But I also know that a great writer is a great writer and he will do something interesting with an assignment or a brief. And Gattis never has. If Gattis was a great writer he should have written great episodes by now. A good writer has that versatility. When he writes one episode a season and it tends to be mediocre then why would anyone suppose he could write 5 and they would be good?
The proof is in the pudding as they say. And Gattis' 'puddings' are rather bland and unaccomplished. I certainly wouldn't want to eat them for 12 weeks straight.
He does have a lot of support in the mainstream media coverage for Doctor Who, where he is regarded, presumably on the strength of name recognition, as one of the show's principle writers. He even got name checked in the announcer's intro to the last episode ('the nightmare world of Mark Gattis' or something like that), which is unusual for a writer. That shows that the BBC regard his name as a selling point. As I say, the media likes him. I understand why; I like him too. I can well imagine he will take over from Moffat. For me that would mean I'd probably stop watching. I don't mean that petulantly, it's just that the show would no longer have the quality to hold my interest. How can I be so sure? I've eaten enough of his puddings to know what they taste like :P (as well as his tv writing, I've also read one of his novels, so feel I have more than given him a chance)
The thing is for me that makes me wonder is because of what's happened with Moffat. Now I'm gonna try not to make this sound like more Moffat bashing because it really isn't meant to be.
I really enjoyed his episodes during the RTD Era. Blink, The Empty Child two-parter, though not so much the Library one from Series 4. His early stories as showrunner for me were very inconsistent but have improved over the last year but inconsistency is the point I'm trying to make here.
Before everyone starts ranting at what appears to be more Davey Moffat-Bashing, I can also say the same thing about RTD. Most of his stuff was awesome(imo) but then we had crap like Love and Monsters, Planet Of The Dead and in fact all the Specials were substandard and Tennant's swansong was nowhere as good as it should have been.
RTD stayed too long, he got stale towards the end of his time. But throughout he was inconsistent too.
If we're using analogies to make a point I would choose being Captain of a sports team. Take Cricket for example. There have been many high scoring batsmen who suffered from being Captain and leading the team, scoring relatively little compared to when they weren't Captain.
Being a showrunner is really no different. All the extra duties, planning, etc etc, it can have an impact on the writing whereas like Moffat in Series 1 for example, he probably just wrote the script, handed it to RTD and off he went and it was better as a result.
So that brings me nicely back to Gatiss. I think he could be in the same position as RTD and Moffat. He could as inconsistent. It's just a theory but as I said previous post until he ever becomes showrunner we don't know for sure.
An opinion based on evidence has value. It is a basis for discussion. An opinion based on nothing is nothing.
Point taken, but I think something like whether or not you like someone's writing doesn't really have much evidencial backing. For example, I can say that I don't rate a single one of Gatiss' episodes above: below average, and hence I don't want him to be the showrunner of Who. And that's just my opinion, I don't want to necessarily sway anyone to that opinion but I'm happy to debate it, regardless of evidence.
If you want evidencial support for that then I did actually go on IMDB and there the stats speak for themselves. Three of Gatiss' episodes in the bottom 8 (although one of them is Sleep No More so that's not yet got enough votes to be statistically significant) and none of his episodes rate highly at all. Only one of them (The Unquiet Dead) has a rating over 7.5 and even that only has a rating of 7.7 which is distinctly average.
And as for AIs, Unquiet Dead has 80, as opposed to a series average of 82.7, Idiot's Lantern has an AI of 84 compared with a series average of 84.5 (and without L+M an average of 85.2), Victory of the Daleks has an AI of 84 compared with an average of 86.2, Night Terrors actually fares pretty well, an 86 compared to the average of 86.3, Cold War has 84 and Crimson Horror 85, both compared to the average of 86, Robot has 82 compared to 83.3 and Sleep No More a disastrously low 78 compared to an average of 82.75 before it's factored in and 82.2 after it's factored in.
So the best of Gatiss' episodes is marginally below average on AI for that series and average overall and a different one is about average on IMDB.
But none of that makes the slightest bit of difference to my opinion on Gatiss' episodes, which is that they vary from absolutely turgid to marginally below average. If he was the highest rated Who writer on AIs or IMDB I still wouldn't want him to write for Who because he doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, looking at this evidence I think I am actually going to retract my previous comment about him making a good showrunner, he might really struggle not to lose the casual viewer or the hardcore viewer completely.
I've liked a few of his episodes but found most to be average and a few below average.
Not the sort of hit rate you'd want from the main writer.
One of the problems Moffat has had is that he hasn't had what RTD had - which was a couple of Moffat penned episodes he didn't need to rewrite each series as IIRC RTD did a lot of rewriting on other scripts in his tenure. I think the Moffat era would have benefitted from a couple of strong RTD penned episodes each year to take the pressure off.
Wouldn't it be great if the next show runner (whoever is brave/deluded enough to take on the poisoned chalice) could rely on RTD and Moffat providing three to four well-written episodes for them each series? Sadly it doesn't look like RTD will write for the show again any time soon and Moffat will be well and truly burnt out by the time he calls it a day.
One of the problems Moffat has had is that he hasn't had what RTD had - which was a couple of Moffat penned episodes he didn't need to rewrite each series as IIRC RTD did a lot of rewriting on other scripts in his tenure. I think the Moffat era would have benefitted from a couple of strong RTD penned episodes each year to take the pressure off..
I definitely agree with this. The show is badly missing a second great writer, someone who stands out above the rest, like Moffat did under RTD.
I can understand why RTD stays away though. He will be well aware of the factional fan fighting between his Doctor Who and Moffat's and I'm pretty sure he won't want to have that sully the show. If he wrote for Who it's fuel to the fire for all those who prefer his era to criticize the current show. Not his fault of course but I'm sure it's something he's wary of. Equally, as much as he won't want to potentially undermine the current team, he also won't want to be the ghost of christmas past either.
What they really need is a new writer to make an impact, to stand out. But it doesn't seem to happen.
We have to remember though that Davies and Moffat are standout talents; possibly the best two TV screenwriters the country has had for the past decade or so. Doctor Who has been very fortunate to have those two talents. Frankly, Doctor Who fandom should stop bitching about either of them and be glad they elevated the show so high with their talent. They are both taken for granted. Doctor Who forums are full of delusional people who seem to think writers of that caliber grow on trees.
Maybe we should stop worrying about who will be next for a while and actually appreciate what we have.
Damien Molony is who I meant earlier. He is the only person I see as being the next Doctor. At least based off his performance in Being Human. I haven't seen him in anything else! I know he was in the Ch5 police show 'Suspects' with Faye Ripley.
Damien Molony is who I meant earlier. He is the only person I see as being the next Doctor. At least based off his performance in Being Human. I haven't seen him in anything else! I know he was in the Ch5 police show 'Suspects' with Faye Ripley.
I think Aiden Turner should be next as Damien Molony would be close to Capaldis Doctor but he can come after
I definitely agree with this. The show is badly missing a second great writer, someone who stands out above the rest, like Moffat did under RTD.
I can understand why RTD stays away though. He will be well aware of the factional fan fighting between his Doctor Who and Moffat's and I'm pretty sure he won't want to have that sully the show. If he wrote for Who it's fuel to the fire for all those who prefer his era to criticize the current show. Not his fault of course but I'm sure it's something he's wary of. Equally, as much as he won't want to potentially undermine the current team, he also won't want to be the ghost of christmas past either.
What they really need is a new writer to make an impact, to stand out. But it doesn't seem to happen.
We have to remember though that Davies and Moffat are standout talents; possibly the best two TV screenwriters the country has had for the past decade or so. Doctor Who has been very fortunate to have those two talents. Frankly, Doctor Who fandom should stop bitching about either of them and be glad they elevated the show so high with their talent. They are both taken for granted. Doctor Who forums are full of delusional people who seem to think writers of that caliber grow on trees.
Maybe we should stop worrying about who will be next for a while and actually appreciate what we have.
I actually liked Moffat writing Series 5 untill The Ponds left it was so adventure like and loved Series 5 especially and Amelia who waited and waited for her turn to travel with her Doctor. But after that the atmosphere of his writing took a massive turn it felt so....meh. But not a fan of his current writing style for Series 8 or 9 although there are a few gems which were decent. I just feel like hes done now, he told his story and its time to hand down the reigns to a new creative team so I can feel the same way I did in Series 5. The reason I can't appreciate Moffat is because now its like were told how to feel about a character like Clara shes become very annoying plus having her around for soo long now , I liked her in Series 7 and in The Snowmen and Asylum of the eyestalk things she semmed so innocent to me then. I also dislike the way the arcs are set up now and how overcomplicated and overthought a plot is that you get lost in it.
I also dislike the way the arcs are set up now and how overcomplicated and overthought a plot is that you get lost in it.
In terms of 'overcomplicated' arc, Moffat has simplifed year on year. I enjoyed the Series 5 arc, but granted it was complicated. I didn't enjoy the Series 6 arc as it fell at nearly every hurdle, and it also happened to be complicated. But Series 7's 'impossible girl' story arc was relatively straightforward - very imposing still, but straightforward, and resolved by the end of the series. Series 8 took it a step further, and had the Missy story arc bubbling away - resigned to a single scene every few episodes to remind us of it, but not being necessarily complicated...it was a "who is she?" story arc and that's all there was to it. Series 9 has gone further still, with hints of an arc all over the place (like Series 4 did) and various hints at where we're headed, but nothing resembling an arc that imposes itself into any one story heavily at all.
So I'm sorry, and I'm not denying you your opinion on Moffat at all, but the notion that his story arcs are complicated is years old now... even their brief reprisal in The Time of the Doctor was nearly two whole series ago. I'd say you probably need to find more up-to-date arguments...unless you're seriously suggesting that Series 8 and Series 9 have been overcomplicated.
I actually liked Moffat writing Series 5 untill The Ponds left it was so adventure like and loved Series 5 especially and Amelia who waited and waited for her turn to travel with her Doctor. But after that the atmosphere of his writing took a massive turn it felt so....meh. But not a fan of his current writing style for Series 8 or 9 although there are a few gems which were decent. I just feel like hes done now, he told his story and its time to hand down the reigns to a new creative team so I can feel the same way I did in Series 5. The reason I can't appreciate Moffat is because now its like were told how to feel about a character like Clara shes become very annoying plus having her around for soo long now , I liked her in Series 7 and in The Snowmen and Asylum of the eyestalk things she semmed so innocent to me then. I also dislike the way the arcs are set up now and how overcomplicated and overthought a plot is that you get lost in it.
I get you but the grass isn't always greener. Wait until an actually poor writer gets his hands on the show. It will happen one day.
Moffat's not perfect, obviously. By the standards of this forum I'm a 'fanboy' of his but nonetheless I can easily criticize numerous things about his run on Doctor Who. I've been critical of this season to a melodramatic degree. At the end of the day his style won't appeal to everyone. But he's at least a good writer. They're not just growing on trees for the BBC to cherry pick whoever they want, whenever they want.
In my opinion Doctor Who fans have too much of a mentality of change for change's sake. I guess that' inevitable when a show changes things up as often as Doctor Who does. It's part of the culture now. But Doctor Who has been crap before and could be crap again.
I get you but the grass isn't always greener. Wait until an actually poor writer gets his hands on the show. It will happen one day.
But why should it be a writer that has to be the Executive Producer ('showrunner' if you like), why can't it be someone that has been successful at just producing television and never written a script in their life and there are plenty out there, someone that knows how to steer a programme creatively and technically to the upmost Nth degree and not worry about a few of their own scripts getting in the way? Opening themselves out to writers and leaving the script editor to nip, tuck and polish.
But why should it be a writer that has to be the Executive Producer ('showrunner' if you like), why can't it be someone that has been successful at just producing television and never written a script in their life and there are plenty out there, someone that knows how to steer a programme creatively and technically to the upmost Nth degree and not worry about a few of their own scripts getting in the way? Opening themselves out to writers and leaving the script editor to nip, tuck and polish.
I don't know. That's a little beyond the scope of this topic. Maybe the 'showrunner' system currently used isn't best. But that's really another discussion.
The producer and script editor combo worked well enough in the past I suppose. I think the format would have to change a lot to go back to something like that now though, as arcs and long-running storylines would require a very different handling, if they were possible at all.
Here's another point though: Moffat isn't the only executive producer on Doctor Who. He is just the visible one and also the lead writer. There is also Brian Mincin and others before him. As an audience we aren't really privy to the inner workings of the show. The tendency is to blame (or praise) Moffat for everything but we don't really know what he is responsible for, beyond the scripting. Why do we assume it is all Moffat in the first place? He's the head guy creatively, we know that. It doesn't mean Mincin and others have no input. One assumes they do. A poster in another thread talked about the changing tone with each of Moffat's seasons of Doctor Who: well, there has been a number of different executive producers alongside him and surely they have all had their own thoughts and their different input and I would imagine that is a fair amount of the reason for stylistic changes. Moffat isn't working alone to produce the show. If one guy comes in and says to Moffat 'you know, I really think the show needs two-parters and cliffhangers again' then Moffat has to consider what he says and factor it in. It's not necessarily Moffat's choice to have a series of only single part episodes or only two-part episodes or whatever it might be. He has to negotiate with the other producers, collaborate with them and then steer the ship creatively from there.
Comments
The thing is for me that makes me wonder is because of what's happened with Moffat. Now I'm gonna try not to make this sound like more Moffat bashing because it really isn't meant to be.
I really enjoyed his episodes during the RTD Era. Blink, The Empty Child two-parter, though not so much the Library one from Series 4. His early stories as showrunner for me were very inconsistent but have improved over the last year but inconsistency is the point I'm trying to make here.
Before everyone starts ranting at what appears to be more Davey Moffat-Bashing, I can also say the same thing about RTD. Most of his stuff was awesome(imo) but then we had crap like Love and Monsters, Planet Of The Dead and in fact all the Specials were substandard and Tennant's swansong was nowhere as good as it should have been.
RTD stayed too long, he got stale towards the end of his time. But throughout he was inconsistent too.
If we're using analogies to make a point I would choose being Captain of a sports team. Take Cricket for example. There have been many high scoring batsmen who suffered from being Captain and leading the team, scoring relatively little compared to when they weren't Captain.
Being a showrunner is really no different. All the extra duties, planning, etc etc, it can have an impact on the writing whereas like Moffat in Series 1 for example, he probably just wrote the script, handed it to RTD and off he went and it was better as a result.
So that brings me nicely back to Gatiss. I think he could be in the same position as RTD and Moffat. He could as inconsistent. It's just a theory but as I said previous post until he ever becomes showrunner we don't know for sure.
That rules out Gatiss, then.
Point taken, but I think something like whether or not you like someone's writing doesn't really have much evidencial backing. For example, I can say that I don't rate a single one of Gatiss' episodes above: below average, and hence I don't want him to be the showrunner of Who. And that's just my opinion, I don't want to necessarily sway anyone to that opinion but I'm happy to debate it, regardless of evidence.
If you want evidencial support for that then I did actually go on IMDB and there the stats speak for themselves. Three of Gatiss' episodes in the bottom 8 (although one of them is Sleep No More so that's not yet got enough votes to be statistically significant) and none of his episodes rate highly at all. Only one of them (The Unquiet Dead) has a rating over 7.5 and even that only has a rating of 7.7 which is distinctly average.
And as for AIs, Unquiet Dead has 80, as opposed to a series average of 82.7, Idiot's Lantern has an AI of 84 compared with a series average of 84.5 (and without L+M an average of 85.2), Victory of the Daleks has an AI of 84 compared with an average of 86.2, Night Terrors actually fares pretty well, an 86 compared to the average of 86.3, Cold War has 84 and Crimson Horror 85, both compared to the average of 86, Robot has 82 compared to 83.3 and Sleep No More a disastrously low 78 compared to an average of 82.75 before it's factored in and 82.2 after it's factored in.
So the best of Gatiss' episodes is marginally below average on AI for that series and average overall and a different one is about average on IMDB.
But none of that makes the slightest bit of difference to my opinion on Gatiss' episodes, which is that they vary from absolutely turgid to marginally below average. If he was the highest rated Who writer on AIs or IMDB I still wouldn't want him to write for Who because he doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, looking at this evidence I think I am actually going to retract my previous comment about him making a good showrunner, he might really struggle not to lose the casual viewer or the hardcore viewer completely.
I've liked a few of his episodes but found most to be average and a few below average.
Not the sort of hit rate you'd want from the main writer.
One of the problems Moffat has had is that he hasn't had what RTD had - which was a couple of Moffat penned episodes he didn't need to rewrite each series as IIRC RTD did a lot of rewriting on other scripts in his tenure. I think the Moffat era would have benefitted from a couple of strong RTD penned episodes each year to take the pressure off.
Wouldn't it be great if the next show runner (whoever is brave/deluded enough to take on the poisoned chalice) could rely on RTD and Moffat providing three to four well-written episodes for them each series? Sadly it doesn't look like RTD will write for the show again any time soon and Moffat will be well and truly burnt out by the time he calls it a day.
I definitely agree with this. The show is badly missing a second great writer, someone who stands out above the rest, like Moffat did under RTD.
I can understand why RTD stays away though. He will be well aware of the factional fan fighting between his Doctor Who and Moffat's and I'm pretty sure he won't want to have that sully the show. If he wrote for Who it's fuel to the fire for all those who prefer his era to criticize the current show. Not his fault of course but I'm sure it's something he's wary of. Equally, as much as he won't want to potentially undermine the current team, he also won't want to be the ghost of christmas past either.
What they really need is a new writer to make an impact, to stand out. But it doesn't seem to happen.
We have to remember though that Davies and Moffat are standout talents; possibly the best two TV screenwriters the country has had for the past decade or so. Doctor Who has been very fortunate to have those two talents. Frankly, Doctor Who fandom should stop bitching about either of them and be glad they elevated the show so high with their talent. They are both taken for granted. Doctor Who forums are full of delusional people who seem to think writers of that caliber grow on trees.
Maybe we should stop worrying about who will be next for a while and actually appreciate what we have.
I think Aiden Turner should be next as Damien Molony would be close to Capaldis Doctor but he can come after
I actually liked Moffat writing Series 5 untill The Ponds left it was so adventure like and loved Series 5 especially and Amelia who waited and waited for her turn to travel with her Doctor. But after that the atmosphere of his writing took a massive turn it felt so....meh. But not a fan of his current writing style for Series 8 or 9 although there are a few gems which were decent. I just feel like hes done now, he told his story and its time to hand down the reigns to a new creative team so I can feel the same way I did in Series 5. The reason I can't appreciate Moffat is because now its like were told how to feel about a character like Clara shes become very annoying plus having her around for soo long now , I liked her in Series 7 and in The Snowmen and Asylum of the eyestalk things she semmed so innocent to me then. I also dislike the way the arcs are set up now and how overcomplicated and overthought a plot is that you get lost in it.
In terms of 'overcomplicated' arc, Moffat has simplifed year on year. I enjoyed the Series 5 arc, but granted it was complicated. I didn't enjoy the Series 6 arc as it fell at nearly every hurdle, and it also happened to be complicated. But Series 7's 'impossible girl' story arc was relatively straightforward - very imposing still, but straightforward, and resolved by the end of the series. Series 8 took it a step further, and had the Missy story arc bubbling away - resigned to a single scene every few episodes to remind us of it, but not being necessarily complicated...it was a "who is she?" story arc and that's all there was to it. Series 9 has gone further still, with hints of an arc all over the place (like Series 4 did) and various hints at where we're headed, but nothing resembling an arc that imposes itself into any one story heavily at all.
So I'm sorry, and I'm not denying you your opinion on Moffat at all, but the notion that his story arcs are complicated is years old now... even their brief reprisal in The Time of the Doctor was nearly two whole series ago. I'd say you probably need to find more up-to-date arguments...unless you're seriously suggesting that Series 8 and Series 9 have been overcomplicated.
I get you but the grass isn't always greener. Wait until an actually poor writer gets his hands on the show. It will happen one day.
Moffat's not perfect, obviously. By the standards of this forum I'm a 'fanboy' of his but nonetheless I can easily criticize numerous things about his run on Doctor Who. I've been critical of this season to a melodramatic degree. At the end of the day his style won't appeal to everyone. But he's at least a good writer. They're not just growing on trees for the BBC to cherry pick whoever they want, whenever they want.
In my opinion Doctor Who fans have too much of a mentality of change for change's sake. I guess that' inevitable when a show changes things up as often as Doctor Who does. It's part of the culture now. But Doctor Who has been crap before and could be crap again.
But why should it be a writer that has to be the Executive Producer ('showrunner' if you like), why can't it be someone that has been successful at just producing television and never written a script in their life and there are plenty out there, someone that knows how to steer a programme creatively and technically to the upmost Nth degree and not worry about a few of their own scripts getting in the way? Opening themselves out to writers and leaving the script editor to nip, tuck and polish.
I don't know. That's a little beyond the scope of this topic. Maybe the 'showrunner' system currently used isn't best. But that's really another discussion.
The producer and script editor combo worked well enough in the past I suppose. I think the format would have to change a lot to go back to something like that now though, as arcs and long-running storylines would require a very different handling, if they were possible at all.
Here's another point though: Moffat isn't the only executive producer on Doctor Who. He is just the visible one and also the lead writer. There is also Brian Mincin and others before him. As an audience we aren't really privy to the inner workings of the show. The tendency is to blame (or praise) Moffat for everything but we don't really know what he is responsible for, beyond the scripting. Why do we assume it is all Moffat in the first place? He's the head guy creatively, we know that. It doesn't mean Mincin and others have no input. One assumes they do. A poster in another thread talked about the changing tone with each of Moffat's seasons of Doctor Who: well, there has been a number of different executive producers alongside him and surely they have all had their own thoughts and their different input and I would imagine that is a fair amount of the reason for stylistic changes. Moffat isn't working alone to produce the show. If one guy comes in and says to Moffat 'you know, I really think the show needs two-parters and cliffhangers again' then Moffat has to consider what he says and factor it in. It's not necessarily Moffat's choice to have a series of only single part episodes or only two-part episodes or whatever it might be. He has to negotiate with the other producers, collaborate with them and then steer the ship creatively from there.