Basically, I'm thinking that they should run TV submissions in the same way they run submissions for publication -- anyone can submit, but only the very best writers who already have a polished manuscript really stand a chance. It seems like a fairer and more open system, that encourages new talent and creativity. But perhaps there are practical reasons why they can't do that in TV.

So we're saying Doctor Who doesn't take submissions even from established TV writers?

Maybe this does suggest the size of the TV industry in the UK is a factor. Of the pool of established TV writers, how many of them understand - and would want to write for - Doctor Who? If you're happy writing a soap, you're probably not interested in Doctor Who.

And if you're a "name" prose writer, are you necessarily a good script writer too?

If this quote is correct then that is another reason I will be glad when SM leaves the show. I'm really surprised other people haven't picked up on this comment. I know what the backlash would have been if JNT had said the same thing years ago.

Yes, it's possible that they may make mistakes, but that happens. I bet SM has made many in his life. I'm sure he has had to do rewrites in the past and will in the future. I'm sure we could rip into his stuff and find plenty of mistakes, plot holes and "lucky coincidences" if we chose too.
He's not crediting new writers with having the intelligence to email or phone and ask if they aren't sure about something. Even if they can't get hold of him you have the other producers and script editor they can talk too.

If he has a bank of writers that he wants to use, even if they are friends then fine. I really don't care, but that comment if correct was wrong, unfair and hardly encouraging to any new writers regardless of if they want to write for the show or not. You want to write for Corrie, don't bother you have no experience you will make a mistake. You want to write a novel.. don't bother it's a lot of words isn't it. You'll only mess it up and make a mistake somewhere.

That's not the sort of mistake he's talking about.

There's a little more to it than that.

Hmm. That's a lot of extrapolation from a second hand report of what he "more or less" said.

Confirmation bias, cunningham1471?

Not necessarily. Writing a book and writing a tv script are two very different things. In my opinion, Stephen King is a very good writer, with "The Shining" being one of his better books, however, the tv adaptation that he wrote for it, the one without Jack Nicholson, is a bit poor in some aspects.

In a book, you can spend pages describing what a character feels and thinks, something that you cannot translate into tv as easily. Yes, the actors and directors can be a big help, but if the writer is unable to get it down on paper in the first place, what is the point?

With the writers, the stories need variety, imagination and a little direction, who knows where The Doctor will end up, playing cricket with no bat, on a bus with no ticket, at a funfair on a whirly waltzer.

Gareth Roberts, Keith Temple. Russell T Davies wrote a Coronation Street direct to video special, and though he's not a writer, Phil Collinson went from Doctor Who to his "dream job" of head honcho on Corrie.

It is true that not every TV writer's going to "get" Who - Jimmy McGovern's marvellous and he hates it. I think "doesn't take submissions from established TV writers" was absolutely the right choice of words, though. I'm sure if J. J. Abrams turned up and thrust a script into Steven Moffat's hands, they'd take a look and see if there was anything there, but generally the established TV writers are going to wait for a commission before they start writing. Scripts are draining!

I'm sure they do sometimes knock on the door and say, "Hey, can I have a go?" It's just as likely that Stephen Thompson approached them after Sherlock as that they approached Stephen. But I figure the commission begets a script, not the other way round.


No! Completely different grammar. This prevented J. K. Rowling from doing an episode. Neil Gaiman's great at prose fiction, with TV experience on Neverwhere, and I seem to remember he needed a lot more help with his scripts than the rest of the staff that year.



I think this is somewhere the oft-requested Paul McGann spin-off series would come in handy. I've said this before in the last few weeks, (not on here,) but seeing as we've got a brilliant and willing lead actor waiting in the wings, plenty of costumes in the cupboard, and a hungry audience already built-in, they could always do some shorts for BBC iPlayer. Ten minutes or so, with a strict submission process. A few younger writers with a couple of credits to their name, and a few complete newbies. Nice way to break new talent on a shoestring, to make good use of the new iPlayer, and to keep Doctor Who ticking over in the empty months between telly series.

Torchwood used to be that show. Think he'd already done Severance, but James Moran picked up his first TV credit on Torchwood. I think The Ghost Machine was one of Helen Raynor's very first. Tempted to say Noel Clarke hadn't done any telly, either, just film, though I could be wrong.

In response to the original post...

To be fair to Series 7 there were no two parters, and so instead of having writers that took on responsibility for two consecutive episodes, we simply spread them around a bit more. If it had been like any previous series you could just presume that Chris Chibnall, Neil Cross and Mark Gatiss would have written the two-parters for Series 7 (Moffat not taking any on board - instead focusing on the 50th Anniversary sort-of-trilogy at the end).

Not a lot has actually changed at all in terms of writers across each series, take a look:

Series 1 Total Writers: 5
Series 1 New Writers: n/a

Series 2 Total Writers: 7
Series 2 New Writers: 4

Series 3 Total Writers: 7
Series 3 New Writers: 4

Series 4 Total Writers: 7
Series 4 New Writers: 2

Series 5 Total Writers: 7
Series 5 New Writers: 2

Series 6 Total Writers: 8
Series 6 New Writers: 2

Series 7 Total Writers: 7
Series 7 New Writers: 1

It's all fairly inconsistent - less new writers gradually over time maybe, but I can forgive the 50th year for that - if Moffat had to focus on the Anniversary episode (not that I liked it) then he was always going to put episodes from the seventh series in tried and tested hands that were capable.

A bit off topic, but as I intend to go into screenwriting in the future, I hope I can be good enough to asked to write an episode of my favourite show.

And even if not, boy is it a good dream to chase.

Let's face it, Moffat usually gets shown up by the other writers (Gatiss, Neil Gaiman, Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts and Simon Nye have all written better episodes than him).

Sorry, my last question - concerning whether authors necessarily make good script writers - was intended to be somewhat rhetorical.

Also, I wasn't imagining for a moment an established writer would prepare a completed script before a commission, but they might have some story ideas they'd want to pitch to Moffat & Co. I suppose it's really quite tricky even just to take pitches for story ideas from established script writers as plagiarism would be an easy accusation to make if a similar story (to one that was pitched and turned down) was produced. Many TV shows have suffered that sort of accusation.

My fault for not being totally clear.

No worries - my fault, too, for responding to what I thought you were saying, rather than what you were actually saying! I think they'd take pitches in good faith - it'd depend how well they knew each other, really. I'm sure Mark Gatiss occasionally rings up and goes, "I've got this great idea for the Mara."


That seems like a very consistent downward trend to me! Go by percentage. New writers as a proportion of total writers --

S1: 100% new.
S2: 57% new.
S3: 57% new.
S4: 38% new. (I'm counting eight writers, three new, with Phil Ford for The Waters of Mars!)
S5: 29% new.
S6: 25% new.
S7: 14% new.

What this doesn't represent, mind, is that a whole bunch of the writers in S5 and S6 were writing their first script in a looooong while. Toby Whithouse, Mark Gatiss, Tom MacRae and Matthew Graham were all writers who hadn't penned an episode in the best part of five years at the time Steven Moffat hired them. So S5 and S6 still had a fresh feeling, it's only S7 and now S8 that have been particularly repetitious. Very excited to see Phil Ford have another go, though; The Waters of Mars was excellent, and he's done good work with the spin-offs.

Course, some of that's just the passage of time. The first series is inevitably going to be 100% new, and if a writer's good and gets recomissioned the later series are naturally going to diminish in newness. That's just time moving forwards! But new blood would be nice, yes.

He definitely said only experienced UK television writers could be considered to write Who as new writers inevitably make mistakes.

That's fair enough and it's what I would expect from any responsible show runner. (It's the wildly exaggerated negative spin from cunningham1471 "based" on your report that I was contradicting, not the essence of your report).

When writing a single episode that isn't connected to any others I think he's great as his stories during series 1-4 show. I would say it's story arcs with which he shows himself up, and it's obviously not down to lack of writing ability. I personally think he seems to start arcs then gets bored of them and wants to move on to the new shiny thing in his head. The other problem with his arcs is that he seems to go to great lengths to concern himself more with showing everyone how clever he is, but in the process does the exact opposite by delivering arcs which are all over the place (series 6) or where it takes him years to actually getting around to figuring out how it all fits together himself, as seems apparent with all his series, based on the time it took him to finally explain all his arcs, and even then the rushed, mumbled way in which the explanations were delivered seemed to suggest that he was not particularly proud with the answers he had come up with and had just thrown them together at the last minute rather than planning ahead for a grand matt smith era finale the likes of which he had been hinting at since matt started.

Basically - Moffat as single/two part episode writer - brilliant.

Moffat as arc writer - not patient enough to do it well so far in my opinion,
although I hope for Capaldi's first series he has learned from his mistakes.

Moffat did write the best arc the show's had, with the S5 cracks! I don't think the issue is that he gets bored with arcs, but that at deadline-time he worries he's not done enough, and overwrites.

Moffat on complicated writing:
"Complex is probably what I do when I’m in a hurry. It’s my default setting and my biggest weakness. But I’m only starting to realise now, looking back, that in all immodesty that [Blink]’s a really great episode!"
http://jasonarnopp.blogspot.co.uk/20...n-writing.html

Aaaaand from a post on the Doctor Who forum:
"I think self-consciousness cleverness is a perfectly fair accusation to level at me - I'm aware of it as a failing, but I can't seem to fix it. I'm always worried I'm not being interesting enough and it leads me astray - before you know it, the whole thing is in split-screen! And boring!"

It's well known that series six was deadline hell. I think he probably had a while to write The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, at the start of the series, so he managed to get them to a really cool place, but in the end he became more frenzied, kept chucking stuff in and some of the original plan got waylaid. That said, I do think A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler are both rollicking good episodes - I just think the arc's crammed into a few small episodes with a lot going on and becomes less than the sum of its parts. The Wedding of River Song had an awful lot on its shoulders.

Based on what you've said, I can only hope that he has had plenty of time to write the arc this series, and hopefully ample time to go over what he had written before they started filming, as I really am hoping he can give Capaldi the series arc he deserves for his first series.