Doctor Who's 'dark' opening

'Doctor Who' lead writer Steven Moffat says he has made the new series of the show "frightening" to thrill children.

The showrunner admits the opening two-part story is "darker" than anything the sci-fi show has started with before and he insists he has made a decision to have more scares because kids love onscreen shocks.

Speaking at the launch of the upcoming season at London's Olympia yesterday (04.04.11), he said: "First of all, you make 'Doctor Who' frightening to appeal to children, not for the adults. Children absolutely rank 'Doctor Who' stories in order of frightening-ness, that's what it's about. I put the jokes in, and the silliness in, for the adults and the scares in for the kids . It's darker than any other opener of a season, but we've been pretty dark before in 'Doctor Who', 'Blink' was dark, 'Satan Pit' was dark, we're just coming in [to a series] from the dark side just because we haven't done it that way before."

The first two episodes 'The Impossible Astronaut' and 'Day of the Moon' see The Doctor (Matt Smith) battle a new mysterious alien foe known as The Silence, and the storyline is set in 1969 the year of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Steven isn't worried about this year's show being too scary for kids and he admits he always considers how his two young sons would react to something before deciding to include it in the programme.

Responding to a question from BANG Showbiz, he told reporters: "I've got two kids of my own and I'd never do anything that I didn't think was acceptable for them, having said that one of them does tend to sleep on our bedroom floor a lot!"

The new series of 'Doctor Who' premieres on BBC One on Saturday April 23.