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

When you line up the episodes penned by Moffat against RTD's contributions, it's hard to argue which is the stronger Doctor Who scriptwriter. Moffat has a wealth of all-time classics under his belt: The Empty Child, Blink, The Eleventh Hour, A Christmas Carol, Day of the Doctor, Heaven Sent, and World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls - all ten out of ten stories, and that list is already shorter than I wanted to make it. He even wrote some of the best regarded episodes of RTDs run. RTD is no slouch when he puts his mind to it, and has churned out his share of all-timers like Midnight, Turn Left, and a co-write on The Waters of Mars, but on the whole, his ratio of middling episodes is considerably higher. 

In my opinion, there are a few factors that really elevate Moffat's writing over Davies'.

Firstly, Moffat is a 'concepts' man. He quite often comes up with a fairly simple but unique base for an episode and extrapolates from there. He weaponises basic concepts like statues and shadows, and challenges characters by taking away things they're often reliant on: their memory, their ability to breathe or move, their sight. He understands that the best monsters aren't steeped in lore, but rather have a single, easy to understand but terrifying premise.

Secondly, Moffat is far better at trusting the audience to keep up. He rarely feels the need to stop and explain the plot, justify every detail with inane technobabble, or have characters tell us what they're thinking. Characters talk like intelligent people rather than exposition dispensers. Information is slipped naturally into dialogue. His scripts understand that quiet, intimate moments can sometimes illicit just as much emotion as Tennant staring teary-eyed into the middle distance whilst Murray Gold tells you how you should be feeling. In short, he seems to hold a higher opinion of his audience, where RTDs writing can often veer towards being patronising. 

The era is more mature with its scripts. And by that, I don't mean the episodes are more 'edgy' or scary - both eras have their moments. But Moffat's often deal with more adult themes and anxieties, the stories presented quite often shy away from spectacle and big action sequences. Let's take an example: compare Doomsday and Death in Heaven - two big Cybermen finales that spend their first halves teasing the second. Doomsday spends half its time having Cybermen and Daleks zap each other and then presses a magic button to suck them all into the void in a big finale. Death in Heaven flips the plot on its head, avoids flashy action sequences entirely, and focuses instead on themes of grief, guilt, and military PTSD.

Moffat's writing is cerebral, understanding that the thrill of tension is in the anticipation and not the reveal. His scripts are tighter, more organic, and, iffy sex comedy not withstanding, tend to be far wittier, which counts for quite a lot in my book.