5 Ways Steven Moffat's Doctor Who Is BETTER Than Russell T Davies' (And 3 It's Worse)

Everyone has their favourite Doctor - those debates have been going on for as long as Patrick Troughton has been tooting on his flute. But the modern era, with its greater spotlight on the people behind the show, has introduced an entirely different, and in some ways far more fervently fought civil war: the battle of the showrunners.

Perhaps this discussion always feels a little more catty as we're comparing actual people and not characters, but its something we do as a fanbase regardless.

In one corner, Russell T Davies, the man responsible for bringing Doctor Who back to screens in 2005 and making it a cultural juggernaut. In the other corner, Steven Moffat, the breakout writer of the revived series and the helmsman of the show after RTD's departure. I would love to tell you that Chibnall was in contention here, but while I think we may look on his era more favourably in time, it would be disingenuous to act like this is seen as a three horse race by most fans.

These two eras excelled in very different ways, and realistically, the best era of Doctor Who would take its lead from both RTD and Moffat's styles. As evidenced by the tally in favour of one party in the title above, I think it's fair to acknowledge my personal bias in favour of the Moffat era.

For the purposes of this article, I'll be going to bat for the Moff, and arguing why his era is better, but I'll also be playing devil's advocate by acknowledging the various ways in which RTD has him beat.

The RTD mystery box is perhaps his most notorious trope as a showrunner. In Series 1, the recurring 'Bad Wolf' motif worked to great effect, and Davies really took that and ran with it. Again, and again... and again.

We got 'Torchwood', 'Vote Saxon' and 'The bees are disappearing', one after another. They were effective hooks, but structurally they were often quite shallow and, increasingly, were used in place of any legitimate build-up to a reveal. In almost every case, they heralded the return of a classic villain, and it was deemed enough to simply sprinkle a phrase into stories in increasingly inorganic ways.

This went into overdrive in RTD2, with its harbingers, its anagrams that weren't anagrams, and the very odd choice to have 'spooky reappearing old lady' as a mystery box twice in a row. In the modern television landscape, this is sub-par storytelling.

Contrast that with Moffat’s arcs. For all their occasional convolution, his story arcs actually evolved throughout the season. They had turns, reveals and progression. Let's take series 6 as an example - you've got multiple threads: the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio, Amy's pregnancy, River's identity, and the origin and intent of the Silence. There is scarcely an episode in the series that doesn't move one of these threads forwards in a meaningful way. We don't just say 'Silence will fall' and call it a day, we cut away to a scene at the end of the episode that actually drives us towards the climax. The difference in structure is night and day. 

That's without touching on the content of the arcs themselves. Moffat’s arcs were character driven rather than purely plot driven, the TARDIS team were impacted and steered by dramatic developments, there were twists and turns, and, most importantly of all, there was variety. No longer was the big question of each series 'who is coming back in the finale?' - each series presented an entirely different type of mystery, with the big question more often focused on 'why?' or 'how?' rather than 'who?'.