Russell T. Davies Vs Steven Moffat - Battle of the Doctor Who Producers
Part 1 - Stories & Writing
Part 1 - Stories & Writing
By Ken Parker
The moment Russell T. Davies announced
he would be stepping down as executive producer for Doctor Who
I planned on writing this article. I was ready to happily compare
Steven Moffat's take on Doctor Who compared to Russell's view
of the TV show. I knew without a doubt that Steven Moffat would run
the table and be better at the job than Russell T. Davies.
Having been an American fan of Doctor
Who since the late 70's, I was eagerly awaiting the return of the
series in 2005 but the show did not meet my expectations. Numerous
things, in my mind, made the show inferior to the classic series and
I felt that Davies was responsible for much of the problem. I did
feel that the show had some good points and it struggled to keep a
constant quality product. One of the highlights from the first few
years was episodes written by Steven Moffat and so when it was
announced that he was taking over from
Both have produced around the same
number of stories as of right now, 2015 and so comparisons between the two
seem fair now. In order to have an actual comparison I will look at
several elements of the Doctor Who series and determine who
might have done a better job at providing a quality product.
Obviously, my stance on Doctor Who is not all positive. This
opinion that I express is just that, an opinion but it is based on
comparison to the original series and story telling in general as
well as my own agendas and experiences with Doctor Who over
the years. I am no expert and welcome discussion on this.
Stories and writing in general is a very broad topic to start
with and probably the biggest element to cover. Stories are
ultimately the responsibility of the writer but it is the producer
that sets the stage and often has the entire season mapped out with
the main threads of plot woven within guest authors' scripts. The
producer has the responsibility for the tone, look and agenda for the
series and so the writers must adhere to the guidelines and fit their
story within these confines. Good writers will often be able to
excel within good overall structures and may be able to even shine
within poorly designed seasons. Bad written stories may even be able
to get away with it if the structure of the season is superb.
Russell
T. Davies was all about emotional set pieces. He had agendas
and objectives that were obtained by creating a series that would
highlight these agendas and points. His top agenda was the changes
that people go through while traveling with the Doctor. This was a
life changing event and it was something that virtually every
character wanted to do. People would want to travel with the Doctor
and would often fall in love with the Doctor to some extent. The
Doctor was charismatic and it was addictive to be with him. You look
at examples of this where companions and characters lay down their
lives to support the Doctor. They would do anything to be with the
Doctor. Captain Jack abandons Torchwood in a flash to be with the
Doctor. None of the companions want to leave the Doctor. They all
want to be with him or travel with him. It is all about the Doctor.
This touches upon that controversial
idea of companions falling in love with the Doctor. This was
virtually non-existent in the classic series. I felt that the
relationship between Doctor 9 and Rose was well done and at no point
did I feel that they were falling in love with one another. The
thought is too odd. Of course, many fans wanted them to fall in love
and saw that there was an emotional connection beyond just friends.
This shipping would blow up with Doctor 10 and ultimately Davies made
it come true. Again, I feel that he did okay with it but now it was
all about everyone falling in love with the Doctor. The Doctor was
cool and everyone wanted to be with the Doctor. Davies is taking the
literal idea of people watching Doctor Who who want to be with the
Doctor and making it really the case for the characters in the show.
Traveling with the Doctor is fun. The
Doctor and the companions are all having fun. Even with death all
around them, the writing includes many scenes of companions
high-fiving the Doctor and enjoying their time. Their lives are
miserable before and after the Doctor. Within a couple of minutes of
Rose hearing that Mickey might be dead at the hands of the Autons in
“Rose”, she is running down a bridge with the Doctor, hand in
hand with a huge smile on her face. This scene was the most important part of that episode. Davies wanted to establish that Doctor Who is fun. Classic fans watched the show when we were
young and like Davies, had fun watching it but Davies took that fun
literally and elected to translate that as the characters are having
fun. This does not gel that well with the fact that their lives are
in danger and people are dying around them all the time. 
This was
one of my primary reasons why I had trouble with the show to start
with. In “Boomtown” the Doctor, Rose and Jack are having the
time of their lives talking about unseen events that happened to
them. Mickey is jealous as should all viewers. All viewers want to
be part of that inner circle while traveling in the TARDIS. Of
course, why would someone stay with the Doctor if they were not
having fun? The argument could be that Davies wanted companions to
have a reason to stay with the Doctor as most companions in the
original series might not have had a clear cut reason to stay aboard the TARDIS.
Davies adjusted this as time went on
and even addressed this directly in some episodes. In “Tooth and
Claw” the Doctor and Rose are all giddy while dealing with a
werewolf and this is called out and questioned by the Queen. He also
toned down the 'love' aspect for the Doctor as that was getting old,
fast. We will get into more about this when we cover the Doctors and
companions in another part.
Davies wrote a fair amount of the
episodes each season including the premieres and finales. His
episodes range from excellent to horrible, in my opinion. His guest
writers seemed to do better with quality scripts. In the first
season the top several received stories include “Dalek”,
“Father's Day”, “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”
which were not written by Davies. Second and third season highlights
include “School Reunion”, “The Girl in the Fireplace”, “Rise
of the Cybermen”, “Age of Steel”, “The Impossible Planet”,“
The Satan Pit”, “Blink”, “Human Nature”, and “Family of
Blood.
Davies was not a bad writer, he often
had to craft the big picture and at times that was a let down (see
season 3, if you must). He did have some really good stories
including “Bad Wolf”, “The Parting of the Ways”, “Tooth and
Claw', “Army of Ghosts”, “Doomsday”, “Utopia”, “The
Fires of Pompeii,” “Midnight,” “Turn Left,” “The Stolen
Earth,” and “Journey's End.”
His priority was with these emotional
set pieces and this was something that helped and hurt him. In
“Doomsday,” the big moment when the Cybermen and the Daleks met
for the first time, Davies smartly countered the scene with Jackie
Tyler meeting the alternate reality Pete Tyler in an emotional scene
that almost bested that other fan moment. Davies was good with
characters for the most part.
Despite having some emotional
discontinuity (Rose smiling after the death of Mickey for example) we
saw more character development in this series in one story than we
did in entire seasons of the classic series. Davies was not superb
with characters, but he was good with them. This priority would make
stories suffer at times. The conclusion to stories would often
include a reset button or an easy out at a single action. In “Age
of Steel,” “Doomsday,” and “The Last of the Timelords” a
simple and often poorly designed out would save the day.
Davies loved to make connections in the
show and bring back characters often. This resulted in a smaller
universe for Doctor Who. Everyone knows everyone else and the
Doctor deals with the same aliens and bad guys and everyone is
related to something we have seen in the show already. Davies also
created a fan world with Doctor Who. Fans on forums love to
guess that the Cybermen would return, that Donna is the Rani that Rose is a Timelord and so on. These ridiculous guesses at times were just shots
in the dark but the writing would often feel the same way and
sometimes we would have ridiculous plot developments that only a fan
could come up with. One prime example is that tongue in cheek scene
where Captain Jack says he is the Face of Boe. This scene makes
little sense and while it is obvious that Davies is poking fun at
fans and their horrible guesses, perhaps he is making fun at his own
writing.
Davies loved to elevate his stories and
get the audience involved. He would have scenes where people prayed
for the Doctor and would no doubt want the audience to be so swept up
in this emotion that they too would be on the edge of their seats
praying (“The Last of the Time Lords”). This was often just too
much for me and felt contrived and weakened the plots. Again, if
Davies was successful at getting people to buy into the emotion of
the scene and punch the air when the Doctor triumphs, then more power
to him.
Watching Doctor
Who could be very emotional for me. I remember watching
absolutely horrible
stories but being caught up with the emotion. If
Davies had the ability to do that then he was successful. At the time
I would feel the emotion but also feel that the story was not so
great. This mis-direction would often distract the audiences from
the fact that the plot was not that good. Audiences will love a story
at first glance if something overshadows the plot. I had trouble
ignoring some of the weakness of the script but would love the
emotion that was available. In “Journey's End” the conclusion of
the season has Donna losing her memories and leaving the Doctor in
one of the most heart wrenching moments in Doctor Who. This was
beautifully plotted out and acted by Tennant, Tate and Cribbens. A
highlight for sure but the resolution of everything was based on
Donna pushing a few buttons on a control panel. Really? Davies is
again, emphasizing that it was about characters and emotion, not
plot. My thinking was, why can we not have both!!??
Davies was good at luring people's
attentions away to something else that might be horrible or silly.
I was a big hater of Davies while he
was producer of the show – I blamed him for most of the issues I
had with the series but there managed to be a few really good
episodes each season. One of his own written highlights for me was
“Midnight.” This story is my favorite by him as it took the
Doctor out of that smug all knowing mode into a new realm where you
felt the Doctor was out of his element. He was defeated and did not
have the upper hand – something rare in Doctor Who. I loved
that and gave Davies all the credit for thinking outside the box on
that one. One of the other reasons that I also have seen Davies in a
new light was when comparing him with Moffat once Moffat took over as
head writer and producer.
Steven Moffat's writing
during Davies era was some of the show's best. Moffat wrote concise, well crafted stories that were all original and thought provoking
and, compared to the majority of the series, superior on every level.
His Twilight Zone like feel made the stories seem like they were
missing something but in the end, it all made sense. Moffat had some
great sci-fi ideas and concepts that were well received by the public
and critics, earning him awards year after year. He won the Hugo
three years in a row during this time period. He has only won a Hugo for "The Pandorica Opens" since taking over as producer.
One would assume that he would be able to carry over this excellent writing when he took over as producer but in my opinion, as with Russell, he suddenly was not the best writer on the show and guest writers often took that spot.
Steven
Moffat was my favorite writer for the first 4 seasons of the
show and when he took over as producer, I half expected each season
to be full of “The Empty Child” and “Blink” caliber episode.
Like the return of Doctor Who in 2005, I was yet again disappointed.
Moffat was great with plots and concepts, a weakness for Davies and I
expected this to improve drastically.
Davies loved to up the ante but that
was nothing compared to what Moffat did. The end of time, the end of
the universe, the end of the Doctor. Moffat writes each season into
an impossible corner like Davies did. Davies would give us an out in
the form of a big red button. Moffat would throw in a mish-mash of
characters and confusion along with an unusually clever out that, on
its own, was excellent, but at times muddled with too much going on.
Moffat's conclusions often had too much going on and sometimes the
stories would be too clever. In “Death in Heaven” Moffat had to
steer too many narratives to reach the idea that the Cybermen were
taking over the dead. If only this would have been simplified to
taking over living people it would make much more sense and steer
clear of the entire muddled downloading souls, and so forth. This
story, stripped to bare bones, would have been outstanding, instead
it was a mess and not a good one.
Seasons would slowly build up momentum and often finales were like reunion specials with appearances by primary cast from the previous seasons. This build up and expectation that would involve a huge cast and answers to how it all comes together would mean viewers would be invested in the finale and would have no idea how the story would
resolve. One of my biggest 'punch the air' moments in Doctor Who
was when the Pandorica opens and it is Amy. WHAT??? An incredible
build up of a cliffhanger in the previous episode, “The Pandorica
Opens” gave the viewers an impossible out. There is no way the
series could fix the fact that Amy was just shot and killed by an Auton
Rory and the Doctor is locked in a cell with no way out. In “The
Big Bang” Moffat delivers an outstanding resolution that works. Also in those episodes are my favorite "timey wimey" scenes where the Doctor travels back in time to fix some minor things with his Fez, young Amy's drink and so on. 
An example of this is when the Doctor leaves Amy behind as she can no longer open her eyes, in "Flesh and Stone" but returns moments later and tells her to remember. In of its self it is a great and touching scene but eagle eye fans correctly noted that this Doctor was from the future and was there because of events happening in the future.
Moffat is probably better at writing sci-fi than Davies is. His stories do have more intelligence and are less juvenile. They don't have rhino and pig aliens and don't rely on flatulence and slap stick gags. The scripts and often the concepts are pretty solid and on paper probably beat Davies's work again and again. He has more trouble mixing in good emotional development and characters. If only these two producers could work together now.
One of Moffat's biggest weaknesses was
his character work. Within his first season it was obvious that his
characters did not have the appeal as previous seasons. Virtually
every female in the series is aggressive, over-sexed, lusting for the
Doctor and confident in themselves. Amy, River, Liz 10, Queen
Nefertiti, Tasha Lem and Missy are all very much one dimensional with
only Amy and River able to have moments in some episodes where they
are able to break this mold. Davies was able to coat poor stories
with good characters but Moffat was not able to coat bad characters
with good story – at least not as successfully as Davies. We will
talk about characters in another segment.
The final say on stories is a tough
call. I am trying to focus on scripts alone and for that I think
Moffat has the clear advantage. Still, I look at Moffat's first
season and 11 good scripts (imho) but probably only 6 good stories.
Davies's first season has 8 good scripts and more like 6 good
stories. Again, this is my view and to each his own.
I am going to have to give Moffat the
nod on this category. I think he has better writing skills and wins
outright. It would be really interesting to see Moffat producing a
Davies written script to compare.
Next time we will look at the Doctors,
Companions and characters that each producer has handled and see if
one of them has done a better job than the other.
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