Steven Moffatt extremely touched by Doctor Who reference in Haunting of Hill House

Stephen Moffatt has said that he is extremely touched by a potential line that ties together Doctor Who and new Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House.

The former Doctor Who writer may well be inspiration in part for the writers of the new show, which is a modern retelling by the novel of the same name.

In one of the flashbacks, a young Shirley Crain is seen heartbroken as a box of kittens shes looking after suddenly die.

Comforted by her mother, Olivia, Shirley is reassured that her memory of the kittens will live on with her as stories, and quoted a memorably line uttered by Matt Smiths Eleven in Doctor Who.

She tells her: When we die, we turn into stories. And every time someone tells one of those stories, its like were still here, for them.

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Were all stories in the end.

Steven Moffatt wrote the same line for the Doctor while a showrunner on the long-running show, in a scene that saw him say goodbye to his companion Amy Pond before being wiped from her memory.

He told her. Ill be a story in your head. But thats okay. Were all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?

So could there be a little bit of a nod to Whovians everywhere in the new series?

If that line is a deliberate tribute, I am extremely touched, he told Digital Spy.

The Haunting of Hill House follows a story of loss as a twist on the original novel, following the five Crain children as they struggle to overcome what they experienced in the house.

Shirley, who looked after the kittens before they died, grew up to be a mortician.

Elizabeth Reaser, who plays the adult Shirley, revealed to us ahead of the shows launch that she trained to embalm bodies in order to take on the role accurately.

She said: When I agreed to do this I didnt think about it in terms of actually doing it. As soon as I was cast they started sending me videos of people getting embalmed.

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It was like a warning like, “be careful, prepare yourself”, and in fact I made my boyfriend sit down with me to watch them and he ran out of the room. He ran out! I was like “OK, this is what Im doing”.

More: Doctor Who

Unfortunately for her, the extent of her research went beyond that of just watching video clips – and soon she was on set working with real cadavers.

I was putting my hands inside bodies and I worked with a mortician in Georgia, who plays my assistant on the show, Brittany. She had stories – and would tell me story after story about the things that she does, and its stories that you dont want to know!

The Haunting of Hill House is available on Netflix now.

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