ve done in ‘Good Omens’ again, in the sense that here are four years of my life and I’m going to spend them writing and rewriting and making and in post-production and promoting one thing, which I’m doing basically because my dead friend asked me to, that is never going to happen again.”
He added:
“With Amazon I am going to create things, I am going to write things, I am going to find terrific collaborators but I also have novels to write, I also have a family, I would like to see daylight, we have pictures of what our wives look like, it’s going to be a balancing act.”
You can watch ‘Good Omens’ on Amazon Prime Video in 2019.
