You wait for months and months and then a bunch of Doctor
Who news comes along at once. Earlier in the week there were a couple of
comments from King Showrunner and Keeper of the Canon Lore Steven Moffat that assuaged
fears that he might have stopped overhyping things. Then the week ended with the
announcement of series eight’s premiere date, a trailer and a publicity still
of Clara and the Capaldi Doctor stood in a new TARDIS.
I’ll get to the series eight stuff in another post. For
now I want to look at The Moff’s comments.
As far as I’m aware they stemmed from the page Moffat
writes for DWM. The first was a mention of series nine. Yes, that’s the series
that will air next year, not the one that will air this year that Moffat should be building interest in (because, y’know,
it’s his job). He revealed that he’d just written a “whooper” of a cliffhanger
for the series’ penultimate episode.
So we know Moff’s writing the episode, which in turn confirms
that he’s intending to stay in charge at least until the end of series nine.
While it was the done thing for the lead writer to provide the final two
episodes of a series under RTD it’s not always been the case under Moffles.
Series six featured a penultimate episode from Gareth Roberts (Closing Time,
featuring the return of hilarious scamp Craig Owens) and series seven saw Neil
Gaiman in the spot (giving us his take Cybermen and space circuses). It’s
incredibly unlikely Moff would entrust another writer with the series finale so
it’s looking like he’ll be back to writing the final two episodes himself.
Does this mean a proper two part send off to series nine?
Well, it’s possible. But… well, it’s not actually been Moffat’s style since
taking over. The Chibnall-penned Silurian two parter and the Ganger debacle in
the middle of series six aside Moff has tended towards two parters that have a
second half that’s distinct in style, tone, story and (often) setting from the
first. It was a trend that developed as early as series two as Russell T and
the production team realised that the pacing of two part stories for a modern
audience just didn’t work without a significant change coming at the halfway
point.
The trait has been accentuated under Moff’s reign. It’s
one of the things I think he’s gotten right. It’s not only helped to
distinguish his era from RTD’s in a positive way (I tend to find most
differences negative, as anyone who’s read this blog before will know) but it’s
also made for better two part stories than the Davies era could generally
muster.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that series seven
featured no two part stories at all. Instead Moffat went with his much
ballyhooed movie poster approach, which produced such classics as A Town Called
Mercy, Hide, and, of course, The Rings of Akhaten. Moffat made a deliberate
move away from two parters, saying he felt the show needed a fresh approach. He
was probably right, but that he gave us such an average series without them may
have caused someone at the BBC to request they be reinstated. Or perhaps The
Moff himself has decided they’ve had enough of a rest. Either way it wouldn’t
have done his budgets any good: two parters were introduced by RTD specifically
as a money saver.
Of course the real thing we should focus on here isn’t
two part stories or that Moffat’s sticking around for at least another year. It’s
that overhype’s coming into play again. He’s written a whooper of a cliffhanger
has he? Great. It’s not like he’s got a history of letting us down on those
sorts of promises…
No, hang on a second. He does. The “game changing”
revelation that River was Amy and Rory’s kid is my favourite example but there’s
also his promise that we’d find out the Doctor’s name in the series seven
finale. I enjoyed his promise that Doctor Who would be all over people's screens in 2013. I could point to more but, well, Moffat’s actually provided some fresh
material so let’s focus on that.
His other DWM comment saw him say that it’s never been
explicitly stated that the Doctor is not human. Having only sat through a small
selection of black and white era stories, possessing only a hazy familiarity
with Pertwee era works, and only really enjoying the first half of Tom Baker’s
stretch I’m not familiar enough with all of Doctor Who to argue with him. Not
that I feel compelled to because to be honest he’s probably right: it probably isn’t
ever stated that the Doctor’s not human. But so what? Does that mean Moffat has to write a story (or stories)
addressing the issue?
Is it not enough that Time Lords and humans are presented
as different species and that the Doctor has always been identified as a Time
Lord? Probably not, knowing Moffat. The comment seems to hint (or is at least designed
to hint) at Moffat gearing up to present Time Lords as future humans. Which is
about the most fanficish story he could go with. I’m reliably informed it was a
passé idea in fan circles during the eighties and it’s notable that even when the
BBC Books line (which had descended into an awful sort of official fanfic
itself by this point) went with the idea they saw the error of their ways pretty
sharpish.
The thing is that having Time Lords presented as future
humans is something that could be presented as A Big Shock Twist™, quite
possibly the Big Shock Twist™ he’s mentioned for series nine’s penultimate
cliffhanger. If there’s one thing that can be said for Moffat’s approach to
writing and running the series it’s that he has a proclivity towards Big Shock
Twists™. I’m not against them in principle. They can work if they’re properly
prepared for and people are encouraged to care about the plots and characters
involved. But nothing about Moffat’s four years in charge indicates that he
understands how to make people care. He just understands how to make people
anticipate a revelation, and there’s a massive difference.
Oh, and he also wrote “Fandom, to your work.” Because he’s
a twat.
