 Showrunner Steven Moffat said that putting dinosaurs on a spaceship was " the secret of success " . The idea to use dinosaurs in Doctor Who came from the special effects teams The Mill and Millennium FX . As " Asylum of the Daleks " was a darker opening episode , " Dinosaurs on a Spaceship " is more about fun . In Moffat 's pitch to writer Chris Chibnall , he proposed , " Maybe it 's a ship heading towards Earth , and Earth is on alert " . Chibnall had previously written the Doctor Who episodes " 42 " ( 2007 ) , " The Hungry Earth " / " Cold Blood " ( 2010 ) , as well as work for the spinoff series Torchwood . The Doctor had previously encountered dinosaurs in the 1974 serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs . Moffat suggested the spaceship was Silurian , and Chibnall , who had written the return of the Silurians in " The Hungry Earth " / " Cold Blood " , felt that it was " a nice reveal and shows you more about them , even in a story that isn ’ t really about them " . 
