Don't get me wrong I'm a huge John Hurt fan and I loved seeing him play The Doctor but that leaves a huge question. Why did Moffat decide to cast a new Doctor instead of bringing the 8th one back?

I had always heard that Paul Mcgann wanted to return to the show so maybe Moffat wasn't a fan of his Doctor which resulted in him casting John Hurt.

I think it was that the Eighth Doctor, and the Doctor in general, was just never the type to fight in a war and commit such atrocities as attempted genocide of his own people, so they created a more "warrior" type Doctor who had been created in the story to specifically fight in the Time War where any of the other Doctors would have failed.

As for his feelings towards McGann, I don't think he disliked him so much (he did bring him back briefly and I think it's safe to say his Big Finish audios have officially been considered canon by him) but I also think that, like many people, he doesn't remember him quite as fondly as some the older Doctors because his only major TV appearance as the Doctor was the not-so-popular movie. It's just a hunch, though.

The movie was popular though. It got about 8 million viewers.

Because the incarnation that fought in the war supposedly did terrible things, which Moffat couldn't picture any regular incarnation ever doing.

I think the term popularity was used to describe peoples feelings towards it. Baby by Justin Bieber has loads of views on youtube yet I bet its got plenty of dislikes

I still maintain the opinion that the 50th anniversary is Moffat's biggest (by far!) stumble. Something as big as that was going to be hard to satisfy anywhere near everyone, and I'm still glad most enjoyed it - but both the Time War semi-rewrite and the War Doctor concepts are hugely frustrating.

I feel Moffat's view of death and war is somewhat infantile. We seldom have deaths that stick (credit where it's due, he kept Danny Pink dead) and he seems to think a 'regular' incarnation, as you say, is incapable of doing terrible things in war. The sad truth about soldiers is that they are regular people underneath their training and actions in war. They've often got families, they've got children, whole lives back home and are often very loving, caring people. That's the horror of war. Taking the Doctor out of that by putting in a sort-of Doctor that can excuse his actions because he briefly called himself something else is just... well it left me speechless at the time. That Series 8 went on to describe the Doctor as "an idiot, with a box, passing through" is exactly the point... you have to be able to believe that he is both that idiot hero in the Tardis and the heroic soldier on the battlefield. Moffat took a bit of that away that day in his script, even if logically speaking his idea still made little sense and felt like a way to just shoehorn in an A-List celebrity.

I'm not a fan of 'Day of the Doctor' ether, nor indeed 'dead' characters returning but I think the above statement is a little ridiculous. Do you really think Moffat's 'real' views on 'death and war' are apparent in Doctor Who? To assume that would be infantile.

Do you think the Danny Pink storyline was infantile? I thought it was pretty damn 'grown-up- by Doctor Who standards. Danny Pink fought as a soldier and he killed a child. In the apparent afterlife he then met that child. He ultimately sacrificed his own chance to save himself to offer the boy a second chance instead, earning him some form of redemption.

You'll struggle to find a more 'mature' storyline in Doctor who. A lot of fans either did not care about it or actively disliked it. On the other hand they feel strongly about such issues as whether the Doctor is using a sonic screwdriver or not. So there you have it. That's the level of the audience for the show I guess. Moffat killed Osgood for dramatic purposes and to establish the serious threat of Missy... but fans didn't like her being dead so she's back. Who's to 'blame' here? The writer for trying to please his audience or the audience for being vacuous?

I'd love a more serous treatment for Doctor Who with higher stakes and more authentic drama... but whenever Moffat pushes things just a tiny bit in that direction there is an outcry. Response to the criticism of a 'complex' season 6? A bland, largely inconsequential season 7. Serious, thoughtful storyline (Danny Pink) gets the cold shoulder in Season 8? Welcome to the light and breezy Season 9. Moffat DOES listen to the audience, despite what some of his 'haters' say. And if only he didn't.

Is Moffat infantile? Or is the Doctor Who audience? Again, Moffat made 'war and death' the central theme last season... but all the audience could say was Danny Pink wasn't 'likable'. If only he'd been a cosplayer. Or they claimed he was 'bashing soldiers' because they didn't have the intellect or attention span to wait for the thematic pay-off. That's who he's writing for.

I think it was felt that it would've been out of character for Eight, who is a romanticist (one of the first things he did was kiss!), a bit scatterbrained (easily distracted, prone to bouts of memory loss), and well, just generally not a soldier type. Plan A was to use the Ninth Doctor in the war, but Chris Eccleston said no. Hence Plan B, the War Doctor.

Granted I could have worded it better perhaps, but I think the point is clear that I think Moffat's view of death and war in regards to Doctor Who is infantile. It goes without saying that I don't necessarily assume it's a reflection of his real views, and am only ever going to speak about how he writes. And it's a view I'm sticking with.

Danny Pink's 'war child' story wasn't too bad at all - and I even pointed out that it warranted credit in my original comment. It wasn't perfect (logically as a plot it's nonsensical... the boy didn't have a physical body to come back to...though that's more of an issue with the Nethersphere story) but it involved death, and consequences. Unfortunately though, that doesn't mean it isn't an exception to the rule.

Danny Pink as a whole, is a character that was deeply flawed - and not in a perfection requires imperfection kind of way. He looked down on the Doctor as an 'officer' of war, and we were never afforded the respectful retort from the Doctor about his role in the Time War...how he's spent his time fighting on the front line. Why was Danny never given a moment from the Doctor like Bonnie was in The Zygon Inversion... it made sense. Instead we endured a character who insisted that the Doctor liked to keep his hands clean, and it was never challenged. For a thoughtful storyline, as you describe it, it was also very unchallenging. And that sounds a bit like a contradiction. Danny wasn't a good character for me, because he spent his entire time lecturing the Doctor about how he was morally superior to him in some way... and it was never questioned. He was described as unlikeable by so many I think, because he wasn't ever written in a way that seemed to open the door to being likeable.

For the record, I actively disliked Danny Pink. I also don't really care if the Doctor uses a sonic screwdriver or not (the sunglasses don't bother me, and I think their conspicuousness has forced the writers to use them less than if we'd had a screwdriver).



Who's to blame? The writer. The writer, every time. If you're put in a position to play god over a fictional universe of characters, you need to have the courage of your convictions to stick by what you do with them. You kill a character, in the vast majority of cases they need to stay dead. It doesn't matter how popular they are, you've committed yourself to the idea, and it's your responsibilty as a good writer (which Moffat is) to respect how permanent death is.

You state the problem yourself. "Moffat killed Osgood for dramatic purposes". He didn't kill her because he had the story for it, he killed her because someone needed killing. it was a plot device for him to utilise (to show how merciless Missy was) rather than any source of drama. Once that plot is done with a series later, we find ourselves with Osgood back. They just about managed to pull it off, and only by means of having a perfectly lined up Zygon excuse for it. But it more often than not goes horrendously wrong.

Donna is a good example of it handled well - her exit was tragic, emotional, the loss of a popular character. I loved her, and wanted her to have her memory back more than anything - as did a great number of people. But there was courage of conviction, and the fate stuck. And that exit is all the more powerful for it.

Rose is an example of it handled less well, to balance the playing field. As the other RTD companion to "die", Rose's return was divisive at best, and a lot worse according to many. This is because the established fate of the character was damaged. The biggest mistake I'd say was the beach scene in Journey's End - the character never really died and so her return wasn't overly offensive in and of itself, but to mock the fate-sealing beach scene of Doomsday by echoing it with a weird sorta-sequel taints the first one. It cheapens the finality of that first exit scene, just as does Moffat's resurrection of Osgood.


I've said before that fans seldom know what they want. I've got friends demanding less serious stories, then a fun one comes along that they proclaim is stupid. They insist they're tired of standalone stories, then they've loathed Series 9 for its two-part efforts. You don't listen to fans beyond constructive common consensus criticism (try saying that when you're drunk!).

The problem is that many of the problems with a particular series do warrant some questioning. Series 6 did have a complex story arc... but it eventually led to the creation of the 'Mels' character literally out-of-the-blue, and it led to the most overwhelmingly simple resolution of all that didn't compliment or reward the fans it had made to think on a more complex level. It was too smart for it's own good, and it burnt itself out. With that in mind, I have to agree with any collective criticism of that (and even then, I loved Let's Kill Hitler, so I'm not just mindlessly hating on the show...but I will raise issues with aspects of what I consider to be poor writing).

If Moffat caves in so far for Series 7, then that's a misstep on his part. So fans wanted something less complex at that point (a valid request, you could argue)...does that mean they don't want two-part stories at all? Does that mean they want a series which in your own words describe as 'bland and inconsequential'?


On this I agree with you. As someone who likes both the Twelfth Doctor and Clara a hell of a lot, I've seen this series how we've had one character who they've had the courage of conviction to maintain as a bossy control freak like she always was...and it's wonderfully consistent. On the other hand we've got a Doctor who in The Magician's Apprentice seems to undergo an almost instantaneous personality transplant around the edges - giving up on the gradual softening we saw all the way through to Last Christmas. And as expected there were then fans to complain about how 'soft' the Doctor has become now. I've loved Series 9 a lot, enjoyed a breezier Doctor as well as the slightly more distant one from Series 8. I just wish the transition had been more gradual, and wish Moffat had stuck to his guns. I can disagree with fans opinions, but I can't hold them responsible for them. I can't disagree with the changes Moffat makes to the show, but I can hold him responsible for them. That's the responsibilty of a writer. I've not implied I think he doesn't listen to his fans, so yes, I agree with you on this one.


Moffat has made the themes of war and death central to several of his series'. Series 6 revolved around how the Doctor was going to die in Utah, Series 7 gradually ended up building up to the whole Trenzalore storyline we got throughout the anniversary - concerning the Doctor's death once again, and ultimately the regeneration limit.

Where Series 6 is concerned, I ask why? Why focus so much on the death of a character we know is going to be alive and well at the end of the series? Usually the plot can fall back on a "how is he going to get out of this one?!" mentality, but spread across six months (accounting the split) the plot wasn't about 'getting out of' the problem... it was about trying to sustain dramatic momentum, which it did poorly. It was about finding a satisfying conclusion, which it did poorly. It could have been the more serious Who with higher stakes that we both seem to be a fan of, but it resorted to shape-shifting robots plucked out of thin air and invented best friends, plucked out of thin air. It cheapened this massive story about the Doctor accepting he could actually die.

Where the anniversary is concerned, which is what I talked about first, it completely removes the idea of 'high stakes'. Moffat's words about giving the Doctor a break on his biggest day are all very well and good, but where's the consequences, where's the dramatic struggle? I don't know whether it's something that bugged 2005 viewers such as myself more than Classic era viewers, but the whole Time War thing was something we were introduced to with our earliest stories - regardless of whether any of us went back and enjoyed some of Classic Who. It was a regular, permanent feature of the show that the Doctor had been involved in this horrific war and had had to make some dire choices. It was the very essence of the character in a lot of ways, that he carried around that burden and it provided the framework for so much drama that Eccleston, Tennant and Smith had conveyed superbly up to that point - and both RTD and Moffat had respected. But rewriting it, took away a fundamental aspect of the character and suggested that all bets were off to what he was capable of doing. He didn't have to live with his mistakes, and when you see him gushing about what he did to the Time Lords, it's a sad truth now that the viewer knows otherwise when looking back. It might have been salvaged, given that the Doctor had already fought in the war for a long time before the 'final day'. Only Moffat insisted that a 'regular' Doctor wasn't capable of committing the acts of war that the story insisted he had. Again, we'd grown up with a character who we'd accepted had done these things...and we loved the character in spite of those things, and were made through great writing to understand his plight. To then shoehorn in a "secret" regeneration is where, for me, all hope is lost at me enjoying it (and no amount of good acting from John Hurt can convince me otherwise). The point of war, is Danny Pink, is the regular everyman forced to commit horrible actions and sometimes overwraught with guilt, despite typically being a normal person with loves and interests, and a compassionate side to him. You don't get to wear a special face in war that you can disown later...to suggest that you can, is in my opinion a very junior view of things. It's infantile.

Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once — everybody lives!... Moffat is capable of such powerful elation, and positive writing with a depth to it. Two sentences there, and I'd say they're Moffat's finest. They hint at the cynicism of the Doctor, the friends of the Doctor, and the enthusiasm of the Doctor all in one!

The 50th anniversary story forgot that genius balance. There are numerous episodic examples (Jenny dying and being resurrected in The Name of the Doctor, Rory, Rory, Rory, etc.) where it's also forgotten... more so than it's been remembered... that death is finality for a reason. It offers wonderful perspective for life, and its absence breeds a mindset of a child who thinks he's indestructible.

I can only say, as is my understanding, that once Chris confirmed he wouldn't be taking part, the 9th role was rewritten slightly.
Whether Paul was considered as Day was shot is moot as he and some of the other former lead actors were committed to a convention (or series of conventions) in Australia.
I think he was, but when he was unavailable, they managed to get Hurt.
Possible Night of the Doctor was a little something extra for Paul and the fans.

Which is where Moffat missed a trick imo. For the 8th Doctor it would have been the ultimate struggle, the death of his people vs the death of everyone, everywhere. The decision to use the WMD and McGann doing his excellent anguish/empathy acting - that would have been amazing. It actually made a lot more sense than what we got. I like John Hurt but we didn't need a long-long Doctor, it could have been done with McGann.

Besides, where on earth did the "I chose the name Doctor to heal not hurt" thing come from? There's never been a hint of that in Hartnell episodes and the vibe was always that "Doctor" is meant in a scientific not medical sense.

I think that's interesting because in 'Rose' it is indicated very strongly that the Doctor has only just regenerated, which always made me think it was the 8th Doctor (McGann) who fought in the time war. So I always thought the 9th Doctor came at the conclusion of the war or perhaps just after in had finished.

That said, there's nothing to suggest that a newly regenerated 9th Doctor wasn't the one who took the Moment to the barn, pressed the button and then whizzed off to 21st century London.

I cant source it but I'm sure I read that the original idea was to have Eccleston as the 'war' doctor.

Edit. I see its already been mentioned

I think it was a mistake confirming Hurt as a 'Doctor' so early. It should have been totally ambiguous and then been a revelation to the Doctor later on that he had this incarnation that he had repressed and knew nothing about.

Granted that would have taken some juggery pokery to reconcile Time War mentions and recollections but dramatically I think it would have been better.

So speaking, yes. It did well in a commercial sense but generally most people don't look too fondly on it, at least from what I see. The main complaints I see being the kiss at the end, the portrayal of the Master, and the "Americanization" of it.

I'm not going to quote Abomination's post as it's very long and hopefully people will have read it. I would like to say though that I totally agree with him. I was one who didn't like Danny Pink but my reason was that I thought the actor who played him was terrible in the role. I found the character boring to watch and to listen to. Having said that, he was redeemed by the sacrifice he made to give the child he killed a second chance and for that S.M. must be praised.

Not a Danny Pink fan, but yes his ending was very noble.

The killing of Osgood in Death in Heaven wasn't just a device to kill off someone, which he then reversed. Moff all along planned to have the "other" Osgood come back, indeed Peter knew about this even if Ingrid didn't!

I couldn't imagine 8 as the Doctor who fought in the Time War, but something I've always wondered is what RTD thought had happened, as he's the one who invented the Time War so he would have had some idea who fought in it.

To be fair, we don't know whether McGann was offered the role, but turned it down due to availability or other issues. Moffat was hardly going to say that an actor like John Hurt was the third choice.

There seems to be a popular myth amongst some fans that McGann will just drop whatever he's doing and rush to Cardiff at a moment's notice. Regardless of scripts, money, availability or any of the issues actors usually consider when accepting a role.

Before anyone chips in with "Ah, he did Night of the Doctor" or "Ah, he does Big Finish", bear in mind those productions take a fraction of the time spent on something like Day of the Doctor.

Totally agree. I sometimes wonder what other shows/culture a great deal of DW fans consume because large swathes of them seem to not only have very dull and catholic tastes but also they really do seem to struggle when ever the show tries anything a little bit even mildly different (emphasis on the word mild here- you can always feel the writers in particular Moffat being reigned in by the restrictions of the show). It seems a vast amount of fans (at least on here) want simple, easy, unchallenging 'fun'. They don't want complex characters with light and shade- they want cartoon characters like Donna Noble or someone they can dress up as or 'ship' (vomit).

Be interesting to see how 'Heaven Sent' is received. I'm expecting many comments along the lines of 'boring'/this will put off the casual viewers/too experimental. Quite frankly in the same way I applauded RTD for bringing the casual viewer on board and being populist I am even happier to see Moffat now have no fear about alienating this audience. There are some people who would have frozen the show in 2008 and placed it on a loop. How very dull. These are the same people who hold viewing figures and popularity with the casual audience as sacred above all else including creativity.

Good point. It's a running joke in 'Five(ish) Doctors' that McGann is a busy bloke always on the phone with his agent. It's even funnier in retrospect that one of the calls might've been for a few days shooting 'Night of the Doctor' and Davison, Baker and Mcoy (who doesn't like to mention it, but was in The Hobbit) didn't know this.

Paul's great. Cool man.

Firstly, thank you for writing an essay longer than my usual ones... :P

Danny Pink points: the Danny Pink storyline was doomed from the start because the audience didn't want it to play out. A lot of people took against him because of his 'unlikable' traits and therefore didn't want to invest in his storyline. This is a problem if you want to try a serious storyline but your audience wants instant gratification. They want to boo someone or cheer someone... everyone has to be a good guy or a bad guy. Danny Pink was too ambiguous. As you say, he had his own thoughts, his own character, his own viewpoint. He didn't acquiesce to the Doctor's viewpoint or even necessarily Clara's. Basically he was an actual character, not a clear cut hero or villain. And apparently the audience didn't like that. I liked that the Doctor, Clara and Danny all had their own perspective and none of them was presented as the right one. That doesn't sound terribly Earth-shattering but for Doctor Who it was a pretty different approach to characterization. Let's be honest: the show is usually pretty simplistic.

The conflict between the three ultimately paid off at the end of the series in a way that was more interesting than if they all had a reconciliatory moment of understanding. Danny came full circle in his progression from the boy unknowingly inspired by Clara's description of the Doctor as the soldier without a weapon who protects people but who life gave different circumstances to (the innocent life lost through his actions) to being that soldier giving his life to keep the world safe - that role which the Doctor, and initially Clara too, was so cynical of, in their equating of soldiers with an unquestioning spirit of combat. See, that was the point: yes, he and the Doctor were in a way alike, had experienced the same things. That was the ultimate irony of the story, remembering that the young Pink was inspired by 'Dan the Soldier Man', which was actually Clara's description of the Doctor.

The characters don't need to see that irony for the story to have a pay-off. That's actually rather unsubtle. Of course, all of this only works if the audience wants to invest in the storyline anyway and they decided early that they didn't in a lot of cases. We'll have to agree to disagree whether this is Moffat's fault. He's writing a broad, mainstream show for a broad, mainstream audience very used to being served up familiar tropes and easily readable characters, rather than inscrutable ones like Pink.

On a personal level, I absolutely agree with you that it is the author's job to dictate to the audience, not the other way around but Doctor Who isn't literature for literature's sake or art for the sake of expression: it's populist fiction. You can't force people to digest it on the level you'd rather they did.

Moffat tries. I don't ask more of him than that. And when he's tried to do something a bit weightier it generally hasn't received strong audience acclaim. I'm not saying I think he's done everything right (I more or less agree with you about Season 6 for example) but I'm sympathetic of the job he has in balancing trying to do something interesting and challenging whilst simultaneously pandering to the mainstream audience.

I 'forgave' him Day of the Doctor for that very reason. It was an impossible job writing the anniversary. I didn't like the portrayal of the Time War; I didn't really buy into the War Doctor idea but Moffat had about a million requirements with that script.

Osgood points: If Osgood had been a character with a lot of characterization and invested emotional weight behind her then it would have been cheap to kill her off for dramatic effect in Death in Heaven. But she really wasn't and so I think she was fair game.

Should Moffat bring her back because she was popular? ideally, no. Would I have brought her back? I'd like to think not but then that's easy for me to say sitting here when my job isn't affected by people online who hate me so that would be a rather untested creed to claim it.

He had a pretty good way of doing it (Zygon Osgood) so he did it. Personally I don't like it but I'm understanding of it. Let's not imagine it's all Moffat's decision to make either. The BBC has recently been promoting the character rather heavily. Check out her presence here for example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho...4-2721c58e0255 Now, I don't think anyone 'forced' Moffat to bring her back but I can also quite easily imagine it was a popular idea that was put to him. Doctor Who is a commercial brand and creative decisions are not only made for creative reasons. Again, I doubt Osgood's return was pushed on Moffat, but pretty clearly it would be tempting from a commercial viewpoint. It's not fair to analyze Doctor Who like a novel or an independant film. As executive producer Moffat has to be concerned with the mass audience. As much as I agree in principle that the author should dictate to the audience, that is not Moffat's job. His job is to deliver a popular show that will sell in commercial markets.

It's easy to criticize him, a lot harder to actually try and understand the difficulty of the creative process in the circumstances of the Doctor Who showrunner. I think he gets in the level of sophistication he can, whilst pandering to the extent he feels necessary. It's a balancing act. Who can really judge where the parameters should be? I will say that I think RTD had a better sense of that than Moffat. In fact, that is his principle genius: populist writing that is not totally compromised. Moffat hasn't quite got a season right in that sense. It's either been too lightweight or alienated too much of the audience.

At the end of the day I always revert to judging what's on screen. Strax was another character brought back from the dead, and I initially disliked the idea because I really liked his original death scene. But the character entertains me and that was the ultimate justification. And it doesn't change his death scene in 'A Good Man'. I can rewatch that for what it is without focusing on 'oh, but he came back later'. But that's me. I'm very continuity unfocused when it comes to Doctor who. I only really care about the story at hand. Individual mileage may vary as they say.

I think the reason for every storyline Moffat does is because he thinks it will be exciting. I don't think he focuses on it in a longer term sense. The Doctor appears to die? Great season opener. Who is River Song? Great mystery! Some of these things are storylines that cannot really pay off satisfyingly in a formulaic show like Doctor Who but I'm happy to be along for the ride mostly.River's damp squib reveal as Melody Pond doesn't detract from the mystery or excitement of her earlier appearances, for me. I'd rather Moffat was throwing the best ideas he can come up with into the show than holding back in fear of it being too ambitious (even though some of it ultimately proved to be).

Watching the night of the doctor I want a full series with Paul McGann.

No problem, long messages are apparently a specialty of mine


On the issue of people not wanting the storyline to play out, or being prejudgemental of Danny Pink as a character, I agree with you. As soon as a recurring or lead character becomes the slightest bit ambigous people condemn it - the same can be said for some extent for the Twelfth Doctor. He was never ambiguous to the extent of you wondering if he was the hero, but many people resented the "am I a good man" stuff very quickly and didn't want to see it play out. A great shame that people aren't willing to invest or go on that journey (maybe the same where Colin Baker's Doctor was concerned?), especially when I didn't even consider the Twelfth Doctor to be unlikeable at any point. A bit grumpy, a bit snide around the edges at worst... but it fed into his character and felt much more multi-faceted than what we'd had before. I can even say that about Danny Pink to start with - I didn't dislike him straight away. I didn't much like him either, and tend to start on neutral ground but his contribution to Into the Dalek was relatively inoffensive. My later dislike is something that grew from the journey I was happy to see unfold, but ultimately dissatisfied with.

You're right that he wasn't presented as a hero or a villain, but rather a person. And you're right that he had his own perspective, as did the Doctor and Clara...and it was wonderfully realised that these were three very conflicting personalities. I enjoyed that, I won't deny it that the dynamic itself was fresh to an extent (admittedly I'd like a Mickey/Rory/Danny that doesn't seem to have a problem with the Doctor because of the women that he associates with) and it rose above the more simplistic approach that I agree the show usually has. My problem is that I disagree that there was sufficient pay-off with it all. We saw The Doctor and Clara have a massive blow-out in Kill the Moon, and it wasn't resolved that week. In fact we spent most of the following accept deliberately not resolving it either, but skirting around it as a delicate subject. Neither the Doctor or Clara were ever shown to be 'right', and it was never used as leverage against the other. It wasn't the approach I expected, but it was fantastic! It nicely complimented Mummy on the Orient Express rather than being a massive full-blown drama all its own, and proved you don't need a tidy resolution where they reach mutual understanding. Moffat did do that...for The Doctor and Clara. We wrap it up as Clara having a "wobble, a big wobble" but it was overcome. They continued to have an occasionally friction-fraught friendship for the rest of the series and it wasn't dropped... many hated it (the oh so original Clara Who comments, just like Amy Who, Donna Who, Martha Who and Rose Who before it) but I did enjoy that a lot. And it afforded Series 9 the chance to have a much more casual friendship now that the drama and character had been invested in (I feel The Magician's Apprentice was too big a leap in sudden niceness for The Doctor, but apart from that it's been done well). But Danny Pink didn't work for me. It didn't need mutual understanding at the end, but it needed more than it was afforded in Death in Heaven. It painted Danny as a hero, getting away with criticising the Doctor without any intervention from the Doctor or Clara (the latter perhaps understandable). Saving the child was a heroic act, and it should have been what made me like the character in the end, and to ultimately see him as a hero. But it jumped the gun too early, and painted a one-sided argument with him prematurely, not letting the Doctor fight his own corner. After a series build up of resentment towards 'officer' Doctor, in a series that spends its entire time asking whether he's a good man, it felt like a let down. The only time it's addressed is when the Doctor mentions to Missy that he's not an officer... but that's entirely in service of Missy's plot, not Danny's. In the end he felt a pale imitation of a character that could have been a lot more... what I felt I got, and it's only personal opinion but I went in with an open-mind, was a character who resented the hero I like despite me knowing more about this hero than he does, and the show never feeling inclined to argue back on that occasion - despite doing so successfully with Clara in the same series.



Don't get me wrong, full credit to the man where it's due that he tried new things. And he has a rather thankless job that many fail to realise, and he's clearly a fan of the show and genuinely tries to do right by it. More or less, I cannot even try to argue that he doesn't get more right than he does wrong - or else I wouldn't be on a forum talking about the show after six years of him as showrunner.

And more or less I forgive the things he does that come across as missteps. If I didn't, I'd be droning on and on (as some do) about what they dislike and how they wish it were done as RTD would have done it, or whatever. As an example, Mels is a horrendous character concept... dropped in out of the blue without even a hint or a reference to her previously, and we're to accept that she's a lifetime friend of Amy and Rory who later turns out to rather conveniently be River Song as well. In terms of concepts...that is genuinely horrendous, to the extent you wonder how it ever was deemed acceptable. But even then, Lets Kill Hitler, despite being the only ever episode with Mels in it, is an episode I love. I can forgive that as so much else is done right for me. Not even the Tesselecta which would go on to tarnish this Series 6 arc further could taint the fact I enjoyed the episode...it was a fun way to bring the show back to screens, it had emotional scenes that weren't outright gushing, the whole thing looked superb, and unlike the episode before it it made the right move to more-or-less stay in the same location for more than a few minutes, with a smaller cast of characters to focus on. I can forgive all of that because the episode on its own did things right, and in the grander scheme of things it's inconsequential... how often are those events referenced again?

The Day of the Doctor was different though. And regardless of being a script that was impossible to get right, it nonetheless made the active choice of altering a significant part of the show - in a way that also retrospectively makes you see all that came before it in a different light as well. That is a tremendous gamble to take...and not one that paid off for me. It cheapened the sense of consequence, and is an awful lot harder for me to dismiss or 'forgive' because it involves a concept that is referred to quite frequently, and even more so in episodes I may rewatch. It doesn't afford me a fresh new perspective where I feel I understand anything more than I did either, it affords me a perspective of knowing that I know better than the Doctor... that his big nonsensical secret is even more nonsensical now because he never did the thing he thought he did. I do my best to get on with that, to the extent I keep an open-mind about what a Gallifrey story may be about. But it's a hell of a lot harder to 'forgive' than anything else because it messes with a fundamental element of the show that may be referenced or relevant in absolutely any episode.

Beyond that I never felt a multi-Doctor story was particularly inspired for a show that could go anywhere in time and space and had done multi-Doctor stories before, I found the Zygon story to be dull and the Queen Elizabeth scenes to be a true waste of a fantastic historical figure (to an extent that future appearances of the character would struggle to recover what this one did). These are admittedly personal gripes and I don't hold Moffat accountable for not meeting my every personal demand...everyone has episodes they don't like, and anniversary status or not this was just as likely a candidate as any. But it was the game-changing elements that bothered me, personally, and they inflicted Moffat's tendency to rewrite history with huge flexibily onto a major emotional crux of the show.


I agree with more or less all of this, and even when I can say that I can place Series 9 in my personal top three (with Series 1 and 4) it's hard to deny that Moffat has struggled to get a series right in terms of that sophistication/pandering balance.

I've never accused him personally of messing with things such as the structure of the show. Too many two-parters, too many standalones, too short episodes... that kind of thing is surely something he discusses with other people as well in terms of producing a commercial product that has to be acceptable for broadcast. In situations like that I'll criticise the series as a whole (Series 6... having a two-part arc-heavy opener, a two-part mid-series arc story, and then a one-part finale that tried to chuck in its own tangent too) and only namedrop Moffat where I feel the writing played its part (again, Series 6 finale... did it need to add a 'broken universe' tangent or could the story have been resolved in a more direct, more substance-over-style way?). If those standalone stories all have rushed endings, as was the case with most of Series 7 then I'll complain about the writing (Moffat included, given he is meant to oversee the scripts and shares in the credit for a story well done...from me at least). Beyond that though, I agree it's tricky ground to tread.


Strax is another example of how I hate some of the decisions Moffat makes, but I do my best to simply move on from it - or else you'll never enjoy the show. With that in mind, we hold similar opinions. I find Strax quite funny (although it's been a couple of series, basically, since we've seen him now...and I'm unsure how I feel about the sudden dropping of them) and I enjoy stories he's involved with...at the same time we saw him die (and his resurrection wasn't even in-series) and so that particular episode is tainted because I feel cheated by it. I'll enjoy, say, The Snowmen and The Crimson Horror in which he later appears and think little of the fact he was dead, and then not. I'm not the kind to keep complaining two whole series later about the same issue, but at the same time if someone were to ask me about it then I'd say, yes, it's not particularly satisfying and I do hold the writer accountable for that. When people ask me whether I think Moffat's view of death in the show seems to cheapen the concept, it's an example I can cite to put my opinion across. Strax is a great character in my opinion, but how much more would I like him if I didn't have that small issue at one point with him?


And to bring it full circle, this is where I think 'infantile' creeps in a little bit. It's great to have someone who opts for exciting rather than by-the-numbers by default (I worry that a Gatiss-led show would be very by-the-numbers), but equally simply going for a storyline because it's an exciting idea, doesn't also mean it's a good idea. And I'm clearly happy to still accept that, despite it's tendency to be hit-and-miss, because again I'm still watching without doubt after five Moffat-led series. But rather than feeling like a work of genius (and though DW is seldom genius as we've both agreed, Moffat's timey-wimey antics would give the impression the show has a smartness to it that it doesn't live up to) it feels more like a child playing with his toys out of his toy box.

He sets up a little Lego city, full of little Lego people, doing little Lego things...then BOOM THERE'S A DINOSAUR STOMPING AROUND SMASHING THINGS TO PIECES... and then A SPACESHIP crash lands nearby. No need to worry though, because Mr.Hero and his Plucky Young Friend are nearby and can save the day. The aliens march en masse to the Lego City and threaten to kill everyone. Mr.Hero has a plan though, but WAIT THE ALIENS KILL 'PLUCKY YOUNG FRIEND' and this makes Mr.Hero really sad and distracted. Some people in the city die, but there's a big fight and a 'Random Action Hero' appears and saves the day, because that's exciting and cool... but can't stick around because of reasons. Mr.Hero is fine now, and goes in and stops the aliens because they're actually really weak, and miraculously Plucky Young Friend never died at all...she was actually having a nap, lol... and then, oh yeah we had a STOMPING DINOSAUR...the police took care of that, those policeman we never actually saw or were even referenced before but never mind because this is so much fun!

And the thing is that it is genuinely very fun if you can enjoy it so in-the-moment. I'm not suggesting that the show should become a heavily serious continuity-ladden piece of drama that doesn't know how to let loose around the edges, but equally some consistency and fine-tuning that feels less like a kid with a toy box, and more like a passionate writer who can blend fun with drama as he goes is always nice. In many ways I feel that's why I've so enjoyed Series 9, and really quite enjoyed Series 8 as well... they're not perfect, but they seem to address the balance a bit more. To plant the seeds before telling us there's a plant... to have an involved plot that isn't so heavy on continuity that we're constantly back-pedalling.

Having Davros reappear in your first episode is an ambitious idea, and I love it. I can't say it necessarily paid off to have such a continuity-heavy idea to kick off a new series, but with "Moffat tries" in mind I do agree entirely, and whilst I wasn't the biggest fan of the opening episode, I loved the second and can at least see what was trying to be achieved. But hark back a few years and there are examples where the toy box analogy feels much more in line with what we were getting...and there's less trying there, there's less of a responsible writer in there, it's no-reigns fun and excitement that squanders ambitious ideas because all bets are off as to what could ever actually happen.

John Hurt was the war doctor because they couldn't get Eccleston back. Simple as that. It was never going to be Paul McGann.

It was obvious at the time that Moffat had imagined the part with Eccleston in mind, given that he didn't really even change the role. It was basically the 9th doctor as played by John Hurt, with a few lines different to what the script would have been with Eccleston for real.

Some people denied the fact that this was the case at the time and insisted that it would never have been Eccleston in the war doctor role etc, but even on this forum, recently, there have been storyboard tidbits and things from when it was the idea to have Eccleston on board.

I really want Paul McGann to have his own New Who Era (( He seems like my type of doc.