The Worst Thing Moffat Did to Doctor Who (Video Essay)

[@HarboWholmes]

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[@mattthesilent777RED]

Nobody cares

[@laurenjcoates]

9th doctor: “just this once, everybody lives!” moffat: “and i took that personally”

[@sauleiwanderapfelstrudel]

didn't moffat write that line himself?

[@keithscott4013]

@@sauleiwanderapfelstrudel he did

[@sauleiwanderapfelstrudel]

@@keithscott4013 "trust nobody, not even yourself"- Steven moffat

[@marcos-ll2yr]

River said the same thing hahaha

[@therealpbristow]

=XoD

[@LordFindogask734]

RTD: shows he can achieve tragedy without necessarily killing characters. Moffat: kills characters, then nullifies the tragedy by resuscitating them in the next episode, giving them superpowers (optional) and near-immortality. But the scenes still try to be sold as tragic moments.

[@eshbena]

Moffat's real problem is that he can't write a third act to save his life. He starts out with great ideas, great stories, gets things going in an interesting way... and then can't stick the landing. Every season started out so well, with great concepts and interesting characters. But. He can't write female characters very well over the long run and he can not seem to find a good, logical ending for the cool stuff he starts up with. It's like his pen writes a check that his brain can't cash.

[@regeledium6231]

Moffat's real problem is that he can't write.

[@BlueGangsta1958]

@Reg Eledium I think that's unfair. He's a brilliant writer when it comes to singular episodes and wrote some of the most beloved episodes in modern Who - Blink and the Empty Child two-parter, for instance. He's a bad show runner, not a bad writer. There's a quite good comprehensive analysis in "Sherlock is garbage and here's why" by hbomberguy if you're interested.

[@Scottlp2]

Pandorica opens 2 parter ended weirdly but well.

[@regeledium6231]

@@BlueGangsta1958 you are right actually, I was harsh. He's good at one-shorts, but when he's in charge of a show, he fan-services himself, using and reusing concepts until they make no sens anymore. Everything turns into a fairy tale. Which can be nice but come one, if I wanted a miracle girl story I would just read fanfic.

[@mayotango1317]

RTD had the same problem. Al his finales had Deus ex Machina or anti-climax.

[@mothost6929]

Character: *dies tragically but fittingly* Moffat: We don't do that here

[@mayotango1317]

Cof Danny Pink cof

[@Ben-vf5gk]

@@mayotango1317 oh hi, I've seen you bring this up before. As I said the only reason he lived was because he wasn't a companion. So he doesn't count. And his death wasn't even that good so it's not like there was much to ruin by bringing him back.

[@mayotango1317]

@@Ben-vf5gk He is more companion that the Fam.

[@Ben-vf5gk]

@@mayotango1317 ??...aside from that not being true (he had much less screen time, his name isn't in the title sequence) it's just not relevant. Danny's only dead cause Moffat is on record as being against killing companions, Danny not being one made it acceptable in his eyes

[@mar1o981]

@@mayotango1317No, Danny Pink is nothing compared to Yaz, Graham and Ryan.

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

I would argue Moffat's greatest issue is mystery boxes with exponentially increasing stakes that don't end up living up to the hype and often feeling like he just made things up as he went along, but not being able to let go of characters definitely is a close second.

[@wendyheatherwood]

Pretty much. The Silence were brought up in Eleven's first episode and were there in the background for hid whole run until the end where... a character we've never met before sorted it out off screen? They just stopped going after the Doctor because some previously unmentioned character had a word with them? What?

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

@@wendyheatherwood Moffat is in love with himself and thinks he's more clever than he actually is. He has that Rian Johnson mentality where he thinks blindsiding the audience in the here and now is more important than having a satisfying arc that makes sense when you look back.

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

So he's basically J.J. Abrams.

[@iusedtowrite6667]

He reminds me of JJ abrams where they both set up cool and interesting mystery plots. But fail to deliver on that conclusion

[@sornyeilevente973]

Oh remember Heaven Sent? The best episode written by Moffat followed by Hellbent, which is basically an acid trip? The biggest hypekill ever

[@sprice2344]

I think Rory's constant deaths could have worked had mofit isolated himself to just using it with that character and it becoming a joke. Similar to jack but different enough

[@mudawott]

Even if it doesnt become a joke tbh. Rory coming back again and again and again is his thing because its his determination to save amy

[@sprice2344]

@@mudawott it really could have been quite emotional, seeing him repeatidly battle through time and space to be with her, stopping for nothing not even death

[@mudawott]

@@sprice2344 yeah. And then nothing ever happens of it. Aaqaa

[@katarinabrunk8698]

oh my God they killed Rory, you bastards! lol

[@brianmoralesmadrid3206]

Maybe if rory stayed plastic, which I still dont know why or how

[@fallonmills8651]

One thing I dislike most about modern Doctor Who is that they feel the need write companions in ways they can never come back, I get with some like stated in the video putting them at risk and showing that it is dangerous is important, but right now the only ones you could bring back are Martha, Ryan and Graham, that's it! If you're going to make them live anyway make sure it's in a way that leaves the door open for the character to return. I'd much rather see an even amount of companions leave the Tardis either safely, alive but unable to return or die at about an even percentage. I think of the future of the show and it would be nice to have companions like Sarah Jane did to come back for future audiences but so many of these great companions can never even be given this chance to return because of the way the stories are written. Thank goodness Martha is alive is all I can say!

[@creed8712]

That’s why we have big finish. To fix the mistakes of the shows I mean Rory has his own story now

[@awesomedavid2012]

Clara could easily come back. Either a different version of her in his timeline or a post-hell-bent Clara. Bill could come back as well.

[@jacobharris5894]

AwesomeDavid2012 Those were the two characters who should have definitely stayed dead though. If we see this heavy scene where the companion dies right before your eyes, miraculously bringing them back undermines the story.

[@nekograce7914]

@@awesomedavid2012 I would love to see Clara come back.

[@shayla106]

@@nekograce7914 I don’t. She really annoyed me at the end.

[@lucypreece7581]

I would have always preferred if Clara has left after series 8. After Danny died. I like that Danny's death was boring and mundane. It wasn't dramatic or drawn out. It happened in the blink of an eye. Which makes it more tragic. He was crossing the road and not paying attention and was hit by a car. It's so ordinary. It was nobodys fault. There was no big bad monster or massive disaster. It was just a tragic accident. I would have preferred Clara leaving after that 2 parter because I always felt like her toxic behaviour and her starting to be more like the Doctor was because she didn't give herself the proper time to grieve for Danny and process his death. Like she made a point of keeping up her normal life and her job at the school. That meant something to her. Danny was part of that life. But she had started to take it for gtanted in choosing her travels with the Doctor over Danny but suddenly Danny isn't there anymore so clearly she has no reason to go back. I would have preferred her to stay on earth in her job and take the time to properly process Danny's death rather than carry on with the Doctor as it would have helped her value her normal life a lot more. She was used to seeing the wonders and the horrors of the universe but needed to be re-educated on the wonders of planet earth and reminded that sometimes these unexpected tragic moments happen and you can't do anything about them. Plus if I was literally on the phone hearing my partner die and stuff it would mess with my head and i would need to process that.

[@simonbutterfield4860]

Personally Lucy I think Clara should've ended at the end of S7 as her character arc was done, the Impossible Girl question was answered and her quest was done. What came next was Clara becoming the star and the Dr becoming a passenger in his own show, don't get me wrong I did like Clara it just all became rather tedious towards the end.

[@TheJadedJames]

I didn’t like Clara all that much. As in I would have been glad if she just died in S7. But Series 9 was personally, the only time her character was consistently properly written, so I’m glad she went out on the year where she was an interesting character versus the first two years where she sucked

[@mjm3091]

I feel like they should have given Danny the immortal plotline Clara or Ashildr were given. So we could fix the issue of Orson (him being just a family member was meh). Make Danny stay as Cyberman or make Doctor save him with chip. We could have happy timeline in modern times, but as Danny stays alive he could became a disguised villain who ultimately leads to Clara's tragic death (which robs past Danny of life with her, leading to his villain route). Then the whole storyline of bringing Clara back and her leaving for finale adventures with future Danny would be at least more reasonable.

[@puppycatsbee]

but we saw a lot of her grieving process in last Christmas; at first she's drained and depressed, and the light that would normally shine from her has temporarily faded. but the doctor coming back helps her regain her faith in the universe and fairytales and impossible things. it's in last Christmas that she learns to let go of danny. of course she'll miss him, for those 5 minutes a day, but for the rest of the time she gets on with it. she keeps going, living life to the fullest and taking in every breath, not wasting a single minute. at the very end, when he invites her to go with him once again, she gets her spark back and excitedly runs to the tardis with her hand comfortably in his. it's actually really beautiful. i think it took her a little while to realise that she isn't the type of person who can live a normal mundane life on earth. she loves her job and being a teacher, and her students seemed to love her too so i bet she was a cool one, but her real home was the tardis all along. she was always a traveller, a dreamer, and a hero of her own story. you may be thinking "how did she save herself if she got herself killed?!" but what i mean by that is, she was the one who chose to be brave right up until the end. she even said herself: "maybe this is it. maybe this is why i kept running. maybe this is why i kept taking all those stupid risks, kept pushing it." the doctor claims it's his own fault, to which she responds; "this is my choice." what made her a hero is the fact that she recognised what her reckless behaviour had led to, took full responsibility for it and faced the deathly consequences. that IS someone to look up to. someone who doesn't run away from their mistakes or pin the blame on someone else. and considering how she was once terrified death, like most people are, it's some amazing character growth. i know i probably wrote quite a bit there, but i just love her very a lot

[@TheJadedJames]

For me, it comes down to "Clara, in the absence of compelling Earthly connections, becomes too much like the Doctor, and that negative influence eventually backfires" is seriously the only completely good Clara storyline and the only one that utilizes the Jenna Coleman as an actress (in her introductory episodes she is framed as someone who can keep up with the Doctor intellectually and is primed for the kind of co-dependent narcissist relationship she and the Doctor eventually have ... but for two nearly two they stripped that away and made her really bland. Only at the very end of S8 does the show get back to what Jenna Coleman is good at). I can take or leave anything that happened with Danny Pink or those kids she was babysitting. I'm glad Clara didn't go quietly because for all the missteps that happened with her, she's the companion who conceptually deserved to go out with a bang

[@ItsConnor]

Honestly I feel if hell bent had ended with the doctor finally accepting that Clara had to die and they said their last goodbyes, it would have been the best two parter in dr who history but nope nothing had consequences...

[@BlueGangsta1958]

The word consequences sent me back to the episode with that Mexican city Truth or Consequences and now I'm wondering what they could've done if Hell Bent ended up taking place there and maybe it wasn't even the time lords (was there ever any genuine payoff to the whole hybrid thing? We got like fifty different answers - The doctor said "the hybrid is me" making viewers think he's talking about himself, but then he's talking about Ashildr and she suggests it's something to do with humans and river was probably mentioned but did anything happen besides them talking about who it is? Or did we just waste a whole season on a meaningless storyline *again*?) but about the Doctor getting too involved with his companions and unable to let them go/protect them properly. Maybe it was a former Doctor (or a future one, if we're feeling timey-wimey) who wanted the Doctor to deal with his grief and learn something to prevent this from happening again. Some Doctor who thought "alright, everyone (almost) keeps dying nowadays, I'm going to have to teach the Doctor to be more careful" and then we could abandon the fake deaths and write food drama.

[@richardmattocks]

Donna losing her memory of all her adventures is heartbreaking. Gets me every time. Even worse than Jamie and Zoe (who at least get to remember 1 adventure when they are wiped at the end of War Games)

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

Donna had the most tragic of endings and I'll die on this hill.

[@richardmattocks]

@@user-is7xs1mr9y yup

[@crimsoncomet3756]

That's not even heartbreaking, The Doctor losing his memory about Clara is. And she's still need to face her death by the raven. It's like Clara doesn't exist. Imagine Rose Tyler doesn't exist!!!

[@mjm3091]

My headcannon is that Doctor would visit Donna on her deathbed just to remind her about her adventures. That solves the pain. She still had to live though. Getting your soul ripped out, by avian personification of death is much worse.

[@shayla106]

@@crimsoncomet3756 Nope because she still gets time that other characters never will/did get before she dies.

[@DanTheMan2150AD]

Moffat's Who is very much a fairytale, he gave characters both happy and sad endings and let the viewers decide which was better for them. But overall, yes he devalued character death so much that it has made people treat it like a joke in recent years, can you imagine if someone like Katarina came back to life after how shocked it left both Steven and the Doctor even leaving lasting consequences on the two… it wouldn’t be the same.

[@mayotango1317]

Same like RTD is a CW soap opera.

[@HiperPivociarz]

@@mayotango1317 I've seen CW soap operas, that's a disservice to RTD. RTD is the total antithesis of those, he plans the whole season in advance, CW shows are written on the knee, literally as they go along.

[@MrSukram777]

Sorry, but... Katarina survived in Big Finish, she was saved as some kind of ghost in a crystal and helped River and the Doctor's companions to fight The Nine (kleptomaniac incarnation of a timelord with multiple personalities).

[@DanTheMan2150AD]

@@MrSukram777 I know who the Nine is.

[@MrSukram777]

@@DanTheMan2150AD yeah, just saying because people often refer to the Doctor as Nine, Ten, etc.. Did you already know that they kind of brought her back (she only appeared for a few seconds though)?

[@SeanORaigh]

I remember when I first saw Angels Take Manhattan I was actually shocked when Amy and Rory didn't come back the next episode.

[@franciscobeltran4597]

This is why I preferred Davies as showrunner. It elevated Moffat’s stories about living on. He even killed off the doctor in turn left. Sure it was an alternate timeline but I was personally unsure what would happen in that episode. This is a problem in comic books as no one is ever truly gone.

[@LordFindogask734]

Turn left gotta be one of the best and most creative recap episodes.

[@greatgoldino]

In defence of the Osgood death, they do at least keep the mystery of which Osgood died, the human or Zygon. Thus the new Osgood addition adds in to that question, are there two Zygon Osgoods, or is it the same as it was before.

[@Brogan_Balfour_Crescent]

They need to keep the original to update the image (e.g. aging) so there's still the original and Zygon Osgood.

[@-callmecrazy-5859]

But without this how would we get the gem of a line "We're dead. AGAIN." from Rory with the peg dolls?

[@BlueGangsta1958]

It would've been so funny if that was the episode someone finally told Moffatt to either kill characters off or don't and then that's just their ending.

[@kingtuva]

If i had a nickel for every time Moffat makes a female companion escape death by getting to travel throughout all of time and space with their immortal girlfriend, i'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[@cameronjosephvideos5942]

Series 9 was infamous for this. Every episode except for Sleep No More, and the Woman who Lived, had a Clara fakeout death, or the Doctor thinking Clara was dead, or at least teasing her death. Magician's Apprentice had the Daleks extermination, Witch's Familiar had Missy tell the Doctor Clara was dead, Before the Flood had the Doctor's ghost listing Clara as the next person to die in the timeline, Girl Who Died, had Clara teleport away and the Doctor thinking her dead. Zygon Invasion had Bonnie tell the Doctor that Clara was dead. Face the Raven had her actually die. Heaven Sent kept up the illusion she would stay dead. Then Hell Bent brought her back, but also mentioned that she would still die.

[@TheGrimmCommoner]

Moffat is usually good on his own for two seasons, and then he goes up his own ass (Doctor Who and Sherlock are two examples). Under Davis, Moffat was allowed to write whatever he wanted and was pulled back to reality by Davis when he started going off the edge or up his own rear. Davis knows how to make something extreme matter in long-term storytelling, whilst Moffat unchecked will write himself into a corner and backtrack.

[@jumpingjoy20]

Moffatt writes good episodes and adaptations, but he's rubbish at series writings. Sherlock got bad when they ran out of Conan Doyle's material.

[@seimen4348]

Just like RTD....

[@DyrianLightbringer]

To be fair, the problem with Clara had a lot to do with Jenna's contract. They thought she was leaving, and after writing her off the show, they renewed her contract, so had to write her back in. With Face the Raven, I think the problem there was that her new contract wasn't up, but Moffat couldn't have her in Hell Bent, except as a memory, so still had to use her in Heaven Sent (or other way around, I don't remember which title came first.) However, I agree, Moffat just could not let any companion meet an unhappy end. I think his biggest problem, though, was that he was a great episode writer, but a terrible series writer. The man wrote some great episodes, but he sure as hell didn't know how to deliver a series-arc payoff.

[@tomnorton4277]

I'm glad Jenna Coleman decided to stay. I wouldn't have watched Season 9 at all without her, even if I had known that Julian Bleach (who is a criminally underrated actor) was returning as Davros in the first two episodes. Peter Capaldi was much too sociopathic for me to see him as the Doctor in Season 8. Since I've watched clips of the Valeyard in recent years, I think he would have been far better suited to replacing Michael Jayston in that role. He really needed somebody to carry him until he reached a point where I could say to myself "okay, this guy is the Doctor" and Clara Oswald fulfilled that role. When Matt Smith was being socially awkward, it was like watching someone on the autism spectrum (trust me, I'm autistic so I know what I'm talking about). When Capaldi was doing it, it was like watching a sociopath PRETEND to be on the autism spectrum to excuse his behaviour. A boiling point for me is one of the most overlooked parts of Dark Water which is the fact that Capaldi was READY for Clara's betrayal. That means 1 of 2 things. Either Capaldi was INSANELY paranoid about the woman who threw herself into the Doctor's time stream to save his ungrateful ass a million times over. Or he was DELIBERATELY pushing Clara to her breaking point in some kind of sadistic test. Either way, it reflects worse on the Doctor than it does on Clara when you take the full context of Season 8 into account. Without Clara, Peter Capaldi's era would have crashed and burned within his first season. We wouldn't have even needed Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker to come in and destroy Doctor Who because Capaldi was doing a stellar job of ruining it on his own, which would no doubt break his heart if he realised it because he's a lifelong fan. I think being a lifelong fan was actually part of the problem. He thought of himself as being under incredible pressure, despite his role being child's play compared to Patrick Troughton, John Hurt or Matt Smith. Troughton was the first test of regeneration, Hurt was retconned into existence and shared an episode with the 3 most popular Doctor's of all time (yes, the Curator counts) and Smith came directly after the only Doctor who rivalled Tom Baker in terms of popularity whilst also having no safety nets to catch him if he screwed up. Capaldi had multiple safety nets in case he failed, with Clara's presence being the main one, so he could actually afford to relax, which he did in Season 9. However, he was so scared of getting it wrong in Season 8 after dreaming of being the Doctor for 5 decades that he tried to be every Doctor at once, including the Valeyard, and stretched himself too thin in the process. This worked when he was trying to be William Hartnell, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and John Hurt but he couldn't manage Patrick Troughton, David Tennant and especially Matt Smith. Whenever Capaldi was doing a script that was clearly written with Smith in mind, such as Robot of Sherwood, he was visibly out of his comfort zone whereas Smith would have thrived in that kind of story. Jenna Coleman really doesn't get enough credit for carrying so much of Capaldi's era on her shoulders. Ultimately, I think Peter Capaldi was a supporting actor who was cast in a leading role. Even he knew he wasn't ready to play the Doctor because he auditioned as a companion. The man needed the larger part of 2 seasons to reach a point where he felt like leading man material, never mind Doctor material. Chris Ecclestone, David Tennant, Matt Smith and John Hurt never had that problem. Heck, even Colin Baker didn't have that issue despite the shitty writing he was given. John Hurt in particular proved that he could act circles around Capaldi and fully deserved his reputation as a legendary actor. The Doctor was the first and only major role that I've seen Hurt in - Ollivander didn't leave much of an impact and his role in V for Vendetta was just a lot of shouting - and it was nice to see that his reputation hadn't been exaggerated. The man was the real deal because he was under more pressure than any Doctor in history, yet slipped into the role as though he'd been playing it all his life. As for series arc payoffs, I still stand by Hell Bent being an incredibly underrated episode. Even after all the retconned deaths that Steven Moffat did before that, I found it both uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time. I finally believed that Peter Capaldi really was the Doctor, something I had been slowly and reluctantly been coming around to throughout Season 9, and Clara's departure had me smiling joyfully whilst watching it before falling into outright ugly sobbing after the episode ended. It was an experience that I doubt I'll ever have again, so Hell Bent is always going to be a special episode to me.

[@stemcareers8844]

I agree that he was a great episode writer but a poor series writer. Thats a problem that extended to Chris Chibnall who was an OK episode writer (and sometimes a great one) but a _terrible_ series writer.

[@CeruleanBlue23]

"WELL THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN!"

[@Josh-ze6xo]

I knew moffat did fake deaths but I'd forgotten about the scale.

[@sophiejones7727]

I disagree about Riversong. She’s still dead. Just because we know she is in digital heaven doesn’t make her death less tragic.

[@billydeeuk]

Agreed. If only because her timeline was inverted. We knew how her story ended before it began, which created a sense of impending tragedy. This also gets tied up at the end of “The Husband Of River Song”, where she tells Capaldi’s Doctor she expects him to find a way to save her. With River, I don’t think it would have made sense for the Doctor to know her death was coming and not spend all that time trying to stop it.

[@demonic_myst4503]

It does her body is dead but the body isnt who you are its the personality the memories her mind is in the machine so not dead

[@DaDunge]

Yes and no, the doctor says the memory imprint of her in the library should have faded when he talks to her on Trenzalor, it seems he thinks that she wouldn't really live but it seems he somehow does, possibly because of her timelord nature.

[@TheJadedJames]

Yeah, the whole tragedy of River is that the Doctor gets increasingly attached to her knowing the whole time, one day, he will never see her again. That is untrained unless some idiot takes her out the computer so she can play with the 15th Doctor or something. But so far Husbands of River Song held strong as her send off for 6 years

[@asdfniofanuiafabuiohui3977]

the river in the compter is the personality of river, but its not river- its effectively a clone and the original is still dead

[@user-jn1wm3tb8v]

I think continuing the romance trend hurt the show too. Now it's thought of as prerequisite for Doctor Who to have shipping(not necessarily a bad thing but with Thirteen having a more serialised nature people are looking into the TARDIS team for ships which rarely ever works.)

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

Even I, a hopless romantic, preffer the dinamic of the Doctor with Donna, pure friendship.

[@BlueGangsta1958]

I can't be the only one who finds it just a tad creepy that an alien who's centuries old gets into relationships with young humans right? Like, you can justify him travelling mostly (always, in modern Who, excluding River) with humans by saying their youth means he can show them more, but the underlying dynamic is just awful. It's entirely dependent on the Doctor being a good person and not exploiting them and that's just .. yikes. He's got almost nothing in common with them either. Yeah, they have adventures together, but they don't know shit compared to him so it's almost inherently a teacher-student relationship.

[@Ladywizard]

@@BlueGangsta1958 Except they also made it canon that he's HALF human himself which not sure how that works since with his mother being human would have had more human traits instead of Gallifreyian then they retconned it all on 13 so she's not even Gallifreyian

[@krchecotah]

​@@BlueGangsta1958 Yeah I definitely prefer the non romantic companions like Donna and Bill. I do like Rose and Amy, but Rose is literally a teenage girl and the Doctor having a romance with her is all kinds of squicky, and Amy is basically trying to commit adultery. Even with a young actor like Matt Smith that line about Clara being squeezed into a skirt that's just a little bit too tight is creepy AF.

[@gunnervi]

@@krchecotah In terms of the doctor being creepy nothing beats him and Clara showing up naked to her family gathering

[@robbiesmith8055]

Literally one of my biggest pet peeves in media is undoing character deaths. I'm a big rewatcher when it comes to my favourite stories, and I can't stand a plot point that can only elicit an emotional response the first time you experience it. If you know a character lives, there goes your investment next time you watch the death scene, because you know they'll be fine soon enough. I want to be able to dread the moment as it approaches, and sob about even more than the first time it happed when I was too busy being shocked to properly feel the weight of the moment. What I don't want to do is sit there in frustration because this beautiful character exit is just going to be undone. If a revised character death happens for a good reason (it was important for someone's character arc, and/or the resurrection had huge consequences within the narrative), then I don't mind, and sometimes I'll really love the story beat. But please don't insult me by adding a fake character death just for the sake of *drama*.

[@christianwise637]

I definitely agree that Amy and Rory's "deaths" in series 5 were actually well-handled, since they served to push the characters and the overall story forward. As we continued through series 6 though it just got annoying and frustrating when they'd appear to get killed, only to turn out to be alive and well just a few minutes later (the death of old Amy in "The Girl Who Waited" is the only exception). It left you feeling like every future death of the characters had no impact, since you could guess that they'd turn out fine later on. I appreciate Moffat trying to give them some finality with "The Angels Take Manhattan", but it still feels underwhelming since it feels like they've been given a "get out of death free" card, and it feels pointless since Moffat didn't have to give them an exit like that. Simply have "The Power of Three" be their exit story, and end with them choosing to stay behind and live a normal life, while the Doctor acknowledges their decision and leaves of his own accord. It would keep the same ending of the pair getting to live happily ever after, without the unnecessary drama of a pointless fake-out death. I don't think Clara has this problem as badly as the Ponds, since they don't fake us out with countless deaths throughout her era, but the number of fake-out exits she gets is very annoying, especially since both "Death in Heaven" and her eventual death in "Face the Raven" were far more effective than the actual ending she got. To be fair, I don't mind the Doctor trying to save Clara in "Hell Bent", since the whole point is that he's been driven mad with grief, and is willing to tear the universe apart to stay with her. The whole point of the story is for him to realise that he and Clara aren't a healthy pairing, and so the natural conclusion should be the Doctor taking her back to Gallifrey to be put back on Trap Street, choosing to let her go (with maybe the additional punishment of having his memories erased), which would maintain the impact of her death in "Face the Raven", while also maintaining the theme of grief that "Heaven Sent" was portraying. Clara's actual exit on the other hand completely devalues both the preceding episodes, and stands as yet another instance of Moffat not being able to leave well enough alone. I don't mind the decision to keep Bill alive in "The Doctor Falls" though, since unlike "Hell Bent", the decision doesn't undercut the stuff that happened to her. Bill still had to get shot in the chest, spend 10 years in the hospital waiting for the Doctor to save her, and have her individuality and identity stripped from her as she was converted into a Cyberman. Heather coming along and saving her doesn't prevent any of that from happening, and in many respects it's rather gratifying to see the character go through absolute hell, yet maintain her hold on herself, continue to show great bravery, and ultimately get rewarded by being able to travel through Time and Space with the love of her life. It's my favourite of the Moffat companion departures, and I don't think it would've caused as much of a fuss if he hadn't done something similar with his previous companions as well. TL;DR My feelings on Moffat's tendency to not kill off his characters is a bit complicated, as while I wish he'd gone down a different route with the Ponds and Clara, I am okay with the way he handled Bill's exit from the show. And in all fairness, it's not like his era has been totally absent of death, plenty of guest characters have been killed off, and when they do go they tend to have some kind of emotional impact - see for example Father Octavian in "Flesh and Stone", or Rita in "The God Complex", or Isaac in "A Town Called Mercy". Do I wish that Moffat had shown more balls and actually followed through with the deaths of some of his characters? Sure, but I'm not certain that this would be entirely necessary in every single case

[@pensive-fine]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in detail, it was a good read!

[@rkah6187]

I agree with everything you have said here, thank you for putting it so nicely.

[@joebracken5463]

Maybe Amy and Rory were always meant to die and the doctor just kept on causing it to not happen or be reversed so the universe kept on trying to correct the error finally ending their escape from death by trading them in a time loop

[@pensive-fine]

That's an interesting thought!

[@jayfredrickson8632]

That was my take too, actually. And the irony is they didn't really die, they went onto the past (that's what weeping angels do--they send you into the past to feed off the temporal energy) and lived out their natural lives then.

[@jumpingjoy20]

The Doctor is always complaining that immortality is awful. I would love an episode where the Doctor has to confront how he's forced these humans into eternity.

[@AgherDeadpan]

Moffat's Companions always stick around too long, Amy and Rory should have left at the end of series 6 (Knowing the Doctor is alive but he doesn't come back for them) and Clara should have left in the Series 8 Christmas Special where she is old and has lived a life, nicely paralleling The Doctor in Time of The Doctor (but then we don't get Heaven Sent). Then we could've had Bill in Series 9 and then a third companion in Nardole in Series 10, although it would have been interesting to see a series where The Doctor has no companion (just the one-offs in each episode)

[@GeriatricFan1963]

IIRC wasn't Series 9 originally written and conceived as a companion-less season of two-parters? And then Jenna Coleman decided to continue so it ended up being rewritten.

[@atharvadeshpande6907]

I'd never sacrifice Heaven Sent for lesser Clara. The Ponds, yeah their last moment should have been the end of series 6 Christmas special, with the Doctor getting a family. Then they could have been one off companions like Jack and Craig.

[@IISCOOL67]

I really enjoy the Capaldi era - it's probably the era of New Who which I enjoy most consistently. Even so, there are a few things I might change... I like Clara but I personally feel she's a bit over-exposed (although I think this might've been due to her getting a bit of a false start in Series 7 and Jenna and/or the writers wanting to compensate for that). Of course, the big dilemma, as you mentioned, is that we still want to keep "Heaven Sent." So here's what I'd do... Clara leaves in Last Christmas. Bill enters in Series 9 (from there, you could have essentially the same stories, maybe just trading them around here and there. Imagine Pearl Mackie playing Bonnie). And then "Heaven Sent" is about the Doctor mourning Bill, and is also Twelve's regeneration story. Perhaps the Doctor is already dying when he enters the confessional dial, so he uses that to his advantage (similar to Six in Big Finish's "The Brink of Death).

[@IISCOOL67]

@Scom Tott That's just the thing - you wouldn't have to. There would only need to be slight rewrites to have "Heaven Sent" follow from "The Doctor Falls." It might change a few things about those stories, but the core elements and even most of the content would be the same.

[@atharvadeshpande6907]

@@IISCOOL67 I don't really like Bill as much as Clara, but I don't think that would work even if I did. Their dynamic is completely different. Bill and the Doctor have a professor-student dynamic while Clara and the Doctor have a toxic trust and commitment to each other. They will go to any lengths to save each other and push them beyond their limits. There's a hint of romance too as confirmed by Moffat, Capaldi and Jenna. And I don't think Missy's Redemption would work with Heaven Sent.

[@iusedtowrite6667]

I prefer Moffat as an episode writer than a show runner. He did his best work when he was working under someone and had people to tell no to him. His scripts were on point and had tight, simple but engaging storylines. Letting him loose as the showrunner brought out all his worst habits as a writer and none of the good aspects. He has a tendency to one up and try making everything epic and so grand that in the end it just ends up not making any sense

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

The same is also true for Sherlock. Like the finale of Sherlock makes very little sense and he burnt all the credibility of the show for something that made zero sense and sucked in the end.

[@iusedtowrite6667]

@@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY thinking about Sherlock just makes me angry. He had everything. The cast was perfect, the story was there all he had to do was make those chapters into episodes but he fucked that up. I only like BBC Sherlock due to the amazing job done by the actors, the writing sucks.

[@booradley8895]

1000% agree with him being a better episode writer. Series 5 was good but each series deteriorated as he just progressively wrote increasingly complex arcs and was so far up his own arse with his love for grand and epic storylines and long winded speeches by the doctor it just bored me to 😭

[@Enzo012]

'Hey what's Rory doing laying over there?' 'Oh he died.' 'What again?'

[@FallenGemini]

I feel that the main problem with Clara is that he wasted two perfectly good exits for her because Jenna Louise Coleman kept changing her mind to do another season/series. The last two exits also implied that the character had a seemingly normal life after the Doctor. Because those two exits were used up, we got the convoluted raven death where she likely lived a long life before deciding to finally die. Such a death is similar to the organic River Song where we learned that she lived for 25 more years before actually dying in Forest of the Death. Even after her actual death, River Song lived on in digital form. The video is right that none of the companions really die when Moffat is the either writer or showrunner behind the episodes where these characters "die."

[@dumbdude3103]

I think the only way Clara in Hell Bent would have worked is if the Doctor kept trying to bring in the Clara fragments (like Osgood and Oswin) and this caused paradoxes and the High Council of Gallifrey was trying to get him to stop but he wouldn't. Instead he keeps trying to get these copies to remember him but they don't know who he is. Then the act of making the Doctor forget Clara was also a way to stop him from literally tearing the universe apart. Also helps with that thread of Clara copies. Can even keep Diner Clara, but no TARDIS reveal and she's just a random waitress in the 50's. Just my thoughts. The real Clara stays dead and now we have a good reason to keep the two apart.

[@InfernalShadowDragon]

The main problem I had with Moffat tbh was that he had absolutely no respect for cannon. He would establish characters and would literally change important plot points on a whim. Let's not even get into the mess that was the weeping angels- a good idea that became overused and ended up being really inconsistent

[@csblakeley]

I think he loved canon, but he wanted desperately to leave a lasting impression on it in a way that RTD had before. Unfortunately he did it by making the Doctor the central mystery of the show in a way he never had been before. I mean, yes, we learned more about him with the speed of a tar pitch experiment, but that wasn't what we were there for. Moffat made the Doctor into the most special boy in the universe, with prophesies and Eternal Questions and... we will learn His Name! Except I never really cared about any of that. It wasn't the point until Moffat made it so.

[@sarahpink1692]

Personally I liked Bill's end, both as a "Was... was that a metaphor or did that really happen" open ended question, and as a nice subversion of the all too common "bury your gays" trope, with Bill a) Possibly not dead but b) Having given up her humanity to do so. ...which Moffatt proceeded to completely undercut by a) stating outright in interviews that it did absolutely for real happen and b) Having her be able to return to being human, live out an entire natural life offscreen before dying of old age, and then get resurrected just in time for the Christmas Special. He ALSO brings Clara back in that Christmas Special because even after he subverted her ending in Face the Raven and had her fly about in a TARDIS for as long as she wanted, that STILL wasn't good enough for him, he needed the Doctor to remember her for a tearful goodbye, too.

[@Jedi_Spartan]

It's even with side characters, not just companions. For example: All of Bill's mates get restored before the house completely destroyed itself in Knock Knock. If that story had been the plot of a Torchwood episode, all of them would have been 100% dead (because apparently either Chibnall or Torchwood as a whole just hates Young People).

[@sasodoma]

I just finished watching Torchwood and I have to say, going in, I was not prepared for this many main character deaths.

[@zeallust8542]

@@sasodoma Torchwood is good at making your heart feel so good and then ripping it out

[@Jedi_Spartan]

@@zeallust8542 That reminds me of Stubagful's rewatch of all of Chibnall's Torchwood and Doctor Who along with his discussion of series 11 with 5 Who Fans "Obvious question: is Billy crying yet?"

[@DaDunge]

I like thta though I think the Davies era were a bit annoying with using the red shirt trope. I'm sorry but loads of deaths of non roccuring chaaracters in sci fi is something I never understood. Fantasy doesn't have every villager the main characters meet dying, crime fiction doesn't have every client the character takes on dying so why can't sci fi let go of that trope? I think the main reason is the sci fi genre that ended up on tv is closer linked to pulp sci-fi than to the great sci fi masterpieces. And Pulp sci-fi is more space horror than sci-fi.

[@ThomasMurch]

@@DaDunge I'm not a big fan of red-shirting either - and in a show like Doctor Who, where time-travel is possible, merely killing off a main character like in any other show always strikes me as being a bit unimaginative. To me, the fates of the Ponds, Clara and Bill were a lot more engaging than a simple death would have been! I have the same scepticism to the idea of a surprise mid-story regeneration; for example, the people think that Journey's End would have been improved if 10 had died at the end of The Stolen Earth. I just don't understand that logic at all ... it seems like the least satisfying sort of storytelling. Not every show needs to be like Game of Thrones or what-have-you!

[@cartoonking1789]

The worst thing he did was try and make Clara the most important person in the universe.

[@anneclough7064]

For me the worst thing he ever did was create Clara in the first place! I loathed her and all her splinters. My love for Doctor Who took a nosedive once she was introduced.

[@RoyalKingOliver]

That’s Donna Noble and no one else can replace that :(

[@theesweatydrummer]

No more so than Amy her first season.

[@cyber.2020]

Agreed. Trying to make her outspecial everyone else in the introduction was a bad idea. If the finale of season 7 wasn't Moffat trying to convince everyone that she is better than everyone else the Doctor has ever met, I don't know what else it was. It involved Classic Doctor Who out of nowhere with an arc that involved mere half season. Had he had taken the time to show her as a fleshed out character instead, I don't think she would have gotten so much hate. She was a smart, strong person with her own life and human flaws like arrogance. The first impression I got from her when we met real Clara in season 7, it was that she was special, confident, and that she was a nanny. With 80% of the emphasis on 'special', even though that quality doesn't really count as a personality. Moffatt later on tried to connect this quality with other arcs, but it wasn't so convincing.

[@LionWithAGun]

@@cyber.2020 ngl loved Clara when we were seeing the splinters before the real one. It was a good mystery of why this girl is in Victorian London and also in the dalek home world in the future. I just wish they made it like while yes she is vital to saving the doctor but she does die in actuality being torn apart by the doctors timeline. it would keep with the continuity of merging with the doctor or the TARDIS is fatal to anyone if they don't get a memory wipe or the doctor doesn't absorb the energy to save them ie the DoctorDonna and the bad wolf.

[@intergalactic92]

Moffat is such a frustrating writer. He can be brilliant. He's written so many great stories, some weird and experimental, some duds, but many have gone down in history as all time classics. But he always undercuts all of this good work with overuse of these frustrating tropes. The refusal to just let his characters die undermined all of his good work. Hell Bent is the most frustrating for this fact. Season 9 is a fantastic season, probably the best Moffat has ever done (in my opinion), and Face the Raven and Heaven Sent are brilliant episodes. They are the perfect end for Clara. It’s tragic, and gut wrenching, in a similar vein to Adric's; even if you disliked the character it remains shocking and the exploration of the Doctor's grief afterwards is an excellent way of moving into the next phase of the story. But he just couldn’t leave it alone. He could not resist going back and meddling with a plot point that was perfectly good before, all for the sake of giving his beloved character a happy ending. It’s all the more frustrating because everything leading up to it was so good. It makes the disappointment so much greater. I’m willing to forgive a lot, I’m even willing to grudgingly accept that the hydbrid subversion is reasonably clever. But I cannot forgive the constant undermining of perfectly good character endings. Describing Hell Bent as the straw that broke the camels back is a perfect description of my feelings.

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

He's one of those writers who honestly needs an editor who thinks very little of him and will take a machete to his script and send it back telling him "less self indulgence next time, please, dear Steven"

[@intergalactic92]

@@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Just somebody over his shoulder to say "you can stop now."

[@Lumibear.]

Do you know, until this video and this comment reminded me, I had actually managed to erase that bit where she was saved yet again. I recall thinking her death in Raven was perfect for her character arc, not least because I was sick to death of The Clara Bigger Than The Doctor Fashion Show Soap Opera by then, so sorry Clara fans but goodbye good riddance I felt, and if they’d resurrected her character once again, no more tears and soaring strings for me I’m afraid, I was done, so I guess I erased that final bit of ClaraFanService from my memory. I know it’s meant to be escapist and fun for the kiddies (any ‘important social justice issues’ mid-story lectures not withstanding), but if they utterly undermine death, then where’s the peril, why are we worrying, why struggle to save anyone Doctor, sod it, put your feet up and let the planet explode, let the Master blow up Gallifrey, third times the charm, who gives a toss, if we can just slap the ‘bring em back button’ it doesn’t matter, nothing matters. If the big Sonic criticism, that it removed any peril, was ever valid, then wth is this doing to the script. They should’ve left her dead and as far as I’m concerned they did.

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

@@Lumibear. Absolutely. Say what you want about RTD. RTD was a gigantic cornball but he at least had the sense to cut the chaff and deliver endings.

[@bloodyneptune]

The fact that Clara can come back at any time haunts my dreams

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

Same.

[@HannnnR]

Oh my god new nightmare unlocked. Please no 😭😭

[@deonnelson9780]

Lmao she probably will which I'm co with she was my favorite companion.

[@BlueGangsta1958]

Oh I'd be pissed. And my sister would be hella confused because when I rewatched the show with her and we came to the end of Heaven Sent I just told her "we're skipping the next episode, that didn't happen, don't ask why"

[@malcolmmorin]

In Twice Upon a Time, Testimony has a glass avatar of Clara, which means she's dead and won't come back.

[@skeletor2868]

15:40 Well this didn't age well

[@jgr2637]

I think it reflects a bigger problem with Moffat's companions (mostly Clara) they don't feel challenged enough. Look at how much Donna went through and she grew so much whilst in comparison Clara almost always had a witty retort or plan of action that cheapened things for me

[@hothemeep1219]

"They don't feel challenged enough" : amy's child being kidnapped, her waiting for 36 years, becoming sterile. Bill becoming a cyberman, clara losing his boyfriend, being killed by bravery. Rory being transformed into plastic and waiting for amy during 2000 years

[@mayotango1317]

That's the same I think .... about the Fam.

[@jgr2637]

@@mayotango1317 true! The 13th doctor especially seems to overcome any problem with relative ease

[@jgr2637]

@@hothemeep1219 I agree with the big stuff. However, Amy's baby wasn't explored properly and Rory waits almost entirely off screen. The big problems they face are overcome by factors outside their control. River comes back, the doctor brings Clara back, and Heather makes Bill immortal - most things are magically fixed. Then Clara especially in the day to day running of the show seems unphased by most threats (Bill and Amy are far more measured). For example, in Dark Water she's so quick to pretend to be the doctor in front of the cybermen she doesn't even look scared which lowers the stakes.

[@avremirine8986]

I think Martha Jones went through the most hardships in the new series.

[@Tom-xt1jn]

Generally I think Moffat is way better when he's given a single story in a season - that seems to encourage him to fully develop an idea rather than make it part of some grand convulted arc. Just look at all the stories he wrote in season 1-4 - Empty child and Doctor Dances, Girl in the fireplace, blink, and the liabary 2 parter. All generally seen as great pieces of Doctor who content and some (not me personally but I'm sure some) prefer all those episodes to everything he wrote as show runner.

[@hothemeep1219]

Nah the main problem is that some fans can't pay attention enough to understand a complex plotline. That's the sad reality

[@sad_tbh]

@@hothemeep1219 overly convoluted and (sometimes) poorly executed =/= complex

[@hothemeep1219]

@@sad_tbh well you illustrate perfectly my point so thanks I guess ?

[@sad_tbh]

@@hothemeep1219 yeah I didn't express that very well, but while I personally enjoyed the seasonal arcs, I can also appreciate their flaws, and that season 6's in particular was rather poorly executed.

[@hothemeep1219]

@@sad_tbh in what way ?

[@EmmanuelGoldstein3]

I think Moffat's primary problem was that he didn't realize that Blink was a throwaway episode, one of the money-saver second unit Doctorless affairs. The gimmicky time stuff worked fine in that context, having some fun with the absurdities of time travel stories. It was actually a great episode, one of the classics. (Although I thought that its centerpiece one-half-of-the-conversation was too intelligible to work properly. It was supposed to make no sense at all without the Doctor's part, but really, it was pretty obvious what it was). But then he just kept giving us overly clever (or so he thought) time games. It got tedious.

[@betsyrobinson7314]

I like what they did with Clara's death. You say in this video that Face the Raven was the end of Clara's arc, and Hell Bent was a retcon. But really, Face the Raven is just the precursor to what happens in Hell Bent. Going too far to save Clara was what Series 7b, 8 and 9 were building up to- it was the conclusion to the Hybrid story. Without Clara's revival, we wouldn't have any arc at all for the Doctor and Clara's relationship. But more importantly, we wouldn't have Heaven Sent

[@HarboWholmes]

Oh yeah, I love the Hybrid arc, don't get me wrong. But Face the Raven is still the end of Clara's individual arc, since the Hybrid arc is shared between them, so I count them differently, personally

[@applejhon8308]

Quite honestly I don't care how it's justified within the story, it happened the way it happened regardless of whatever else was going on in the plot. It felt incredibly cheap to a lot of people especially if you were someone getting tired of the character.

[@intergalactic92]

I can get behind the Doctor trying to bring her back because he refused to accept it. If it ended with them taking her back to Face the Raven again with the Doctor learning to accept it I could get behind it. I can’t get behind Clara continuing to wander around happy as Larry with no consequences for the fact that she is dead. If she’s allowed to keep going then what’s to stop the time lords from just resurrecting everyone? We are told that bringing people back from the dead is wrong, but there don’t seem to be any real consequences for this.

[@ashyslashy10539]

I loved the Clara storyline at first but when she was with Capaldi she was so cruel to him. Half the stuff she would say, let’s face it, she never would have said to Smith. She just became so obsessed with being like the Doctor that it was annoying. Don’t get me wrong, she’s clever, but she didn’t seem to actually care about the Doctor anymore. Seemed quite full of herself by the end and basically used him as a quick getaway whenever she felt like it. I couldn’t wait for her to leave the show but Face the Raven was still sad. Same thing with Amy Pond being so awful to Rory half the time. I just don’t think he knows how to write female characters for the long term. Honestly I do love a lot of his stories, though.

[@tomnorton4277]

Actually it was the other way around. Capaldi was MUCH crueler to Clara than she was to him. She put up with him acting like a sociopathic arsehole throughout Season 8 and after the way he treated her in Kill the Moon, I wouldn't have minded if she had actually gone through with her threat to slap him into his next regeneration.

[@marosa1801]

Face the raven was very sad but to this day it frustrates me how he cheapened that by bringing Clara back 2 episodes later. It felt pointless as well to bring back Gallifrey just for it to be background. I almost think it would have been better if he’d just been imagining Clara in the last episode

[@michaelloparco2173]

@@tomnorton4277They were an honest married couple then…mean and kind to one another.

[@tomnorton4277]

​@@michaelloparco2173 Which just goes to show that Peter Capaldi didn't deliver the performance he intended. He made it very clear in his first episode and in interviews that his Doctor wasn't supposed to come across as Clara's husband. After her "dashing young gentleman friend" died on Trenzalore, Clara's feelings towards the Doctor became platonic. She looked at him like he was somewhere between a father and a big brother, not a romantic partner. She got nervous about him meeting Danny Pink, just like a daughter who's scared that her father may not like her boyfriend, and she went out of her way to annoy him in Flatline, just like a little sister who loves to get under her big brothers skin for fun. Peter Capaldi was supposed to come across as platonic as well. Instead, he acted like a man who was desperate to impress Clara whilst trying to pretend that he wasn't interested. He was meant to come across like William Hartnell's stern but loving grandfather, not a spiteful, jealous ex-boyfriend. I would kill to see John Hurt do Seasons 8 and 9. Clara's relationship with him would have actually balanced out like the scripts intended. John Hurt was one of Britain's best so he wouldn't have been completely outshone by Clara, as well as Missy and Davros, like Peter Capaldi was. On paper, the Doctor and Clara were equals but in practice, Clara left Peter Capaldi in the dust.

[@spacepenguins8939]

So what are your thoughts of Donna regaining her memory in The Star Beast and not dying

[@benjiappleton]

Strax too. He died, quite satisfyingly. Gets brought back with a vague handwave in The Snowmen.

[@OhWellBananas]

I mean, I do love Strax, but you right. His death was solid. As a Sontaran, he thought it was what he wanted. But having been pulled away somewhat from his people's core beliefs by nature of being made a nurse, he realized at the end "Wait, no, this kind of sucks actually?" and that was pretty great. Strax had more character development in that single story than even most legit companions get. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@johannvongenerico9487]

Feels like each of the deaths works in a vacuum, or at least in small clusters, like the first couple of Rory deaths, but as a whole pattern it's not great

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

He's been turned into Kenny from South Park pretty much.

[@lesmisloony]

I scrolled through a ton of comments and couldn't find anyone mentioning my least favorite Undoing Death moment from Moffatt - he undid the destruction of Gallifrey and invalidated 9's entire character arc! And I'm still salty he did the "War Doctor" thing when Paul McGann was RIGHT THERE

[@mayotango1317]

I head the books and audios, and the 8 Doctor is the Life Champion.

[@tomnorton4277]

Paul McGann couldn't have pulled off the War Doctor. Night of the Doctor was a good swan song for him but he simply doesn't have the demeanour of a warrior.

[@f-zilla7347]

The public clearly wasn’t paying attention properly during 1988 and 1989, because Seasons 25 and 26 got dark, and it was incredible.

[@LittleHobbit13]

The ultimate irony is that in _Moffat's own episode_ "Silence in the Library", there is the line "You need a good death. Without death there'd only be comedies. Death gives us size." Moffat never letting people die in his Who is sort of the same problem that Supernatural faced in the back half of the series. At some point, when you kill Sam and/or Dean, I just don't care because I _know_ they're coming back. Moffat even ruined the Weeping Angels by not letting them die, when you think about it. Great spooky monster for like 2 uses, and then he kept bringing them back and in having to find new ways to make them scary, he ruined them. They weren't scary at all by the end because they were so riddled with plot holes.

[@aloysiuswhiteboat2934]

Moffat would have given Adric a parachute.

[@Tyranniod]

This is my favourite comment yet.

[@Ben-vf5gk]

I really want to see a version of Earthshock with that ending. Still have the silent credits, still have Davison and the others looking sad but just play it over Mathew Waterhouse in a parachute.

[@aloysiuswhiteboat2934]

@@Ben-vf5gk We must make this happen.

[@ThomasMurch]

Reminds me of how RTD wrote a poem giving Harriet Jones an escape hatch and a motorbike!

[@matthewparker9276]

Amy and rorys leaving the show was good, it was tragic and poetic. However both Clara and Bill surviving as eternal space zombies was stupid, and undermines their deaths. If you want characters to have a death, kill them. If you don't want them to die, don't kill them. It's that simple.

[@Markus_included]

16:05 "Since Donna never regained her memories" this aged like fine milk

[@DaDunge]

I think Moffat's big problems is he is great at setting up mysteries but h is really bad at resolving them in a satisfying way.

[@mariagracia8095]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Master. I know Moffat hasn't been the only one who has brought him/her back, but the Master's had a few dramatic and amazing deaths that seem to accomplish his/her character arc, but then that gets devalued by bringing him back over and over. It gets boring and not surprising at all

[@mayotango1317]

That is Chibnall fault.

[@billydeeuk]

You keep mentioning Rose’s departure but never talk about the fact that the tragedy of her first exit was completely undermined by RTD by bringing her back again. It was confirmed she could never cross the boundary between one universe and another, and that the two would never see eachother again. Series 4 undid this. It also gave Rose a happy ending by giving her the Meta Crisis Doctor to grow old with, completely undoing the tragedy of her and the Doctor being apart forever. She then gets brought back AGAIN in Tennant’s last episode for an “emotional reunion” and then appears *AGAIN* as The Moment. Even the episode of her death opens with her saying “I’m Rose Tyler, and this is the story of how I died”. A fake out. She didn’t die. And she didn’t stay “dead” either.

[@TheJadedJames]

Amy and Clara outlasted Rose. But when those characters were first written off, they stayed off the show for good. Rose and Martha came back repeatedly for full episodes

[@billydeeuk]

@@TheJadedJames Marha *could* come back though as she left by choice. Rose was trapped in an alternate universe, which was heartbreaking for the doctor, for Rose and for the fans. Every time she came back cheapened that original tragedy

[@nekograce7914]

The Moment doesn’t count she wasnt Rose.

[@billydeeuk]

@@nekograce7914 The Moment appears as Rose. I am aware she is not actually Rose (although The Moment knows the form it is taking is Rose Tyler), rather my point was that she as a character keeps returning - even if The Moment isn’t strictly Rose per se, it was still a character returning in some form

[@Shadowchellen]

I do think the last Tennant episode would have been fine if Rose didn't come back in previous episodes? As I think the emotional reunion would have a bigger impact.

[@iusedtowrite6667]

Characters repeatedly not doing has to be one of my biggest pet peeves. It's destroys all tension and stakes. Moffat's biggest issue is this and trying too hard to make mystery too grand and epic.

[@OhWellBananas]

The lack of stakes is why I can't stand Clara. When Donna was told she was the most important person in the world by Rose because she's the one who gets the Doctor to stop and thus saves him, she almost can't handle that kind of responsibility and almost has a breakdown over the information, as many normal humans would with something so utterly overwhelming. Clara saves his ass time and time again and it's just...how things are. Not a big deal in the slightest. It took all the drama out of the show for me because don't worry, Queen Perfect will fix everything! I was also mad that she just nags the TARDIS into letting her in and also she knows how to fly it, I guess? Or the TARDIS just took her where she wanted to go because it was just annoyed with her? Either way, I was a bit miffed. Whereas, by comparison, Rose and Mickey had to tear the console open with a truck to get it to do what they wanted. All sci-fi shows and movies are bad about overusing deus ex machina, but I feel like Moffat was especially fond of it, and once Doctor Who began relying too heavily upon it, I lost interest. A lot of people seem to be dishing out Chibnal hate, but I can't speak to that, as I stopped watching mid-way through season 10, and seasons 7-9 were a chore to get through for me. I will probably never watch the show again :/

[@BlueGangsta1958]

@Beth Rubiano I hate what they did to Clara as much as the next person but the Doctor definitely taught her how to fly the TARDIS - we saw him do so in the beginning of the episode where the TARDIS gets taken in by these three dudes looking for valuable space trash where the TARDIS almost gets destroyed. I think that's enough setup to make it an acceptable conclusion that he kept teaching her and that she would be able to fly it afterwards. I don't remember where it was chronologically, but I think it was in her early time with 11. I seem to remember that was also the episode where he got all in her face with "Just tell me. What are you? A trick? A trap? Dalek asylum there was a girl named Oswin saving my life and She. Was. You." and that must've been something that happened before he built a connection with her. She definitely got a lot more "Doctor-training" than most companions - she even got to cosplay as him during Flatline which indicates that she has at least some idea how the Sonic Screwdriver works. I'm not sure what you mean with making the TARDIS let her in.

[@aileene534]

This!! I always say that Moffat likes the “shock value” of killing off companions without actually having the balls to really kill them. The fact is, Moffat is great at writing one off episodes (or two parters) but is NOT good at writing the overarching story in the series, or proper character writing

[@OverlyPositiveFanboy]

Moffat can be fairly good as a writer, until he inevitably gets stuck up his own butt and becomes convinced that he's so clever.

[@bumbers_hoot]

wonder what this guys gonna say about the new series

[@volvoblues]

Oh my god, they killed Rory!

[@alexpotts6520]

Can't see that thumbnail without thinking about the bit in V for Vendetta: (repeatedly shoots V) "Why won't you die?" V: "I am an idea, and ideas are bulletproof."

[@dorianleakey]

My biggest problem is the resolution of the cliffhangers were unimportant to him, he was focussed on how great his characters are, but still had to have drama and tension. So the Pandorica for instance, it made no sense.

[@pinealities5959]

I think it's less "look the doctor/companion is dead" and more "now we have to deal with how we avoid being dead" and the reason the companions don't die is because the doctor has become skilled enough to "save them." I think it was only for shock value maybe a couple times, I don't see death as being devalued nearly at all considering people still die constantly.

[@finb4940]

To me, Moffatt's inability to keep characters dead feels like he painted a wall blue, then regrets it, doesnt remove the blue, then he tries to paint it red and so it just becomes some weird mess that he has to explain everytime someone asks him "why do you have an awful wall?"

[@yeoldpepsi]

Grand Moff Steven: "you may resurrect when ready"

[@simplegarak]

Then you realize he did the same thing again in the 50th special and undid the death of Gallifrey.

[@keithscott4013]

I mean I personally think the ponds “death” is great in concept I mean for the doctor it would be terrible. I mean if there dead ok the character can move on and that’s it but knowing that there still alive and not being able to see them . If it was done better (and there weren’t so many deaths before) it could of been great At the end of the day that’s Moffat all over , great ideas,executed badly(most of the time)

[@triciahutchins5407]

I went to a lot of trouble to find a way to see "Twice Upon a Time" when it was first aired. When it was over, I was furious with BBCAmerica and with Moffat. BBCAmerica, because there was nearly as much time spent on commercials as on Doctor Who. Moffat because he couldn't let the dead characters stay dead, and they all had to have a big, group hug at the end. It was unbelievable.

[@scottvandenham3620]

The dead companions were still dead. The Doctor was conversing with facsimiles made up by Testinony of those companions' memories, mixed with some artificial intelligence and hard light holographic projections, to create a means of conversing with the dead. A seance, AI -style. Conversely, as The Doctor is the only living humanoid by that point in the episode, I would argue he could've imagined/hallucinated the whole companion reunion scene.

[@bazzer124]

I'm always amused how "A fixed point in time" cannot be undone until it is. "Heaven Sent" was a beautiful set-up for "Hell Bent" which then utterly destroyed the fixed point theory and made the Doctor look like an utter fool trying to undo the undo-able. That Clara and Me got to leave in a TARDIS was the stinky icing on a crappy cake. And I always wonder why Coleman dropped the Jenna-Louise hyphenated bit. To separate Oswin from Osgood, lol? Cheers...

[@Roxor128]

Let's not forget Doctor Who's king of not staying dead: The Master. We got the Anthony Ainley version when he cobbled together an extra regeneration on Traken. Then we had him come back as a possessing snake-thing in the TV movie after he was executed in the opening of it, only to be dumped into the Eye of Harmony for a death. Then we get him back again in Utopia, having been resurrected by the Time Lords during the Time War. Dead again in Last of the Time Lords. Back again in The End of Time and seemingly dying due to Lucy Saxon sabotaging his resurrection. Sent back into the Time War. Back again as Missy. Seemingly dead and unable to regenerate in The Doctor Falls. Back again as O in the Whittaker era. Dead on Gallifrey with the death particle. Back again in Whittaker's final episode, and dead again at the end. The man's a rubber cockroach! No matter how many times he's stamped down, he springs back. At least the Daleks and Cybermen have the excuse of being an entire species, so it's always possible to miss a few who can rebuild. Not so much with the Master. I think it was around The End of Time that I stopped going "Thank goodness he's gone." and shifted to "Now, how's he going to come back next time?".

[@cameronjosephvideos5942]

Yeah, they really need to stop doing that. There are three characters that nobody will ever believe is dead in this show. The Doctor, The Master and Davros. Never show any of them dying because even if the showrunner intends it to be permanent, there will always be a future showrunner to bring them back.

[@Asha2820]

"I believe I can save you some time. That most certainly is the Doctor, and he is most certainly dead." -Canton Everett Delaware III

[@desiv1170]

To be fair, in the Doctor's Daughter, her coming back didn't lesson the emotional weight of her death, unless you knew she came back before you watched. ;-)

[@fredgarvinism]

Didn't they retcon Adricks death in a novel. Something about him surviving the crash and dealing with a planet of scorpion people.

[@mrgerund3060]

modern who really writes ABOUT the companions, the doctor is even a side character as moffat stated. i dont blame moffat for devaluing deaths personally, the show is supposed to be family friendly, open to new stories and new writers to continue arcs... and because the thing i previously stated... they need to also have absolute endings for certain eras because companions become the centre of the show pretty much. a permanent goodbye is essentially a death portrayed as a happy ending. this ends up clashing with moffat's dangerous writing style of time being the doctor's weapon... personally i didn't have any actual issue with it as i think moffat experimented with doctor who to created the most creative era possible with its ups and downs. You might think moffat isn't perfect, personally, i think he is one hell of an impact.

[@akaiendo7312]

I agree, for me the most important character should always be the main companion (when there is one) because they are supposed to be the most important person for the current doctor. The "Fam" felt not as important any main companions, even when the Doctor said they are her "Fam" it feels meaningless. That's why I like that 12th saved Clara even if shouldn't have, because she was his companion for the longer period of time (from the doctor point of view) and she saved him by asking the time lords to help him.

[@seatheparade]

Hmm I think the problem is that Moffat shouldn't keep writing characters dying over and over again in the first place if he isn't willing to commit to killing them off. Like what the video said, characters like Martha and Donna have their permanent goodbyes with the doctor, and it makes sense that they wouldn't interact with him again (Martha was over the doctor and wanted her own life, Donna's memories were wiped). If Moffat wrote the characters out in a way where they leave because they are locked in another dimension/timeline, or they just want more stable lives, or stayed on earth to be with their loved ones, etc, then deaths wouldn't be cheapened in Doctor who and it would still be family friendly. That way, there are still bittersweet endings for the companions and the audience will believe it next time a character dies in an episode.

[@Qtheman3456]

7:30 - "...especially when you take into account that Moffat changed the endings of New Earth and Doctor's Daughter to avoid death." How'd Moffat do that? Did he already have that kind of influence during series 4's production? Or was that a slip of the tongue?

[@cameronjosephvideos5942]

Don't know about New Earth, but Moffat actually did influence the ending of the Doctor's Daughter. He didn't write it, but he did suggest the ending be changed, and it was.

[@Moonlightgraeme]

It really annoyed me just how many times the companions died and came back to life. Crying wolf so many times made me hate these characters and when they actually did leave the show I didn’t care and I was happy they left. Thanks Moffat.

[@gadgez_]

Boy, those four guys having a discussion sure do like like some super best friends. I really hope they’re all still doing well together.

[@dylanlewis5113]

The Ponds: Should have decided they didn't want to travel anymore. Maybe The Doctor could've found a way for Amy and Rory to have another baby. Clara: The old Clara Christmas fake out should have been real. Clara leaves at some point and ends up having a good life on Earth. Alternatively, The Raven stuff still happens. In the end, The Doctor and Clara both realize that they have to let each other go. Clara is returned to Trap Street and dies. The Doctor retains his memories. Bill and Nardol: I like the Cyberman stuff and thought they both got decent endings. Dark, yes, but fitting for the story. Wouldn't have the glass avatar thing for the Christmas Special. Just 1, 12 and The Brig's grandad. (Didn't realize that Bill actually was resurrected. I took the Heather thing to metaphorical, like her brain rationalizing her death, or going to the Afterlife.)

[@Datassist1001]

Nardole's ending always bothered me. In Twice Upon a Time the Doctor was going on about being tired of losing companions and I was just sitting there like: Then go back and save Nardole! You just left him there with a ship full of Cybermen! I'm sure with proper planning over a limitless amount of time the doctor could have worked out a way to save him and the remaining colonists.

[@spluff5]

I personally think that Moffat's inability to write comedy without making the characters act out-of-character is a bigger problem.

[@mullaoslo]

If I can give Moffat anything.. It's he always made doctor who feel epic and more times than not it worked.. He didn't follow through with his endings but the lead up was always entertaining

[@OlgaSPN]

Moffat works great as a writer for individual episodes, to inject cool different ideas. But he has to have a showrunner to reign him in and force him to follow through on plot line promises and teases. His command of the season-long archs and consistency is horrible.

[@TheSchaef47]

Season 1 Moffat: just this once, everybody lives! Season 5+ Moffat: I'm about to ruin this man's whole career.

[@nytesla_punk3327]

Torchwood was literally based on Buffy too lol

[@calbanville-winter4368]

As much as I love angels in Manhattan as an episode, I would’ve preferred amy and Rory to leave at the end of the god complex like you said.

[@shwenty1734]

Actually, Madame De Pompadour survived via that ship's computer. Moffat revealed this in the Lockdown story. he just couldn't help himself.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

I thought that wasn't actually the real Reinette, but the computer of the ship believing it was Reinette.

[@phillipj1135]

the "You accidently died in the background but no one noticed in tell now" I can only think of this show when thinking of that trope. Mostly because the first time we met river. But yeah the "he/she's sort of dead but really made completely negligible by there location in space time" trope is also way more popular. I can only think of three rose amy and her husband but something similar has probably happened. Still can't figure out what mostly happened to clara except at the end she died the doctor brought her back as a time zombie and she some how found the bistromath and flew off with it. It started to become complicated in finding episodes and where to watch them legally. I guess were talking about companions but the master could have died for good any of the last three time he/she made the attempt.

[@mca7905]

I guess I just don’t really care? Companions living makes me happy and that’s the kind of story I need from Doctor Who. It comforts me to know the Ponds lived even if they died. That Clara can still be out there and still die beautifully. That Bill’s soul(?) doesn’t die as a cyberman. That said Moffat is a very lazy writer but one whose work I mostly enjoy

[@mediakira6621]

The smith era always felt too…CBeebies like to me. It’s why Davies embraced the camp and played it as such. When Moffat tried to be funny…sometimes it just doesn’t work

[@wafflingmean4477]

I wish they had leaned more into the impact the 2000 years and repeated deaths had on Rory. It would have been amazing to perhaps have an episode where the Doctor isn't in the Tardis and it's up to Rory and Amy to save him, or suffer some horrible fate. And Rory is the one who steps up. Amy might have picked up a couple of things about Tardis control, but Rory is the strategist. Perhaps he expertly destroys a fleet of Daleks or Cybermen, or suddenly seems to flip a switch to lie and manipulate people so well even the Doctor would be impressed, or even straight up mercilessly killing someone who is threatening Amy, while she is trying to talk the aggressor down and seems on the verge of success, which Rory uses as an opening to attack. All of this would greatly shock Amy, showing to the audience that the writer is aware this change is seemingly coming out of nowhere. Rory described his memories of those 2000 years as a door he keeps shut in his head. Being forced to open that door to give us a look at the formidable and lonely man he became in those 2000 years would have been amazing. And then they could have wrapped it up with the Doctor and Rory having a heart to heart, because in a way they could actually relate to each other very well. Each one has a much darker man buried within who they don't want to be. Each one knows what it's like to rapidly switch between personalities, to seemingly die and come back, comparing Rory's resurrections to the Doctor's regenerations.

[@pistachiostars]

Damn I’m actually a bit gutted that we didn’t get this

[@Squantle]

I’ve come to like the implications Hell Bent have for the doctor’s character. The idea that he was the one destined to destroy gallifrey because he couldn’t bear to lose Clara is very fitting for him. All they needed to do was have Clara return to trap street after the doctor wipes his memory instead of hopping in the tardis. That would solve all the issues of the finale.

[@matthewbray764]

I always found Rose to be annoying but had a good ending. Martha, I liked her and the exit was good. Donna's end was very tragic. Rory dying constantly got a bit boring. Amy died a few times but most of the time not at the end of an episode (as far as I can remember) so it was not that impactful. Clara first season the deaths added to the mystery, second series she should have left after Danny's death, 3rd series she should have died properly in face the raven brilliant death but no the doctor wanted to save her. I had actually forgotton that Bill was brought back after turning into a cyberman she probably should have done a similar thing to what the torchwood character did and died battling other cybermen. I feel the most annoying thing about Moffat was wrapping up stories in a convenient way like just use the sonic screwdriver

[@LoesserOf2Evils]

If you don’t want the character to die, don’t kill tim. Find or contrive a different way to write tim out so that te continues to live.

[@Xarfax321]

What annoyed me most with "Angels take manhattan" was that the only thing happening was the creation of fixed time, which meant they HAVE to travel to another timezone at that particular moment in time. Ok.... Then why can't the doctor use his TARDIS to travel to that particular timeline and pick them up from where they landed? Oh sorry, dear Smith-bois and Moffat-girls, was that too much thinking for you? Because when I brought that up the response I got was "Don't think", which just caused me to flip them off. :D

[@lordbuss]

Yes, Moffat's writing is extremely contrived.

[@tommygunner321]

Loved Eccleson and Tennant, soon as Smith took on the role I lost interest. Bad stories, lackluster writing and never felt the same.

[@moviehermit5631]

Interesting how Moffat used the same method of preserving both Clara and Bill. Freezing time, plucking the person from the last moments of their life, then returning them to that moment so the timeline is preserved. The only difference is that Clara was time locked while Bill’s memories were preserved. This also means that every single person who’s died is preserved in the Testimony. It basically took the whole Cyberman plot at the end of Series 8, mixed it with Time Lord magic, and made it into a “not evil” thing. Now it kinda makes every future death have less weight because now we all know that the testimony is preserving them

[@ericlayton8888]

Gotta say I never liked Clara (apart from in Asylum of The Daleks) but the Doctor forgetting her really got to me. Not because I liked her as a character but more because the Doctor had shown so many times how much he cared for her, literally being willing to doom Gallifrey AGAIN just to save her or forgiving her for wanting to lock him out of the TARDIS forever. For the Doctor, who seems to know almost everything (or at least at the time) to forget she ever existed, then meet her again not knowing who she was or that she knew who he was, I thought was beautifully devastating

[@UgandanPrinc3]

15:20 my reason for why I’ve always been fine with Clara getting some extra time before returning to death was at that point I think she was one of the very few NuWho companions that don’t get punished for wanting to be like the Doctor /with the Doctor. Rose gets dumped in an alt. Dimension, Donna gets her mind wiped and her agency ignored and taken away. River is a special case since we met her at her death, Missy gets a double suicide. For Bill, I think it comes back to the whole “where there’s tears there’s hope, Bill’s tears in TDF that 12 isn’t dead, her tears in TUAT that 12 will change his mind and regenerate, heather’s tears in TDF, and kinda like in Praxius it’s nice when the LGBTQ+ couple isn’t killed off for once (looking at you Resolution), although heather’s “death” in the pilot arguably.. Like you said, in a vacuum, I think that’s perfectly fine. In an overarching critique though, yeah I agree with your argument.

[@BarioIDL]

at least he made actual characters