Vince [the main character] does that speech about losing his virginity while watching The Two Ronnies. It's word for word what happened to an ex-boyfriend of mine."Davies's career as a scriptwriter began with an apprenticeship at Granada, where his first job was on Children's Ward working under Paul Abbott, still a great friend, and Kay Mellor. I'm afraid all my principles fly out the window."He is full of admiration for the designers and directors who realise his ideas, letting slip that the budget for each episode is "a significant third" less than the £1.2m that has been reported because he feels it "makes a mockery of what people are doing"."It's the same budget as Waking the Dead, which is a lovely show, but it's all set in London, standing in offices and morgues and sitting in Rovers."A lifelong fan of Doctor Who, Davies refuses to pander to others who share his addiction. This is unashamedly a piece of entertainment on a Saturday night, there to get mainstream appeal. My mum and dad would go out and I would have a bag of crisps and a pork pie and watch Knots Landing. I remember thinking even the pork pie was rubbish."To ensure no young viewer is similarly traumatised, Davies has insisted on up to 12 drafts of each episode in the new series and has had no qualms about rewriting other people's scripts."I would have enormous reservations about doing that if this was a programme like Clocking Off, authored pieces in which people have something very specific to say about the world Then you should let the writer's voice flourish. A childhood fan of American soap Knots Landing, he jokingly recalls being feeling "scarred" by one disappointing episode."The whole Saturday night was trashed.

A young audience likes an echo of the history of the Cybermen, whether it's mentioned on Newsround, or a website, or mum and dad talking."More than 10 million viewers tuned in to the Christmas episode of Doctor Who and, far from resting on his laurels, Davies is all too aware of the pressure of ensuring the new series continues to delight. If you read book one of Harry Potter, it's steeped in backstory. For something to come with mythology to it really helps to give it a resonance. Every science-fiction series has its race of robots on the rampage, so you might as well use the Cybermen."He was particularly gratified to receive an email from a fellow Manchester resident, The Royle Family writer Craig Cash, whose enjoyment of the Dalek episode was greatly enhanced because his children were so excited that their parents knew more about the next week's monster than they did."When I was young, my dad used to teach classics and I used to love the Greek and Roman myths.

"If you're doing Dracula, you want the crucifixes and the brides and the bats and the howling wolf. It's very understated, very beautifully done, but it's nonetheless a Time Lord falling in love and Rose's reaction to him falling in love with someone else."Elements of the old Doctor Who, including the Cybermen and K9, make a comeback in series two, following the reappearance of the Daleks in the first series, when Christopher Eccleston brought a wry northern charm to the part of the Doctor.Davies is a great believer in the backstory. Alongside action-packed adventure sequences, Davies also explores the Doctor, now played by Scottish actor David Tennant, and his assistant Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, on a more intimate level."Stephen Moffat has written what is practically a love story for the Doctor in episode four That's never been seen. Hard work is the key to his success and he is not afraid to admit it.As chief scriptwriter on Doctor Who, overseeing the work of fellow scribes of the calibre of The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss and Coupling creator Stephen Moffat, Davies has, true to his word, removed the shackles from his imagination.A sinister race of catwomen, an encounter between Queen Victoria and a werewolf, the devil and a terrifying squid-like monster all feature in the second series. He may be credited with single-handedly reviving family drama on British television but Davies but prefers not to be on set when his script is being filmed.The new series starts on BBC1 on Saturday and next month Torchwood, BBC3's X-Files-style Doctor Who spin-off, which Davies also writes, goes into production in Cardiff.