Quote: Godot Taxis @ 1st June 2014, 12:22 AM BSTMoffat isn't an awful writer, but he needs managing. He's good at smutty man/woman dialogue and bon mots but not a lot else.
I don't think there's any/much of that in Blink or Girl in the Fireplace.
It is disappointing that all the eps he wrote weren't up to that high standard though.
Quote: zooo @ 1st June 2014, 12:25 AM BSTI don't think there's any/much of that in Blink or Girl in the Fireplace.
It is disappointing that all the eps he wrote weren't up to that high standard though.
Those two are great; I think my own favourites of his are probably the Eleventh Hour (Smith's first) and that Weeping Angel's two parter.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ 1st June 2014, 12:22 AM BSTMoffat isn't an awful writer, but he needs managing. He's good at smutty man/woman dialogue and bon mots but not a lot else. He's also has the writer's form of cryptomnesia.
If you hadn't heard much music from the second quarter of the 20th century you'd think Oasis was the best band of all time. If you know where they pinched their riffs they become less interesting - so it is with Moffat.
The biggest single mistake being made with the show is believing it needs a writer controlling it. It doesn't, it needs a strong producer and script editor team.
Believing a writer needs to be at the helm will probably lead to Gatiss taking over which will make it even more shit.
What I sad innit. 
Quote: Matthew Stott @ 1st June 2014, 12:30 AM BSTThose two are great; I think my own favourites of his are probably the Eleventh Hour (Smith's first) and that Weeping Angel's two parter.
Blink is excellent and there are some very good bits to the Time of angels and Silence in the Library. That's what I meant by 'managing'. With a decent producer and script editor keeping him focussed and a good interval between stories he'd deliver more often.
Keep him at home and bring him on set to run the tea trolley.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ 1st June 2014, 1:01 AM BSTBlink is excellent and there are some very good bits to the Time of angels and Silence in the Library. That's what I meant by 'managing'. With a decent producer and script editor keeping him focussed and a good interval between stories he'd deliver more often.
Exactly what I've been saying he's a great, amazing writer even in someone else's show bible.
But when he runs a show bible himself, it's just a mess.
That awful rambling last episode of Sherlock, with all those contradictory stories jammed into a mess.
nb these are Moffatt's first 6 episodes on Who, including his first as show runner.
"The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" (2005)
"The Girl in the Fireplace" (2006)
"Blink" (2007)
"Time Crash" (Children in Need mini-episode, 2007)
"Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" (2008)
"The Eleventh Hour"
I'd say they're all killer, no filler.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ 31st May 2014, 8:57 PM BSTOne difference is that Moffat doesn't rewrite other peoples scripts to the same degree RTD did. Apparently RTD did the final draft of almost everyone else's episodes, apart from Moffat's.
DW has a script editor who re-writes other peoples scripts. Too how much of a degree does Moffat influence the script, I don't know. But, does the Script Editor re-write Moffats scripts? I doubt it!
Quote: Matthew Stott @ 31st May 2014, 9:20 PM BSTWhich list did you find? They did one during the RTD years, you might have found that. Here's the top 10 from this one:
Day of the Doctor (Moff era)
Blink (RTD era - By Moffat)
Genesis of The Daleks
Caves of Androzani
City of Death
Talons
Empty Child/Doc Dances (RTD era - By Moffat)
Pyramids of Mars
Human Nature/Family of Blood (RTD era)
Remembrance of The DaleksAfter that they're spread more evenly. The lowest placed ep from either era is one called Fear Her, from the RTD era, which came 240 out of 241 stories!
And, only God knows how Day of the Doctor was voted the best episode, EVER!
It was a mess!
Because the best writing is. War and Peace is a confusion of family relationships. James Joyce's Useless, Tristiam Shandy, Gulliver's Travels (how can he find countries of both giants and tiny people?) and so on.
Have you read 'Useless' Paul? None of your books would go on my Desert Island disc selection. The best writing is silkily smooth and engaging. Nabokov if you want a Russian. Robertson Davies if you want a literary saga. A televisual dogs dinner served up in a gifted classic series with genre, narrative and intelligent expectations and failing - is pretty much that. WHO is not avant -garde and it should never be up it's own fundament, silurian or otherwise.
There's also a huge difference between a loose, shaggy dog story and an hour of supposedly populist cult/scifi TV. I mean on that basis I suppose the wilfully structure less Dangermouse or Young Ones are closer to Ulysses. Although I thought Ulysses the cartoon version was great.
Quote: Charlie Boy @ 1st June 2014, 3:46 PM BSTAnd, only God knows how Day of the Doctor was voted the best episode, EVER!
That's easy to answer, it was recent. It's the same with any polls rating the best movie, song, television show, etc. People have goldfish memories.
I am fascinated to see how Moffat's 'emotions vs science' approach works with an older, less attractive Doctor. So many fans of the show like it because it's full of eye candy having 'feels', but without David Tennant or Matt Smith running around like love sick puppies, will they stick with the show?
If you want a bit of fun, try to imagine a Malcolm Tucker-esque Doctor in 'The Rings of Akhaten' - yep, that's the episode with the alien choir singing to the planet - another fine example of why New Who sucks anus.
That one was indeed crap. Whoever the Doctor was.
And I've never approved of the Doctor having remotely romantic feels, even when it was Tennant.
I'd say early season RTD is New Who at it's best. Was there ever a finer Dalek story then, Dalek.
Just don't anyone even think of the New York one with the pigmen.
The horror, the horror.
Of late Dr Who does America with really, really bad RADA US accents have been amongst the worst things on telly.
It's like a reverse Dick van Dyke.
[ooh er missus, snigger, snigger]