Doctor Who: 8 Shockingly Predictable Habits Of Specific Writers

4. Steven Moffat Preys On Primal Fears

Moffat has so many themes, tropes and recurring ideas of his work, that he could fill not just the whole of this article with just his own work, but compile an encyclopedia. As it is though, let's just pick up on the biggest theme of his stories, which runs back to his very first Doctor Who episode. Unlike most of the show's creations, Steven Moffat's monsters all rely on a fear that the audience already has. The Clockwork Droids for example hid under Madame de Pompadour's bed, and the Weeping Angels are designed to force the audience not to blink with the characters. Even into the Eleventh Doctor's era, this trait continues; 'The Bells of Saint John' makes us question technology and even 'The Name of the Doctor' plays with the audience's fear that Moffat will actually reveal the Doctor's name. Even in Sherlock, Moffat's made enemies of a taxi driver who will kill any passenger that trusts him and a man (Moriarty) who knows everything there is to know about you. He really is trying to terrify every person in the world, one episode at a time, and this looks like it won't end anytime soon: one of his episodes in the next series is said to contain the line, "When you talk to yourself... what if the person you're talking to isn't really you?"