8 Doctor Who Moments The Creators Don't Like

5. Steven Moffat Dislikes The Angel Twist In The Time Of Angels...

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Amy River Father Octavian
BBC

Steven Moffat has written more Doctor Who stories than any other writer, so it's no surprise that he's penned a few things he isn't too fond of.

One of these things occurs midway through Series 5's The Time Of Angels, where the Doctor and River Song realise that every single statue in the aptly-titled Maze of the Dead is actually a deformed Weeping Angel. To prove this, the Doctor flicks his torch off and plunges the area into total darkness for a split-second, which gives the lightning-quick Angels plenty of time to turn and bare their fangs.

It's an effective reveal, and it's hard to pick fault with it as a viewer - but Moffat thinks that it could've been done a lot better.

Speaking on the commentary track for the episode, the writer states that this reveal could've been improved, that it should've been a lot scarier. He says that the Angels should've lunged closer towards the Doctor - giving the characters and the audience a bigger fright - rather than hanging back and simply turning on the spot.

While we're on the subject of things Moffat doesn't like, he once called The Beast Below - an episode he wrote - "a bit of a mess". However, upon reflection, he did later admit that he "loved" it.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!