Doctor Who: 10 Behind The Scenes Bust-Ups BBC Doesn't Want You To Know

8. Neil Gaiman Vs. Steven Moffat

Neil Gaiman
Kyle Cassidy [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Another script-related clash between creatives, this one is different than the previous example in that we don't fully know which people are involved, but based on the context of the situation, it's possible to make an educated guess.

The one name we know for certain is Neil Gaiman. The acclaimed author wrote two Doctor Who episodes for Matt Smith, and while one of them (The Doctor's Wife) is universally beloved, the other (Nightmare In Silver) is regarded as a major misfire.

Unsurprisingly then, Gaiman wasn't best pleased with the way the latter episode turned out, and in a chat with The Telegraph, he explained that Nightmare In Silver left him with a "bad taste" in his mouth, taking shots at an unnamed "somebody" who took his great script and turned it into a poor episode.

On a separate occasion, Gaiman once again had a dig at an unnamed person, claiming that fellow Doctor Who writer Toby Whithouse's script - possibly A Town Called Mercy - had been messed with, and just like Nightmare In Silver, had been turned into a less-than-impressive episode.

As we mentioned, we don't know everyone who's involved here because Gaiman doesn't provide a name, but it's highly likely that Steven Moffat - the showrunner at the time - was involved, as he would've had a lot of influence over other writers' scripts.

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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!