I had no idea that Steven Moffat, the writer of the excellent Jekyll television series, many a Doctor Who episode, and the man slated to write the Tintin series of films for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson had left the productions in order to write for Doctor Who.

However it appears he has, and I'm really not sure where Tintin is left and whether it has a script or not, but if it needs a scriptwriter then it's not going to be Moffat.

Steven Moffat has been denying the reports that he quit the Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson Tintin deal in order to oversee BBC's Doctor Who television series, and in the BBC article he puts things right. Nearly.

He says that he had planned to finish Tintin before starting Doctor Who but he was delayed by the U.S. writers' strike, something which is a little odd since he's a British writer and I don't think a member of the American Writers Guild.

The article and Moffat go on to explain the chronology of the deal, and here's where I get a little hazy:

"…he said he had not accepted the offer to replace Russell T Davies on Doctor Who during the three-month strike, which ended in February.

'In fact it was already in the works…The strike just meant that I was unable to finish my work on the Tintin films given my new commitments.'"

I honestly don't see what the difference here is. He had a deal to write Tintin, the writers' strike delayed the script from being written, and then he was offered the Doctor Who role which meant he had to choose between the two.

Or is it saying that it was always known that he was taking the Doctor Who role and if the strike had not hit he would have been writing Tintin before heading over to the BBC role?

I'm not sure, I think it's the latter. Whatever the reasons and the order of events, Steven Moffat is no longer writing Tintin, so who is, or who should?