Steven Moffat's storytelling style in Doctor Who

[vivdunstan]

I'm just starting a rewatch of New Who series 9, with "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar". And while I'm enjoying it, I'm finding the so very Steven Moffat storytelling exhausting. Admittedly I'm especially tired at the moment, including cognitively, as I recover from my latest neurological illness flare. But the constant jumping around from time and place to somewhere else combined with the big set pieces in between feels way too much for me at the moment. I'd really like a more simple story structure with a more straightforward beginning, middle and end!

To be fair I've seen and enjoyed this era of Doctor Who before, on original broadcast. And I'm very familiar with this style of storytelling, from especially New Who series 5 onwards, as well as some isolated examples before then. It's what we get, for example, in "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang", and so many many more Steven Moffat penned stories. But sometimes it's just too much for my taste. And tonight is definitely one of those times.

Harking back to slightly simpler times in Doctor Who history, we're planning to soon rewatch all the Fifth Doctor TV stories in sequence, now that we have all of his season Blu-ray boxes. I saw them all many years ago, and a few again more recently. Martin's only seen a few of the stories. So that will be fun, and hopefully a little more palatable for me when fatigued. That's not to say that they're simplistic, but there should be a certain lack of convolution generally. Which I think I will appreciate. Though we still have to finish watching the final BBC Narnia TV series first.

Comments

[a_cubed]

"lack of convolution". Hmm, Castrovalva is the first story, and that has many convolutions!

[vivdunstan]

Many convolutions, but more built into the story, and not whizz bang Moffat look at me by big globetrotting/time-trotting effects at his worst. I'm very much looking forward to rewatching Castrovalva and the rest :)

[a_cubed]

I probably should have added a smiley to that reply. The story is a bit convoluted, but it's mostly the physical layout and Escher references I was thinking of. Castrovalva has always been my favourite Davison story. Not that the rest of the run was bad, and it wasn't "downhill all the way" but I thought it was just a really well done story, despite being a regeneration crisis story. First of those, really.

[andrewducker]

Yes, I also found Moffat very tiring once we didn't have someone in charge of him to make him tone it down a notch.

[vivdunstan]

Thanks!