What can one say about Steven Moffat, current head-writer for Doctor Who and co-creator of Sherlock… that hasn’t been said a million times before? It hardly surprises me that opinion is still divided on the man considering his controversial actions in the past – for one, he revitalized Doctor Who and took the torch from Russel T Davies just before his writing began to stagnate, only to completely change everything about the series in a manner that is still open to discussion now. For another, he gave us Sherlock, one of the most gripping dramas ever to hit British TV, before resorting to barely making any episodes, trolling the entire fandom and turning a once respected villainess into a dominatrix.
But, no matter what the man’s flaws, I still like the Matt Smith era of NuWho and really do appreciate Moffat’s work where a lot of people are keen to just say that EVERYTHING he does is of poor quality. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, my friend…
So, why do I defend the man to the death? Well, the truth is, I don’t. I do respect him and what’s he’s been up to but not to the point where I stick my fingers in my ears when people start to criticize him. Moffat may be far from perfect, but at the same time he’s not as far away as people make him out to be. So, here are my 5 Reasons to love Steven Moffat and of course 5 Reasons not to.
5 Reasons To Love Him…
5. He Sticks To His Guns (Doctor Who)
You have to at least have some respect for Moffat for never giving up. He’s definitely not the kind of man to surrender his integrity when it comes to his creative vision. Call it stubbornness, call it will power, Moffat had a dream to reinvent classic British icons Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor in his own image (with the latter case pleasantly similar to the vision of Russel T Davies), and he’s certainly done so, regardless of the criticism he’s received since.
Another example of Moffat’s steadfastness comes from a news story that came out shortly before they started filming Series Five – Doctor Who was having its budget slashed again. So what did Moffat do? He doubled the size of the TARDIS interior and set his first outer space episode on a spaceship that supposedly held the entire of Britain. It was almost like he was holding up a big ol’ middle finger to the BBC and the Gods above us and going, ‘Na-na-na-na-na! I’m Steven Moffat!’
It takes guts, and Moffat’s got ‘em.
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13 Comments
‘Substituting opium for cigarettes and actresses for prostitutes’ You could have thought of better examples of ‘modernizing’… each of those things were not only present in the 1800s, but in the original Holmes stories as well (Holmes smoked all the time and many female characters were strongly implied to have been working in the sex industry)
I honestly didn’t think of that. I see what you mean, though to be honest that term was less referring to the modernization and more to specific examples, such as Irene Adler’s change in occupation and the fact that Holmes is seen smoking opium in the original stories and in ‘Sherlock’ it never happens at all. I get what you’re trying to say, but you’re right – I should have been clearer. Thanks!
Please stop spelling Russell T Davies as Russel T Davies! As a pedantic Who fan it makes for absolute hell to read!
You missed out on casting a piece of wood as the doctor
Did you mean ‘Dalek’ by Robert Shearman, not Gareth Roberts?
Ah, dammit. You’ve got me there – I just assumed it was Gareth Roberts. I was totally wrong, thanks for the correction!
Frankly, I think the sexism charge is overblown and you can read James Cornish’s take on it for what I think is a good counterargument to the whole thing:
http://whatculture.com/tv/in-defence-of-steven-moffat.php
I also think you’re jumping the gun a bit when it comes to Clara. We don’t know the context of the kiss. For all we know, she could just be kissing him as a way of saying thanks for whatever it is he does in the special. Granted, it is somewhat forward for a Victorian lady and the Doctor’s reaction says as much. But it’s clear she won’t be a typical 19th-century woman. Whether that’s just her personality or because of some secret connection with Oswin, we don’t know yet. But I highly doubt she’ll fall in love with the Doctor like Rose and Martha nor do I think she’ll try to seduce him like Amy. Much has been made of Matt saying the Doctor’s “attracted” to Clara but he probably meant attracted to her personality, not in a romantic way. Besides, he is married. Sort of.
#1 Sherlock. That’s exactly what I was thining when I clicked on this article. I may have issues with the interpretation of Irene Adler, but I have issues with everything and know how to keep that kind of stuff in perspective. As long as we get to see a lot more of Sherlock and very soon (of course, much of the blame for the delay can go to Cumberbatch and Martin), and I am very willing forgive Moffat of his mistakes.
My biggest issue with Moffat. He wrote Asylum of the Daleks, managing to butcher the most well known villains in the entire series in just one episode. That ending (and the whole episode) was just poor.
^^^
I don’t understand how Asylum of the Daleks could be, in any way, worse than The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End or Doomsday. Is it the sappy, over-drawn emotion that saves them from being gimmick filled, mindless dribble in the eyes of every pro-RTD/anti-Moffat fan-boy and girl?
To the author: Have you liked any of the Christmas Specials? I found A Christmas Carol to be the most endearing of them all up to this point. All of Tennant’s (sans “The End of Time”) were about on par with The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, in my opinion.
@Sawney
If you’re referring to the Moffat Xmas Specials then honestly, no. I know I’m in a minority here but I found them to be far too bland. Doctor Who is one of those shows where when each episode is over you want to go back and watch them again, and they gave me no such desire. On the other hand, even the Davies specials were somewhat hit and miss. Christmas Invasion and Voyage of the Damned, hit. The Next Doctor, miss. The End of Time and Runaway Bride, open to discussion. In the end, they’re just like ordinary stories. Some are great, and some aren’t. Thanks for the comment!
My only bones to pick is the Christmas Specials and the story arcs. Not that I’m trying to say I’m some ultimatum of human intelligence and I actually understand what the hell happened in either of the story arcs, but what I am saying is that neither of them actually ended; both were interconnected. Though, I am worried this will be a LOST scenario where they build up a billion questions only to have a billion questionable payoffs, I am holding faith that it will be a big bang (if you excuse the pun) at the end that explains everything. My theory in particular which is the only Classic Who villain I can think of that can answer all the questions is the Valeyard, but I won’t get into my rants as to why that is right now.
Otherwise, the Christmas specials, as you mentioned, they were all really hit and miss for RTD. I thought they were all so lack luster; Oh no, Robot Santas and a killer Christmas tree; oh no, Robot Angels and a killer titanic for some reason; oh no, the Master, which really has no reason to be a christmas special at all (I really did despise the specials, for many reasons, but for this comment I’m just gonna say for the lack of anything to do with the holidays they were assigned… I mean seriously “Happy Easter, lets go to a dead planet with metal silver fish” or “Happy Christmas, time for a multiple personality complex”)
What Moffat has done has created two Christmas spirit stories; one which was actually good, the other which was… well, as lack luster as the other ones, but at least it didn’t have a freaking killer Christmas tree… Which makes me worried about this new one… Killer snowmen? Really? I don’t want to prejudge, but I swear he’s just going to the ways of RTD to please the fans… I guess, we’ll see.
Long comment is long…
Hey, Jumping on this band wagon a little late, but what the hey, you asked questions about the story arc and I have answers.
Q: How does River Song discharge her energy pack?
A: She appeared to have some sort of blaster built into the suit which discharged from the glove of it. In order to spare the Doctor’s life she aimed the gloved hand upward (where it wouldn’t hit anyone) and fired it that way. It was liekly the power pack was only designed to be used once and thus had a very limited number of shots. Killing a Timelord would take a lot of energy and it would have been easier to simply have the power pack built for one sue (I’ll explained why they wouldn’t bother to make it hold more of a charge in answer 2)
Q: Why does her not killing the Doctor cause all of time and space to happen at once?
A: Being a fixed point in time and space, an unchangeable event, it has to happen. Because of the location, a still point in time and space, the Silence were able to create a fixed point in time there. The Doctor HAD to be there and River HAD to shoot him. When she didn’t time stretched out seemingly forever and then snapped back, kind of like a rubber band. Since time was now broken there was no “future” and no “past”, only the “now”. This meant that all things in the “past” were no happening “now”. The same goes for all future events though they don’t really show that. We can assume based off of the fact that time never progressed past the moment she was suppose to shoot him that there is no future past that point anymore. Now because the silence knew she HAD to shoot him and he HAD to get shot or time would colapse as we saw they only really needed to have so much juice in her power pack.
Q: If River Song’s memory was wiped after she kills the Doctor, why does she know she’s done it in the ‘Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone’ story?
A: Though I don’t remember her getting her memory wiped I won’t debate that point. Put simply she’s in prison for it. She knows she did it because she confessed to it (I’m assuming a trail would be pointless). She’s there because she’s been let out a prison temporarily to aid with fighting weeping angels (something she’s done before as ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ happens before this in her timeline). I mean it’s be hard to be stuck in prison and not know why you were there.
Q: Why did the Tenth Doctor’s meddling in fixed points in history have no similar consequences?
A: This has two major reasons one story wise and one production wise. Story wise when 10 did it there were consequences. He likely damaged the timeline a great deal. But when 10 did it (I’m assuming this is in regards to ‘Waters of Mars’) it was a very different sort of event. For 10 it was people HAVE to die on Mars and to be fair quite a few people who were suppose to die do die. For 11 it was far simpler. River had HAD to shoot him and he HAD to be shot by her. Not quite the same sort of thing and to be fair story where 10 did it didn’t quite make it clear what the heck he wasn’t suppose to do and really didn’t make much sense.
Q: Why were there no Reapers ripping everything to shreds? (I know this was question 2, but I wanted to go into the other ones first to lay down some ground rules)
A: The Reapers did not show up because of a fixed time in space not happening. They showed up because Rose caused a grandfather paradox. She saved her father’s life which means her life would have been totally different, meaning she likely would not have met the doctor and been there to save his life. But that wasn’t enough to cause the reapers to show up. That’s a simple paradox and the TARDIS’ paradox circuits would keep them safe as long as an even bigger one didn’t happen. It did. Rose touched the hand of her infant self casuing the “Blinovitch Limitation Effect”, though no energy discharge was observed the paradox became big enough that the Reapers showed up to clean up the wound in time. Also keep in mind that this was after 3 impossible events happened. 1 when rose went to save her father she ran past an earlier version of herself and destroyed the immediate past. 2 she prevented the death of her father thus causing a grandfather paradox. and 3 she touched her younger self causing the “Blinovitch Limitation Effect”.
As you can see the events that drew in the reapers were paradox related and had nothing to do with fixed points in time.
As that the rest of the questions are related to the continuing plot of the story and have yet to be revealed I can’t answer them. Though I do have one quick thought. What makes you think the crack in the TARDIS was cause by the silence and not the same even the cause the rest of the crack that all look exactly the same. Also what makes you think the voice we heard was a member of the silence at all?
Well thanks for reading this far if you did, have a good day~