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So few Moffat Episodes in the Top 10
Sufyaan_Kazi
Posts: 3,862 Forum Member
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http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/the-top-stories-doctors-according-to-dwm-2014-63506.htm
<sarcasm>They should just ditch Moffat now</sarcasm>
<sarcasm>They should just ditch Moffat now</sarcasm>
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and oh wait a second...is that Matt Smith beating David Tennant? I demand a recount!
The outrage!
I suppose the number 1 isn't really a surprise, but it's not better than any of the original series stories in the top 10. Next time they do the poll it won't be top 10.
Sarcasm aside, it's actually quite interesting going into those results a bit deeper.
A lot of Moffat, yes, Moffat's got three stories on the list, but his era is only represented once among the top ten. Meanwhile, Russell T Davies has no (credited!) stories on the list, but his era constitutes a full third of the winners.
A full-on geeky analysis would only be possible with the full results tomorrow, but on the strength of the (very limited!) available data, you could surmise that Moffat wrote the more beloved stories, while RTD ran the tighter ship. Massive oversimplification, and the DWM readers aren't a yardstick, they only measure a certain type of success. But it's interesting!
I disagree. But I also think Pertwee should be nowhere near the top 11 Doctors. So I guess we all think differently?
I am so, so glad though, to see Tom come out on top! He is my all-time favourite Doctor.
I shall watch this now, in celebration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZoORhV2oLU
It's Tom on This Is Your Life, broadcast on BBC1 in 2000.
This is a great tribute to the Fourth Doctor, that I've just found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XWkA0243C4
I reccomend every Fourth Doctor fan watch the two links. You will NOT be dissapointed. I certainly wasn't.
Agreed. I don't get all the hate for that one, or The Beast Below for that matter. They were imaginative, fun and not boring. The worst offence in entertainment is to be boring.
Should be in the bottom 3. Only the twin dilemma and the space pirates worse in doctor who history than rings of akhaten imo of course. No surprise to see day of the doctor winning though. The top ten is ok even though some of my personal favourites the daleks,tomb of the cybermen,the web of fear, the war games,the daemons,terror of the zygons,silence in the library 2 parter and the impossible astronut 2 parter are not in it.
Yes it should, it's by far the worst Doctor Who story ever made imo and the only surprise that it finished as high as it has. I'd watch any of the stories below it anyday, even The Twin Dilemma, at least it didn't have that goddamn awful singing in it.
Paradise Towers should be in the Bottom Ten as well. Again, would watch any of the other stories in that bottom half of the list before it.
Also disagree about Day Of The Doctor being top. It's recent showing has obviously elevated it to that position but it shouldn't be anywhere near the Top Ten. I could name at least 20-30 stories that are better than that, it was average at best.
The rest of the Top Ten I can mainly agree on. Talons is not a personal fave but I see it's popular with some people. Not quite so sure about Remembrance Of The Daleks being a Top Ten story. It's not an awful story by any means but I'd have it as a Top Thirty rather than a Top Ten story.
IMO off course.
Of course, very few people really feel it's the best story or even their favourite but it was fresh enough and enough of a landmark that everyone would give it a mention (well, not me :P I didn't really like it).
The more interesting thing to me is in seeing the changes from the last poll. For example, Tom Baker's clear and easy rise back to the top of the list. I've always had something of an eye rolling reaction when being told that David Tennant was the most popular Doctor Who. Doctor Who was at its most popular when Tom Baker was in it and was watched by a huge percentage of the population. New viewers also love him when they begin to explore the classic series, which many of those of an age who started watching Doctor Who with David Tennant as the Doctor will have branched out into doing in the last few years. It's pretty easy to see that a large percentage of those would have Tom Baker perhaps no 2 in their list behind either David Tennant or Matt Smith, whereas, in the way of fan schizms, many of them will be strongly for either 10 or 11 and perhaps pretty strongly against the other. Only Tennant or Smith will be top of any particular list (about 50 / 50 judging from the percentages) but Tom Baker will have been no 2 on most of them. Divide and conquer in pure, statistical form.
As time goes on, the aggregate always ends up favouring Tom Baker, and that's because everyone likes him. He IS the most popular in the truest sense. 'Most popular' doesn't mean 'the favourite of the largest amount of people', it means the one liked by most people.
Also interesting will be seeing where stories like 'The End of Time' end up, and the various season finales. These event episodes tend to be very overrated, the biggest recipients of contemporary bias (as 'Day of the Doctor' shows). As time goes on I expect them to drop at a fairly steady pace down the list. Already Bad Wolf seems to have dropped from the top ten, which it placed in the last time they did this poll.
Remembrance has done well from all the Moffat boosting the last couple of years :P
Generally a lot of the RTD era has dropped (though Bad Wolf/Parting only fell out of the top 10 to number 13) so it will be interesting to see if the same happens with the Matt Smith stories as other than Day (which I agree won't be number 1 next time) only Eleventh Hour (at 17) and Vincent (at 27) make the top 30.
I actually thought Tennant had done ok - only just losing to the most recent Doctor which suggests his popularity is pretty intact. Particularly given that almost 50% of the voters were over 36 and therefore you'd assume more likely to vote for classic era stories and Doctors.
Sarah Jane dominant in the top companions once again though Donna & Rose at 2 and 3 shows that they are holding onto a lot of their popularity.
Some sweeping differences, too, between this poll and the recent Radio Times readers poll. I think comparing the two does show up the differences in opinions between Who fans and more general viewers.
But a Moffat script with RTD characters? That ticks a wider range of people's boxes.
Indeed, discounting the 50th Anniversary story, which as others have said, is unlikely to be so high in future polls, no Moffat era episodes whatsoever in the Top 10. Yet two Moffat written stories from RTD's era. Which supports what a lot of us have been saying: Moffat was good in the RTD era, but not good as show runner. You are quite right, they should ditch Moffat now.
There's such a thing as looking far too much into these results in order to bash the current showrunner. Fact of the matter is, it's still received well in the eyes of the public. I mean, Remembrance is on that list and that's when the show was effectively starting to die.
It's too unpredictable to read into it.
I think that's pretty much what I feel is the main difference between the two - RTD's Who was very character driven whilst Moffat's is much more about the story.
So ask Moffat to write a story for characters RTD has already created and established, and you'll end up with something special.
Yes, a tremendous result for Smith - the actor playing the current Doctor for most of the past 5 years beating a previous Doctor by a massive 0.8%. And yet Smith has only one story in the Top 10, and even that included his predecessor as a co-star, whereas the predecessor, as well as that story also had another three in the Top 10.
Not sure I follow your logic - of course Day has done well because of the mix of actors and monsters in it, the fact that it was the 50th Anniversary show, the fact that is was longer than average so had more in it and the fact that it was so recent. It cannot be held up as representative of Moffat's era, which, in terms of this Top 10 (I haven't seen the whole list yet so don't know how well the Moffat era has done overall) is a failure. And even more so in that in polls recent stories always do better from the fact that they are fresher in people's minds (although, again, I don't know if DWM compensated for this in some way).
Hartnell 9th?!! Ridiculous >:(
(Well, he's in MY top 5.)
This (ironic) argument might have some purchase if this was a poll of the general public rather than DWM readers. The plain fact is that most Who fans are nostalgic and currency is actually a hindrance. So in that regard both Smith and Tennant have done well. Even with less competition I very much doubt either Colin Baker (who I liked) and McCoy (who I didn't) would have finished in the top three at the end of their runs.
As always when someone asks this question, I feel the need to answer it with the opening post of the Thread I done on previously.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1736787&highlight=
I understand you questioning a story in this way as I have similar views on Talons Of Weng-Chiang and Genesis Of The Daleks. I consider them good but not great in the same way you feel about Androzani. I guess it's down to personal taste in the end. It's like Heinz Baked Beans. Supposed to be the nations fave Baked Beans but I know there's people out there who don't like them!
As for the Poll, I'm surprised The Web Of Fear isn't in the Top Ten as well, being a popular recent release. In fact, it's sad there's no 60's stories in there at all.
1. Tom Baker (21.69%)
2. Matt Smith (15.57%)
3. David Tennant (15.49%)
4. Patrick Troughton (12.09%)
5. Jon Pertwee (8.72%)
6. Peter Davison (6.11%)
7. Sylvester McCoy (5.38%)
8. Christopher Eccleston (4.39%)
9. William Hartnell (4.04%)
10. Paul McGann (3.31%)
11. Colin Baker (2.52%)
12. John Hurt (0.68%)
IMO, there is something very dodgy about any poll that puts McCoy above Eccleston, Hartnell, McGann, Colin Baker or Hurt.