4. Mark Gatiss
Episodes: The Unquiet Dead (Season 1), The Idiot's Lantern (Season 2), Victory of the Daleks (Season 5), Night Terrors (Season 6), Cold War (Season 7), The Crimson Horror (Season 7) Just look at the list. Are there any episodes on there that could be considered great, or even good? "The Unquiet Dead" was an absolutely trite tale involving Charles Dickens and ghosts and "The Idiot's Lantern" quickly turned camp with the villain being a television screeching "FEED ME!". "Victory of the Daleks" was just a cheap marketing ploy to make Daleks all different colors to sell more toys which just about buried any chance of the Daleks ever being seriously threatening or scary again and "Night Terrors" had a few good scares, but besides that it didn't really do much for the show. Gatiss' season 7 efforts were similarly poor "Cold War" had the Doctor on an Ice Warrior-infiltrated submarine, yet somehow nothing of any real significance happened, and "The Crimson Horror" was, well, horrific. Besides the awesome title it was really just a load of nonsense with an incredibly disappointing and anticlimactic reveal of the villain. It also wasted Diana Rigg, which is a crime in itself. Gatiss may have interesting ideas for episodes, but he doesn't know how to execute them. He focuses too much on secondary characters and their individual stories, but doesn't flesh them out enough for us to care about them. Gwyneth in "The Unquiet Dead," Bracewell in "Victory of the Daleks," the mother in "The Idiot's Lantern," George's dad in "Night Terrors," the blind daughter in "The Crimson Horror" they're all such flat, two-dimensional, forgettable characters that when Gatiss attempts to make them into an integral part of the episode, the whole thing suffers. If his character writing improved, his episodes would improve. We do occasionally see glimpses of genius - each episode does have at least one good joke, like the Jammy Dodger in "Victory of the Daleks" and the TomTom navigation system in "The Crimson Horror" which I didn't find that funny, but apparently a lot of people did but unfortunately, one good joke can't save an entire episode. That, and the fact that Gatiss resorts to abominable cheesiness to save the day like how Bracewell is saved by thinking about the girl he loves and George is saved by his dad's love is more than enough reason to have Gatiss's time as a Who writer come to an end. Granted, I know he's done good writing elsewhere, such as for The League of Gentlemen, and Sherlock, but his writing for Doctor Who has just never worked.