I'm starting to think it is. It's basically the story of the Doctor losing and finding his home planet. If you want me to guess, I would say that Steven Moffat's era will end with Gallifrey returning. I think that's his end game.

I think in future, people will look on 2005-whenever Moffat leaves as one colossal story arc. I don't think that the storyline from The End of Time ever actually came to an end. The very next story introduced the concept of the Silence, which is linked with Gallifrey's return.


The crazy part of it is, I doubt RTD ever intended this to be the case. Say what you will about Moffat's episodes, if this has been his long term plan since he started, he's a bloody genius of a writer.

Nah ...

I think your just seeing patterns in the randomness where none exist.

Moffat tried to link just his own series 5-7 together and all that was just big years long build up for quick unimportantly stated answers, with many questions about the finer details that still leave people scratching their head to this day, as he admits he dosen't plan ahead. This being the case there is no way a man who can't seem to plan ahead one series at a time would have any intention of a grand linking of his work to that of his predecessor.

I really don't see any connection anyway. The fact that RTD did one story that actually focused on gallifrey, then Moffat started 'the search for gallifrey' late on in his era (because i'm doubtful that when he came up with the silence that he knew he'd eventually link them to anything to do with gallifrey) are just pure coincidence. Obviously there have been many stories over the years regarding the doctor and gallifrey, and there probably will be any more, but just because a story involves gallifrey or the timelords dosen't mean it's in any way connected to any other story involving these elements.

I think that was the idea all along, and I'm sure it didn't take that long to work it all out. Starting with the cracks, they were caused when the Silence tried to kill the Doctor which we would eventually find out was intended to stop him from getting to Trenzalore, answering the Question and bringing the Time Lords back. That all had to be planned when Season 5 was being written, basically. The same goes for River Song - Steven Moffat had to have planned what was coming next when it was revealed she was in prison for killing someone. I think it's absurd to suppose he just wrote that into The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone figuring he'd explain that later when he'd actually thought of an explanation. So to me it looks like right from the start, he'd decided the Time Lords hadn't really been destroyed, although of course there's nothing in any RTD stories to indicate that.

Everything is a story arc, until the point that it finishes. The story of Doctor Who has always been one long game of improv, each writer building on the mythology of the last.

No. It is about continuity. Episodes must be somehow linked because otherwise it wouldn't make sense. And TBH, I wish that they were even more linked, because DW is one show.
But such a small elements of continuity don't make a story arc IMO.

I guess you could say there's a Time War arc from 'Rose/The End of the World' thru 'The Day of the Doctor' but I think it's a very debatable thing when it comes to discussing arcs. There's no real fixed hard definition, and different people will view different things as arcs, continuing storylines, revisited plot threads, etc.

Perhaps Moff's last story will be Gallifrey returning to the universe, then he'll pass it on to the next EP and go "you can explain it, I'm out"

Would be sweet to get a dramatic S9 finale and Christmas 2015 special before he leaves and a new era starts.