For the sake of discussion, rather than argument I would have to agree that for the most part Moffat's writing - at least to an emotional capacity - usually leaves me cold. Series 5 was the first time I struggled to care about the companions at all - and it's a shame because Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill really gave it their all, and I really wish some of their experiences resonated with me and actually made me care (probably not helped by the utterly diminished concept of death in that series).
Series 6 was a minor improvement if only for Gillan and Alex Kingston's superb acting - as others have highlighted, Amy responded so unnaturally to the loss of her child...I'm a cold, heartless wretch of a human being and even I could see it. Series 7 just proved that the Ponds needed to stay away from having a family. Amy's infertility was so poorly worked in as a storyline in Asylum of the Daleks - apparently it's why she kicked Rory out, because she couldn't give him kids. As if that's something anyone would actually talk about before filing for divorce and kicking their partner out?! Never mind, we'll chuck it in needlessly, and it'll all be swept over by the next episode never having ever added anything to proceedings. By this point we also had everyone the Ponds knew conveniently coming into their lives when the plot called for it...
You need to find a person called Melody? Well conveniently we have a best friend called Mels who you've never seen before and we've not even mentioned, and she's now going to play a pivotal role in a story for all of fifteen minutes to deliver a shock twist.
You need a family figure back home to flesh out the Ponds story all of a sudden because we need to do a story with them back home? Well sure, we basically abandoned the families we set up in Series 5 and actually never saw again - we'll recast the Dad as Mr. Weasley because stunt-casting is cool, and chuck him in for two episodes to show that Amy and Rory do have relatives. Sure it's a bit late in the day for a bit of family emotional resonance, and sure maybe it'd have helped if we'd actually fleshed out or even mentioned these characters before - but don't worry, we're basically going to introduce him, essentially kill off the Ponds one story later and then not even reference him again and just leave him hanging. Oh the fans will cry out about that? We'll just storyboard what we'd have liked to have done had we given any thought to how the character arc needs to pan out satisfyingly.
Oh you need to reveal the Doctor's biggest secret for the 50th Anniversary story? Sure...chuck in a war-torn incarnation of the Doctor we've never seen before! I mean The Doctor has been upfront about his involvement in the Time War with each and every face he's had since. And everyone who knows of him knows he can regenerate. But of course, because we need to stunt-cast again, we'll pretend it's logical that The Doctor's darkest secret is that he had an incarnation that fought in the Time War - which nobody knew before!!! Oh look, John Hurt!!!
Now in Moffat's defence I personally think he got better with Series 8 - he allowed for a bit more time in some of his scenes, and those problematic ones where character emotion were meant to matter a bit more were often a bit less jarring than they once were. It's why I think I like Clara so much now...he afforded her the time to be a bit less snappy, a bit less pun-fuelled. We got scenes like the one where Eleven reappeared briefly in Deep Breath, we got the great argument between The Doctor and Clara at the end of Kill the Moon. We got a nice heart-to-heart on the beach between Clara and the Doctor at the end of Mummy on the Orient Express. We got the intense volcano scene at the start of Dark Water. We got their utterly disatisfying lie-filled exit in Death in Heaven that made me realise they were actually evoking a response from me emotionally again, and that I actually cared about whether the two of them got some proper closure! Of course whether these arguments, rifts and attitudes are the sort of thing you want in Doctor Who are a matter of opinion and everyone has a different one - for many I understand that this is why they don't like Clara, because she's demanding and overly controlling. For me though it's what the show, and the characters needed. We reach Last Christmas, and even the Danny scenes (despite really not liking him!) were bearable because they bothered to take time with the dialogue and made it count. We had the fake departure for old-Clara at the end and I realise I don't want her to go...I realised how much I liked her. They then reverse it, and she's young again and for the first time in years I've actually cared about the longevity of the character...I want her around! It was such a satisfying conclusion for me.
Moffat is hugely unpredictable when it comes to writing emotionally, and I feel much of his content is dependent on the quality of the actors as he is fairly inconsistent - some episodes contain the best dialogue he's written but the poorest grasp of emotion I've seen in the show (Death in Heaven - the "love isn't an emotion" rubbish, whilst there were otherwise genuinely well written character moments in the story). With Clara he levelled the playing field a bit after so many increasingly poor years of character writing, and I'm hoping Series 9 builds upon what Series 8 offered...hopefully something a bit more positive so that the character can go out on a high. She may yet be the thing that makes me feel that Moffat was (eventually) as capable as RTD of winning me over with the show.
Who wants dull conversation in their entertainment?
