The Legend of Steven Moffat
Gustaff Behr celebrates Moffat’s accomplishments following his recent OBE award.
Steven Moffat has been writing Doctor Who over for ten years now. Well, since 1999 if we’re counting The Curse of the Fatal Death. Well, actually since 1991 if we’re counting his first professionally published Doctor Who story Continuity Errors. Actually, Steven has admitted to have been writing Doctor Who since he was a kid so he’s really been at this a long time. One might even say he ‘started a very very long time ago’.
Mr Moffat is also one of the more polarizing showrunners Doctor Who has ever had. Famous for his psychologically inspired and terrifying monsters and his love of the timey-wimey ball, Steven Moffat always evokes some sort of reaction from the fans. Be they positive or negative. However, with the announcement that Steven Moffat has been awarded with an OBE for his contributions to television and drama, we’re here to celebrate the most talked about ‘Moffat Things’ this man has given us so let’s take a look at some of the unforgettable accomplishments Mr Moffat has made while at the helm of Doctor Who…
The Era of the Minisode
Many fans know how vocal I am and how much I love my minisode content. The Steven Moffat Era (and Matt Smith’s so to speak) took an idea Russell T Davies had all the way back in 2005 and cranked it up to eleven (no pun intended there) for his reign as showrunner. Giving fans multiple ‘extra’ Doctor Who content every year and a lot of it to boot. Most of these were short comic relief or timey-wimey (or both!), but they were always enjoyable to watch whenever we heard about them. Notable, this trend seems to have stopped with the Matt Smith Era as Series 8 featured no minisode or prequel content at all, but with Matt Smith’s era containing more than 15 minisodes (prequels not included), it is just a matter of time before the inrush of new content bursts onto our screens.
Paul McGann’s Regeneration
RTD had 5 years and 4 seasons to show us what happened to the Eighth Doctor, but it was Steven Moffat who decided ‘what the hell, let’s do it!’. The final journey of Paul McGann’s story was a dream come true for so many fans and while it wasn’t necessary to show this regeneration, everyone heralded it as one of the best decisions Steven has made since his reign began. It brought closure to a lot of Eighth Doctor fans (as well as the actual Doctor Paul McGann) and made the Doctor Who universe feel that much more whole than ever before.
Canonizing Big Finish
The Night of the Doctor was only seven minutes long and even made fun of it halfway through the story, but the most exciting thing about this lead-in to the 50th Anniversary Special was not ‘I’m a Doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting’ line, but having the Eighth Doctor provide one final (on-screen!) call back to his companions and saluting his Big Finish journey, bringing the fantastic audio dramas to life and making them a part of the television universe and no longer dooming the voyages of the Eighth Doctor to one stand alone movie and one prequel special.
The 50th Anniversary Special
What do the Third, Fifth, Seventh and Eleventh Doctors all have in common… save that they are all odd-numbered incarnations? Let’s make it easier, what does Bob Baker, Dave Martin, Terrance Dicks, John Nathan Turner and Steven Moffat all have in common? Well, it doesn’t happen to every showrunner and not every Doctor gets the chance to headline the milestone anniversary of Doctor Who, but when the dice lands on the right number and the clock strikes 10 years, the pressure is on. Steven Moffat decided to just throw whatever expectations the fans had out the window and invent a couple of new ways to blow our minds for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. From showing us the contents of the Time War, multiple Doctors (all thirteen it seems!), putting in Tom Baker, regenerating Paul McGann, regenerating John Hurt and still finding time to deliver what fans still believe to be the best written Doctor Who adventure in fifty years. One thing is for certain, if Steven Moffat isn’t writing the 60th Special, then whoever is will have huge shoes to fill.
Breaking the Regeneration Limit
You might have noticed that a lot of the things on this list gain polarizing responses from fans because of ‘how’ it’s done. We welcome it, but it’s sometimes the ‘how’ that rubs us the wrong way. So regardless of how the Doctor ended up getting a brand new set of regenerations, Steven Moffat will be remembered as the man who started ‘Chapter Two’ by making the next fifty years of living possible for the Doctor (in-universe anyway).
Hopping the Gender Fence
Arguably the most polarizing move Steven Moffat has made since his reign began was changing a Time Lord’s gender on screen and putting the politically incorrect voices to rest. And he did it to the most famous Time Lord save for the Doctor at that. Fans are still reeling from this move and the fandom is currently split as far down the middle as the debate regarding which showrunner (RTD vs SM) is better. While some believe it to be a legitimate decision opening up new storylines for the Master (or Missy), other believe it to be a stealth attempt at sowing the seeds for a female Doctor in the future. Whatever the case may be, Steven Moffat actually decided to do something Tom Baker joked about in the 70s and what half the fandom have accused him of avoiding and he will be remembered as the man who took that very first step.
Final Thoughts
Wow! That’s quite a list eh? Like most showrunners, not every decision pays off and not everyone agrees with the decisions, but one thing is for certain about Steven Moffat: The man takes chances!
He could’ve just gone with the standard Doctor Who formula, do his tenure and gave a hearty salute, but no! He said, let’s split the season like American television. Oh! People don’t like it? How about arc heavy seasons, then light arc season? Blockbuster season! No two-parters! All two-parters! Let’s put Doctor Who in the cinemas! Let’s do simulcasts all around the world! Steven Moffat tries to appease all the fans, just not at the same time or in the same way as his other predecessors. It is this creative and outside the box thinking that has made Steven Moffat such a fantastic storyteller. Hopefully in the next couple of years, we’ll be able to call him Sir Steven of TARDIS!
