The Toronto International Film Festival offers a number of industry panels through the course of the week, and they got started this week with their Visionaries program, and their first one featured Steven Moffat – there was no way I was going to miss that!

Set in the Glen Gould Studio at the CBC, the panels are informal, informative, and a lot of fun. Moffat was joined on stage by the Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Roxborough.

Over the course of forty-five minutes the pair chatted about Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Moffat’s latest series, which is yet to jump the pond, Douglas is Cancelled.

Moffat was all Scot charm, frequently funny and always insightful. It was absolutely wonderful to hear him admit that his major influences as a child are the ones he is driven now to passionately create, Who and Sherlock.

This led to conversations about how reboots should be made, and the key is that to take on a reboot you have to absolutely be the biggest fan of the original. And you can demonstrate your knowledge of the characters or the series, but you can and should be irreverent about it.

He also shared lots of comedic Doctor Who comments like the fact that each actor believes they are the real Doctor, and the rest aren’t. And he absolutely loves Doctor Who. Just as much as he loves Sherlock Holmes.

Admittedly, for now, he’s stepped away from both and has gone on to create other things, but even they can trace their pedigree back to his childhood loves.

This first chat of the festival was disarming, entertaining, and has made me ready to sit in on more. This was fun, and informative, and in such a relaxed environment Moffat seemed completely at home.