purplecat

I suppose my vague reticence here is that the Doctor has been called on the whole Lonely God thing several times already, both on the show and in the books, and yet the trope persists. Obviously we've got a different production team and they may have an interest in making the signified change stick but I suspect (and it wouldn't surprise me if Moffat also suspects) that the weight of audience and writer expectation is pulling against them. People like the story of hubris coming before a fall, and the idea of the Doctor as, at the very least, someone incredibly clever who topples evil regimes isn't going away and very naturally leads into the concept that he would be well known and, in some cases, feared which in turn naturally leads into the pride-before-the-fall arc plot. I think you can put a brake on the cycle of doctor gets too arrogant->doctor gets called on it but I'm not sure now that the juggernaut can be stopped without a genuine back-to-basics reset of the show.