Moffat's Worst Episode

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  • bb2011fanbb2011fan Posts: 2,687
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    I can't decide,there's too many to pick from!! Let's kill Hitler was truly awful especially after the build up from a good man goes to war. It was such a let down. Personally I didn't like Paranorica Opens/Big Bang either as never been a fan of "timely wimey" episodes. Altogether series 5-7 was difficult for me as a fan. He made the show almost unbearable and I really went off it during Matt's era however series 8 so far has been really good and I'm starting to fall back in love with it all
  • Tom TitTom Tit Posts: 2,554
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    mikey1980 wrote: »
    Let's Kill Hitler was an infuriatingly misleading title, in that Hitler's role was a brief plot contrivance, nothing more. I went into the episode thinking and hoping that it might be a meaningful historical narrative about the rights and wrongs of going back in time to remove an evil meglomanic. Instead, it was just another River Song episode.
    .

    That's not a critique. That's just thwarted expectations. Try actually critiquing the episode. So few of these negative comments do that and that's why I don't take them seriously. Who cares what you wanted to see on screen? Critique what actually WAS on the screen. All you've managed so far is that the title is a little misleading, which hardly junks the episode.

    Any negative 'review' that pre-supposes the faults they are claiming are self-evident and don't need explaining is garbage writing of a level much worse than any episode of Doctor Who.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6,988
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    Only one Moffat written story I don't like and that's the Wardrobe one
  • Tom TitTom Tit Posts: 2,554
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    bb2011fan wrote: »
    I can't decide,there's too many to pick from!! Let's kill Hitler was truly awful especially after the build up from a good man goes to war. It was such a let down. Personally I didn't like Paranorica Opens/Big Bang either as never been a fan of "timely wimey" episodes. Altogether series 5-7 was difficult for me as a fan. He made the show almost unbearable and I really went off it during Matt's era however series 8 so far has been really good and I'm starting to fall back in love with it all

    Why was 'Let's Kill Hitler' truly awful? If you don't back up your statment with an argument then it valueless.

    'never been a fan of timey wimey episodes' - your tastes are not a critique. I don't like ballet so I don't presume to critique it.

    Everything in your post is akin to telling us your mood and what you would like to have for dinner tomorrow and wouldn't like to have for dinner on Friday. It has nothing to do with critiquing Steven Moffat written episodes of Doctor Who.
  • Tom TitTom Tit Posts: 2,554
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    The most infuriating thing about Moffat is his inconsistency. I wish he was either great all the time or crap all the time, then at least we knew where we stood!

    Utterly diabolical -

    The Doctor, The Witch & The Wardrobe (can it be erased from existence??)
    Let's Kill Hitler
    The Wedding of River Song
    Time of the Doctor

    Just bad -

    A Christmas Carol
    The Beast Below
    A Good Man Goes To War
    The Bells of Saint John


    What is wrong with these episodes?
  • KapellmeisterKapellmeister Posts: 41,322
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    The most infuriating thing about Moffat is his inconsistency. I wish he was either great all the time or crap all the time, then at least we knew where we stood!

    Utterly diabolical -

    The Doctor, The Witch & The Wardrobe (can it be erased from existence??)
    Let's Kill Hitler
    The Wedding of River Song
    Time of the Doctor

    Just bad -

    A Christmas Carol
    The Beast Below
    A Good Man Goes To War
    The Bells of Saint John

    Oh I agree. I cannot understand how 'Listen', 'Time of Angels' or 'The Pandorica Opens' can come from the same person as such utter crap as 'The Doctor, Widow, Wardrobe' or 'Time of the Doctor'. It's really weird.

    Something that affects a number of Moffat episodes is a certain insufferable glibness that seems to permeate all the characters on screen.
  • TheophileTheophile Posts: 2,932
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    Well I totally disagree about the latter but the point of this thread is to burn that which we hate not build up those we love so I wont try and change your mind. I don't think I would manage it anyway.

    Lets just agree that smug male comedian **** flying his aeroplane through a wormhole (#morescience)to be reunited with the titular widow played by smug female actor **** is a moment of such execrable rubbish it makes the end of The Empty Child/Doctor Dances look like Requiem for a Dream.

    Amen.

    The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe was the worst thing since "Jersey Shore". It was utterly awful.
  • CAMERA OBSCURACAMERA OBSCURA Posts: 8,002
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    Let's Kill Hitler.

    The nadir of the show and show-runner finally disappearing up it's own com con pleasing backsides.
  • TalmaTalma Posts: 10,520
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    allisonbm2 wrote: »
    Only one Moffat written story I don't like and that's the Wardrobe one

    This. It was pretty awful and it takes a lot for me to think that. All the others I can re-watch quite happily, I enjoy some more than others, naturally, and some things and characters can be irritating, but there's something to enjoy in all of them. Even the Wardrobe- the first few minutes were okay when the Doctor let the kids Into the house in the first place. But it's the only one I don't think I could watch it again.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 166
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    I think you get two distinct camps for disliking stories:

    1. Those which are just non-stories. Dull and dreary which leave a viewer totally unengaged (The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe).

    2. Those stories which promise much, have great story ideas and potential but then crash and burn for some reason. Either because of the logic of the story, awful characterisation, poor writing/acting, etc. These leave the viewer feeling cheated in some way.

    I don't tend to dislike those that fall into the first category as they are just non-events to be quietly forgotten. The 2nd tend to create more anger as the potential of the story has been destroyed leaving me feeling unsatisfied. Some of Moffatts fall into the 2nd as he has great ideas which don't always work out on screen or are just rushed and clumsily constructed.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 903
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    Moffat is probably the best DW writter, but every writter sometimes writes episodes that are not that good.
    Anyway, the only Moffat's episode I really dislike is A Good Man Goes to War. It was too focused on arc and therefore there wasn't any proper plot.

    I think we really need 'the best Moffat's episodes' thread because he wrote much more good episodes than bad ones. Maybe I'll create one later.
  • KapellmeisterKapellmeister Posts: 41,322
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    I think you get two distinct camps for disliking stories:

    1. Those which are just non-stories. Dull and dreary which leave a viewer totally unengaged (The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe).

    2. Those stories which promise much, have great story ideas and potential but then crash and burn for some reason. Either because of the logic of the story, awful characterisation, poor writing/acting, etc. These leave the viewer feeling cheated in some way.

    I don't tend to dislike those that fall into the first category as they are just non-events to be quietly forgotten. The 2nd tend to create more anger as the potential of the story has been destroyed leaving me feeling unsatisfied. Some of Moffatts fall into the 2nd as he has great ideas which don't always work out on screen or are just rushed and clumsily constructed.

    Another issue here is budget, or lack of one. A lot of Moffat's 'big' episodes (and IMO his biggest failures) depend on portentous ideas and scenarios that just don't work on screen as there isn't the money to do it convincingly e.g. the battle of Demon's Run or the (hilariously non-event) battle at Trenzalore in 'Time of the Doctor'. I suspect, in Moffat's mind, they happened like the siege of Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. Instead of which we get a dozen extras running around and a wooden cyberman. Visually underwhelming and makes a mockery of the grandiose dialogue.

    And these episodes e.g. Let's Kill Hitler are so over the top e.g Smith's Doctor, River's smugness, Gold's music, the banter and jokes, it's all dialed up to 10.

    It's the Doctor Who equivalent of this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqVpzT2oaGA

    You just want to get away from it as quickly as possible.

    It's one reason why I enjoyed 'Deep Breath'. There were extended scenes of relative quiet with two people talking to each other in a normal way.
  • Irma BuntIrma Bunt Posts: 1,847
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    Moffat tends to have a 'and the kitchen sink' approach to writing in which he throws everything into the mix in the hope that some of it works. He's much better when he sticks to a single idea or plot line.

    This is so true. The frustrating thing about him is that when he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad, it's an appalling mess. I think he was producing better work when he was just writing, and it's only become more variable since he's been showrunner. What he needs is a a strong script editor; someone with the balls to stand up to him and say this doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an open secret in the industry that no-one now can say no to him. And before anyone accuses me of being a hater, I'm not. I've enjoyed plenty of his work.

    Sadly, I feel on both Sherlock and Who he's started strongly and then petered out. I adored the first series of Sherlock, enjoyed the second series, but found the third almost unwatchable because of the self-congratulatory, "aren't-we-clever" smugness that pervaded the whole enterprise.
  • KapellmeisterKapellmeister Posts: 41,322
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    Irma Bunt wrote: »
    This is so true. The frustrating thing about him is that when he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad, it's an appalling mess. I think he was producing better work when he was just writing, and it's only become more variable since he's been showrunner. What he needs is a a strong script editor; someone with the balls to stand up to him and say this doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an open secret in the industry that no-one now can say no to him. And before anyone accuses me of being a hater, I'm not. I've enjoyed plenty of his work.

    Sadly, I feel on both Sherlock and Who he's started strongly and then petered out. I adored the first series of Sherlock, enjoyed the second series, but found the third almost unwatchable because of the self-congratulatory, "aren't-we-clever" smugness that pervaded the whole enterprise.

    Hurrah!!! Someone else who feels the same way I do about 'Sherlock'! (well, my sister does as well, tbh, as we were talking about it on the phone just last night). First series was brilliant. Second series was enjoyable. The third series was unwatchable trash for the very reasons you mentioned.
  • BlocFFCBlocFFC Posts: 2,338
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    I've hugely enjoyed the Moffat era and I personally loved the whole Silence Will Fall/Trenzalore/River Song arc so I have no complaints regarding A Good Man Goes To War/Let's Kill Hitler/Wedding of River Song/Time of the Doctor. In fact, I think TotD is a belter of an episode.

    Perhaps my least favourite is The Bells of Saint John purely because it's a pretty standard, run of the mill episode. It's arguably the least Moffat-esque style episode.
  • AlrightmateAlrightmate Posts: 73,120
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    I think Steven Moffat episodes even if they aren't that great are still pretty good compared to average episodes.
    However I think he has done a handful of poor episodes.

    I think his weakest two are 'The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe' and 'The Bells of Saint John'. I think they were very poor, especially when considering what he is capable of.
  • Granny McSmithGranny McSmith Posts: 19,622
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    Hurrah!!! Someone else who feels the same way I do about 'Sherlock'! (well, my sister does as well, tbh, as we were talking about it on the phone just last night). First series was brilliant. Second series was enjoyable. The third series was unwatchable trash for the very reasons you mentioned.

    I also felt this about Sherlock. The episodes in the third series had little plot, and the characterisation was all over the place. Sherlock himself (my Sherlock! >:(:() was unrecognisable to me.

    It's that cleverness which is Moff's downfall. And by cleverness I don't mean intelligence. I mean a self-conscious attempt to demonstrate how very much cleverer than the audience he is.

    However, it wasn't the cleverness that put me off some of his poorer efforts in DW. It was the sheer mawkish sentimentality. The "love conquers all" endings to some episodes made me want to be ill.
  • Irma BuntIrma Bunt Posts: 1,847
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    I also felt this about Sherlock. The episodes in the third series had little plot, and the characterisation was all over the place. Sherlock himself (my Sherlock! >:(:() was unrecognisable to me.

    It's that cleverness which is Moff's downfall. And by cleverness I don't mean intelligence. I mean a self-conscious attempt to demonstrate how very much cleverer than the audience he is.

    I think you've hit the nail on the head - certainly as far as Sherlock is concerned for me. In the first series, there was a genuine sense of wanting to entertain. And that series did.

    By the time we got to third series, there was a sense of wanting to show off. And I'm afraid that didn't entertain me. Although, in fairness, it did seem to entertain others.
  • mikey1980mikey1980 Posts: 3,647
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    Tom Tit wrote: »
    That's not a critique. That's just thwarted expectations. Try actually critiquing the episode. So few of these negative comments do that and that's why I don't take them seriously. Who cares what you wanted to see on screen? Critique what actually WAS on the screen. All you've managed so far is that the title is a little misleading, which hardly junks the episode.

    Any negative 'review' that pre-supposes the faults they are claiming are self-evident and don't need explaining is garbage writing of a level much worse than any episode of Doctor Who.

    Agreed! Except I had no intention of providing a critique as such, I was simply commenting on the actual title. If you look at my post, I saved my critique for The Time Of The Doctor.
  • alphonsusalphonsus Posts: 773
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    Ooh, it worked!
    I think you get two distinct camps for disliking stories:

    1. Those which are just non-stories. Dull and dreary which leave a viewer totally unengaged (The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe).

    2. Those stories which promise much, have great story ideas and potential but then crash and burn for some reason. Either because of the logic of the story, awful characterisation, poor writing/acting, etc. These leave the viewer feeling cheated in some way.

    I don't tend to dislike those that fall into the first category as they are just non-events to be quietly forgotten. The 2nd tend to create more anger as the potential of the story has been destroyed leaving me feeling unsatisfied. Some of Moffatts fall into the 2nd as he has great ideas which don't always work out on screen or are just rushed and clumsily constructed.
    I agree - he writes himself into a plot-hole waaaaay too often and then either deus ex machines his way out, hand-waves or ignores. Biggest plot-hole of them all? River Song.
    Irma Bunt wrote: »
    This is so true. The frustrating thing about him is that when he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad, it's an appalling mess. I think he was producing better work when he was just writing, and it's only become more variable since he's been showrunner. What he needs is a a strong script editor; someone with the balls to stand up to him and say this doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an open secret in the industry that no-one now can say no to him. And before anyone accuses me of being a hater, I'm not. I've enjoyed plenty of his work.

    Sadly, I feel on both Sherlock and Who he's started strongly and then petered out. I adored the first series of Sherlock, enjoyed the second series, but found the third almost unwatchable because of the self-congratulatory, "aren't-we-clever" smugness that pervaded the whole enterprise.
    I'll confess I never got beyond the first episode of the third series. Its smug 'I'm going to show you how you couldn't possibly work out how he done it' tone, plus the fact if you delete the scenes where people are trying to work it out and actually look at the plot you get about 20 minutes run-time was a killer for me.
    I also felt this about Sherlock. The episodes in the third series had little plot, and the characterisation was all over the place. Sherlock himself (my Sherlock! >:(:() was unrecognisable to me.

    It's that cleverness which is Moff's downfall. And by cleverness I don't mean intelligence. I mean a self-conscious attempt to demonstrate how very much cleverer than the audience he is.

    However, it wasn't the cleverness that put me off some of his poorer efforts in DW. It was the sheer mawkish sentimentality. The "love conquers all" endings to some episodes made me want to be ill.
    I dislike the 'cleverness' aspect as well. For me it manifests in his involuted 'there must be three timelines involved' plots. Even 'The Day of The Doctor' suffers from this somewhat, but the narrative was strong enough (or the actors good enough) to carry it through.
    Yes, I know it's a series about time-travel and that's been relatively unexplored within an episode (rather than between them), but the whole 'this is clever because I can plot in more than one time-space at once' thing has never floated my boat. It doesn't seem to have even occurred to him that the Doctor and River meeting out of sequence doesn't actually demand that each engagement occurs exactly linearly in opposite directions.
  • TheophileTheophile Posts: 2,932
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    Irma Bunt wrote: »
    This is so true. The frustrating thing about him is that when he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad, it's an appalling mess. I think he was producing better work when he was just writing, and it's only become more variable since he's been showrunner. What he needs is a a strong script editor; someone with the balls to stand up to him and say this doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an open secret in the industry that no-one now can say no to him. And before anyone accuses me of being a hater, I'm not. I've enjoyed plenty of his work.

    Sadly, I feel on both Sherlock and Who he's started strongly and then petered out. I adored the first series of Sherlock, enjoyed the second series, but found the third almost unwatchable because of the self-congratulatory, "aren't-we-clever" smugness that pervaded the whole enterprise.

    Here in the US, we have had the same problem with George Lucas. What he did with Star Wars via Episode I was a crime against humanity, but it was done because nobody could or would say "No" to him. Sigh. :/
  • CAMERA OBSCURACAMERA OBSCURA Posts: 8,002
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    Irma Bunt wrote: »
    I think you've hit the nail on the head - certainly as far as Sherlock is concerned for me. In the first series, there was a genuine sense of wanting to entertain. And that series did.

    By the time we got to third series, there was a sense of wanting to show off. And I'm afraid that didn't entertain me. Although, in fairness, it did seem to entertain others.

    I have to agree about Sherlock series 3. It vanished so far up its own backside that either the writers forgot it was a detective series, they found they couldn't actually write a concise detective story now they had used their favorite Sherlock books or just misinterpreting 'fandom' praise at their cleverness. Or, they just wanted the show to go down that route...probably the latter no doubt.

    Thankfully it had two immensely watchable leads.


    The show uses a simple trick that gives the illusion of something being more 'complex' than it actually is. As a trick it is like nails down a chalkboard for me.


    It is the editing of simple scenes

    For example.

    Man sits at a table reading a newspaper. He decides to go out and buy cigarettes.

    Pretty straightforward.:)


    Or the Sherlock way.

    Scene starts with man in newsagents. Cuts to same man sitting at table reading newspaper. Cuts back to same man walking down the street. Cuts back to same man reading newspaper, he looks up as if making a decision. Cuts back to man leaving newsagents with said cigarettes.:D

    Style over substance perhaps. Nothing wrong with that kind of editing per se but boy is there overkill in Sherlock.
  • allen_whoallen_who Posts: 2,819
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    I thought the snowman was awful until I rewatched it and found it very very good ... I don't know if anyone else did too..
  • allen_whoallen_who Posts: 2,819
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    At a risk of opening old wounds id say big bang was utter drivel and his worst effort

    Worringly moffat himself thinks its his best ever script... so thats his ultimate standard..
  • CAMERA OBSCURACAMERA OBSCURA Posts: 8,002
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    allen_who wrote: »
    I thought the snowman was awful until I rewatched it and found it very very good ... I don't know if anyone else did too..

    I think The Snowmen is the best xmas episode since Christmas Invasion. (imo)

    It is beautifully shot and has a lovely 'feel' to it. Clara is a wonderful character in it and I just wish it had been this Clara that became the companion and the whole 'Impossible Girl' thing was dropped. Imagine the story arc of Victorian Clara discovering the universe throughout series 7.

    The Great Intelligence is rather lacking as a villain, as he was for the series 7B big bad, but apart from that I think it is an absolutely gorgeous episode.

    I'd give it 4 Freetime thumbs up out of 5. (One for the kids there:D)
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