Steven Moffat: 5 Reasons To Love Him and 5 Reasons To Hate Him

3. He Isn't Scary Any More (Doctor Who)

Remember when I said Moffat was scary? Well yes. Yes he was...

While the Weeping Angels still get a shock out of people and admittedly the Silents are pretty creepy, I still can't think of one episode in recent history where Moff was legitimately trying to scare us. Not one that paid off anyway...

I'm not sure if it's a case of peaking too soon or if he's decided he'd rather get into being a more story-oriented writer, but it saddens me either way. The former suggests he's out of creative ideas when it comes to fear factor, while the latter suggests he's no longer playing to his strengths. 'Asylum of the Daleks' was a pretty good opportunity for some good nightmare fuel, and while there was some disturbing content (particularly the reveal of just what happened to Oswin) it didn't quite have the capacity to make us leap behind the sofa as Gareth Roberts' 'Dalek' did*. I'm not saying it was a bad episode - it was perfect and everyone loved it as much as they should have done, it just could have featured much more of those good old Steven Moffat shockers. Fortunately it was more than made up for in 'The Angels Take Manhattan.'

*(FYI, any writer who's looking for inspiration on how to make Daleks truly terrifying should a lot from that story.)