Thoughts on the Upcoming Changes to Who

I had a different post for today, but the announcement that Steven Moffat is stepping down as showrunner after series 10 takes precedence.  Here are my thoughts on the change.

As someone who’s grown disillusioned with Moffat, I’m glad we’re getting someone new.  Under his guidance, I feel the series arcs have gotten sloppier and more overly-convoluted, and it often seems the plot drives the characters rather than vice versa (poor Clara – we got an entirely different person each season, with further inconsistencies between episodes.)  Moffat putting his stamp on the show frequently feels more like him planting a flag, Who’s owner instead of its caretaker.  I loved every episode Moffat wrote in the RTD era, but since he took over, his writing has felt increasingly derivative – I feel I know all his tricks, and I’m ready to move on.

First wrinkle:  the move isn’t taking place until after next season, and the BBC is gearing up for the “event” that will be Moffat’s last year.  Promises that Moffat will go out with a bang worry me; if I’ve been less impressed with his writing lately, that goes double for his Big Episodes, his season openers, season finales, regeneration episodes, companion exits, and anniversary specials.  Increasingly for me, they feel like overwrought, twist-filled concoctions that collapse under their own weight the second logic is applied to them.  While each has some good individual scenes, some beautiful lines, and some phenomenal acting, my prevailing impression is usually “self-indulgent mess.”  I worry that his entire final season will be approached with that mindset.

Second wrinkle:  to better position series 10 for this epic farewell, it’s not airing until 2017.  The official word is that it’s to avoid the Olympics, and I assume filming for Sherlock’s long-awaited fourth series also has something to do with it (I’ve always felt Who is bigger than the person running it, and if you’re too busy to devote to it the time it needs, the only responsible thing to do is step down,) but the result is that we’re only getting a Christmas special this year.  By the time Moffat leaves, he’ll have run the show for eight years and only given us six seasons.  That’s two whole years of Eleven and/or Twelve swallowed up by time cracks, which is just uncool.

Third wrinkle:  Chris Chibnall is taking over, which doesn’t instill me with confidence.  Torchwood was wildly uneven under Chibnall – while series 2 was a big improvement over series 1, it remains my least favorite Whoniverse show.  He wrote a few great episodes there, like “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” and “Fragments,” but he also wrote the monstrosities “Cyberwoman” and “End of Days,” and his work on Who doesn’t really light up the screen.  He penned series 3’s “42,” the Silurian two-parter from series 5, and “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” and “The Power of Three” in series 7, all of which are middling at best.  He’s also run Broadchurch, and while I liked its first season (haven’t seen series 2,) the central mystery and overall plot progression could have been much tighter.  I’ve long wanted to see Twelve with a different showrunner, but I’m not sure Chibnall is the answer.  I’d been hoping for either Gareth Roberts or Toby Whithouse.  Both have written some superb Who episodes, such as “The Unicorn and the Wasp” and “The Lodger” for Roberts and “School Reunion” and “The God Complex” for Whithouse (not that writing great episodes necessarily makes you a great showrunner – see:  Moffat – but it’s still a good thing.)  Both also have prior showrunning experience.  Whithouse’s is more extensive, with Being Human, while Roberts’s is in the Whoniverse, having run series 1 of The Sarah Jane Adventures.  I’d have felt a lot more confident with either of them taking the reins.