4. Plot "Twists"
plot twistn An unexpected change in the direction of the plot of a film, novel, computer role-playing game, or other form of narration. I draw your attention to the word 'unexpected', which also draws attention to the fact that around 50% of Moffat's surprise endings are painfully obvious. While the other 50% really come out of nowhere and actually are well put together (eg. the revelation of Jamie's mother in 'The Doctor Dances' and the use of the Tesselecta) the rest either don't make too much sense or are just way too easy to see coming. I think what sticks in my mind is that there were only three real mysteries concerning River Song, and the show tells us two of them in her second story! You can try and disguise it any way you like, but you've JUST TOLD US that she's the Doctor's wife and she somehow gets locked up for killing him. There was really no mystery left after that... well, other than the whole 'Melody Pond' thing... Plus, I think if River's almost accidental explanation as to who she was in 'Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone' wasn't enough, we all pretty much figured out that she was the Doctor's wife/Amy and Rory's daughter midway through Series Six. And while we're on the subject of River Song stories, that CAL plot device from 'Silence of the Library/Forest of the Dead' was a tiny bit too simple wasn't it? The minute we heard the phrase 'Doctor Moon' everything fitted into place roughly twenty minutes before it was meant to. This doesn't just apply to Doctor Who either. If anything, this hiatus from Sherlock is just giving us all a load of time to figure out how Sherlock faked his own death, which by now most of us have done. You could say that these plot twists are intentionally naff - like Moffat's trying to make us think that these answers are too obvious to be the real ones - but that doesn't quite work, does it? That's not hiding the solutions in plain sight that's just giving us the solutions!... In plain sight! The sad fact is, when it comes to Moffat the most likely theory is usually the correct one.