Doctor Who: 7 Most Unfair Criticisms Of Steven Moffat
2. Steven Moffat Has Turned Doctor Who Into A Fairytale
When setting out his stall for his new take on Doctor Who, Steven Moffat promised that the show would be a dark fairytale. It certainly lived up to that billing during the Eleventh Doctor's era. The 3D trailer for Series 5, which had Amy Pond travelling through the vortex surrounded by various foes, was reminiscent of both Alice down the rabbit hole and Dorothy being whisked away on the tornado to Oz. The Eleventh Doctor tells Amy her name sounds like a fairytale and Murray Gold's musical themes take on distinctively whimsical notes compared to the bold scores of Series 1 to 4. For Moffat, the aesthetics are more important than the science behind the fiction. And so whilst the whimsy of Series 5 to 7 has certainly been superseded by a more serious, reflective approach to the two leads, Capaldi's first series also contains magical elements, no more so than in Kill The Moon. Moffat has argues, "When Doctor Who's really, really good, there's a feeling of magic about it. It's a magical feeling show.
Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.
