The official home of Moffat Appreciation Day

This blog collects meta, gifsets and any other posts which show love for Steven Moffat's writing and the shows he's worked on. Appreciation for all Doctor Who writers and eras is welcome. This blog is the official home of Moffat Appreciation Day.

[theuntoldadventuresblog]

The first second of eternity has finally passed. Clara Oswald: The Untold Adventures’ first episode, ‘A Citizen of the Universe’, is available to read now.✨🔮

This is an adventure many years in the making that began as just a daydream about what happened next. While our series is just one of infinite possibilities, it’s been crafted with the utmost love for these characters, and we hope that comes through in the final product.

We wouldn’t be here today without the amazing team of writers, artists, editors, and beta readers who’ve generously given their time to bring this project to life. See the full project team here.

With our series launch, we're also thrilled to unveil the title sequence for The Untold Adventures! Created by Ruth Long with an original theme composed by Dillon O'Hara.🪐🎶

[unnamedmedicalprofessional-deac]

I think some people, including me before I analyzed the opening scenes of the Eleventh Hour more closely, assume Amy's abandonment issues are just about being abandoned by The Doctor, but there's way more to it than that. Her parents had disappeared for reasons she had no capacity to understand, and she's left with her aunt who's heavily implied to be neglectful (leaving a child home alone completely unsupervised) and who she says she'd be lucky not to have. She also doesn't fit in as the only Scottish girl in the English village and frankly just an odd person in general.

When The Doctor says he'll come back, she says people always say that like she knows from experience. The tragedy of what The Doctor accidentally did to her is that she finally however breifly met an adult that cared about her only to have that ripped away again and having others disbelief in him only alienate her from others further. She keeps getting taken to psychiatrists and biting them. It's worth noting that even though it was an accident, it was incredibly callous of The Doctor to promise he'd be five minutes when he knows the TARDIS has a long history of being unreliable. Rule one The Doctor lies, not just as part of plans, but also to pretend to be a version of himself that's actually responsible and reliable.

And that's why she has so much trouble healthily expressing her love for Rory, because deep down she's afraid he'll abandon her to. That's also why Amy needs Rory, because there is nobody less likely to abandon Amy Pond than Rory Williams.

[pablolf]

I don’t have masses of stories about Steven, because we don’t hang out a lot, but I just get to sit and gawp at his brilliance. But here’s a really memorable moment for me – I don’t think I’ve told it in the magazine before. In the edit suite during Hell Bent, I asked Steven if he had anything specific he wanted for the paint peeling off Clara’s portrait on the TARDIS, as I was about to go talk to the Visual Effects artists about it. He casually answered, “The logic is flexible, the poetry is immutable.” And we all continued editing, except my brain went “What?! That’s one of the most amazing thing I’ve heard and it was just a casual comment.” So I quietly wrote it down, because I knew I’d forget it. And the more I thought about it, the more it became a film-making mantra – so I started using it when I teach. Do not misinterpret that to imply, ‘Be timey-wimey’. It was said in reference to a visual – that the feeling that it evokes is more important than the mechanics of how it is created. It’s all about the net result for the audience. And that’s just Steven on a throw-away day! But my personal favourite memory of Steven is when we showed him the first edit of Heaven Sent and at the end he couldn’t talk. He was that pleased. He said, “I didn’t think it could be pulled off.” He’d become so enthralled, he hadn’t even written any notes.

RACHEL TALALAY (Doctor Who Magazine Issue 515 September 2017)

[moviebuff81]

Twice Upon a Time

I have Twice Upon a Time in my head now due to some tweets I read this morning. Personally, this is my favorite regeneration story. My favorite regeneration scene is still the Eleventh Doctor's regeneration. However, as a regeneration episode, Twice Upon a Time is #1. It's heartbreaking, beautiful, poetic. It's a perfect coda for Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat.

I love the idea of the First Doctor fearing the act of regeneration for the first time. Not knowing what's coming or what's ahead for his future self. I love that he meets the Twelfth Doctor who wants his incarnation to be the last. He doesn't want to change anymore. I love that the First Doctor gets a glimpse of who will become in the future. He gets to see that he has an impact on the universe. The Twelfth Doctor faces that there is still good to be done.

My heart starts to break at the start of the Battlefield Christmas Truce and it's fully broken by the time he lets the Doctor go. I love that he gets his memories of Clara back. For me, when Clara "appears" we're reminded along with the Doctor just what he lost all those years ago. We remember again how special and important she was to him and what a big loss those memories truly were. Memories are important.

[kattahj]

Steven Moffat interview: 'There Are Crocodiles' - Press Gang's finale at 30 - The Spoilist

Steven Moffat talks about the Press Gang series finale 'There Are Crocodiles' which first aired on 21st May 1993.

Wonderful interview that touches on a lot of the things that made Press Gang what it is!

[wibblyrlin]

MOFFAT: River's not just his wife - she's his widow. somewhere in the terrible future, on a battlefield, the 45th Doctor dies in her arms and makes her the same promise she once made him - it's not over for you, you'll see me again. So River buries her husband and off she goes to have lots of adventures with his younger selves and confuse the hell out of them. Until, of course, she ends up in the data core of the library planet, and realises she'll never seem him again. And then she starts to wonder why anyone would call a moon "Doctor". Ah... Yeah, some version of that could still work. The Doctor worrying that she'll get lonely in the library, and popping his dying mind inside a moon. God, look at those words. I actually typed those words.

RTD: I've never forgotten that Doctor Moon thing, it's so clever. Every time i watch that story, I think, it's him, it's The Doctor, and no one knows.

DWM #551

[mainlysarcastic]

I absolutely love how 12 chose Bill to be his new companion

Watching her in the lectures, noticing her sense of wonder and excitement to learn new things

The fact that she’s not even a student but still regularly attends lectures for the sake of learning

The fact that she doesn’t get discouraged when she doesn’t know something and instead is excited to learn something new

Her dedication to being tutored and being his friend over their time together

She’s such a good companion and I wish we had more time with her

[bisexualamy]

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Weapon after weapon after weapon. All you do is talk and talk and talk. But over all these years and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do.

[moffatappreciationlife]

#i'm vibrating at the speed of sound i can't believe this line was in the actual episode#i've talked to death about the actual death scene#so INSTEAD can we talk about how BOTH of them are self destructive#simm!master acts with bluster like he can never die#he eats up his own body. he uses his own life energy. he takes a bullet to have the last word.#simm!master gives death the middle finger. it's a joke to him. he LAUGHS as he's dying in the elevator bleeding out#simm!master truly believes he will never die. death is a farce. death is a game. and it's a game he's winning#missy is ironically much more careful; each of her 'deaths' is a calculation#she has backup plans for her backup plans because she likes being MISSY#but like everything she does there's drama and affect to obscure how she truly feels#'dying is so passe. i've done it so many times'#to hide that actually? for the first time? this might scare her. because she'll never be MISSY again#simm!master thinks he can never die; missy knows she can and suspects she might like being missy more than the master#and that terrifies her (via @bisexualamy​)

[intyalote]

love the ending of “smile” it’s a complete refutation of human-centric storytelling. the simple recognition of the microbots as conscious beings who are entitled to sovereignty even if their consciousness is incomprehensible and disturbing by human standards. it isn’t their problem that they evolved beyond what the humans who made them intended, even if the humans think that creating them gives them the right to control them. the idea of creatures who don’t intend to hurt humans but do so accidentally due to how they live or conflicting moral codes is pretty common in sff, but it usually ends in the creatures being locked up/banished/killed with the justification that “it’s unfortunate but they’re too dangerous.” in “smile” it’s the other way around, the robots are the ones who built the city so they are the important ones; the humans have to negotiate to be allowed to stay. it perfectly sets up the themes of identity, freedom, and the right to exist for all living things that will recur throughout s10.

[lady-stefania-of-chaol-ghleann]

7 years ago, 'Doctor Who' quietly dropped its best episode — and changed sci-fi forever

In 2015, Peter Capaldi's 'Doctor Who' era peaked with a classic episode called "Heaven Sent." Here's why this episode is not only the best e

[garkgatiss]

GQ: You’ve got two stories here that eventually connect — this Vicarage crime thriller, and a Sherlock-esque mystery drama, albeit set on death row. Which one came first? Steven Moffat: Well, there’s kind of three stories, actually. And they’re just two or three preoccupations of mine. There’s the story of Janice and the cellar, there’s the story of the vicar’s life upstairs, and the story of Jefferson Grieff on death row. This didn’t come to me as a script idea, but three things I’d always worry about just idly, at four in the morning: if I were trapped by someone, because they don’t want a secret revealed, how could I negotiate my freedom? The other — are there any circumstances in which a perfectly decent person would kill another perfectly decent person? What would push me to do that? I would ask myself all sorts of questions. Would I kill someone for money? Well, no. Would I kill another innocent person, just to save my own life? You know, shove them out of a lifeboat, because there’s only room for one or something. And I’d think, Well, I would want to be like Doctor Who, and lay my life down for others. I’d at least aspire to be that guy. But I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t kill another innocent person to save my child. And the third one is, suppose you’d done the worst imaginable thing. What do you then do with the rest of your days? Because you’re a perfectly decent person apart from this one time you did something unacceptable. If you lapse from perfect decency, and kill someone, what would you do?

BBC’s Inside Man writer Steven Moffat breaks down that chilling finale, GQ (via garkgatiss)

[and-the-times-we-had]

Eucatastrophe and Doctor Who

I have probably had this post sitting in my drafts folder since like 2014, but I think I’m finally going to finish it now for a bit of a belated Moffat Appreciation Day 2022. When I was originally writing this post I was thinking of this concept in regards to New Who as a whole at the time, but I think that I would like to instead focus on on specific story in Moffat’s era now that I have had the chance to get a firmer grip on both the concept of eucatastrophe and the overall tone of both Davies and Moffat’s eras.

So first of all, the concept of “eucatastrophe” was discussed by JRR Tolkien as being “the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears”. Tolkien also argues that this effect of eucatastrophe is “the highest function of fairy-stories to produce”.

Essentially, it is a point in the story where all hope seems lost but then out of that hopelessness, something magnificent occurs. To be clear, a eucatastrophe is not necessarily a straight forward happy ending and it also isn’t necessarily without tragic elements. It almost requires them, actually.

I think the absolute clearest, though not the only example, of Moffat using this same concept is in “World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls”.

Right from the start in this story the doctor, Bill, Missy, and Nardole discover that they have entered into a situation that is incredibly fraught with tension. It quickly deteriorates with Bill being shot and moved away from the main group, casting her into extremis, as the episode might call it. But even in the deep pits of the ship, Bill remains hopeful and full of goodness. She believes and hopes that the Doctor will come for her. And he does. But as we all know, he is too late by mere hours to save her from what appears to all the characters to be a hopeless situation from then on.

And the situation only deteriorates further with the unveiling of the Master and the plans of the Cybermen. By the time we get to The Doctor Falls, the story has so many tragic elements to it that it is difficult to see how it could have an outcome that is anything but tragic. The Cybermen are not primarily trying to conquer, simply trying to survive under horrible, inescapable conditions on a ship far too close to a black hole. Without access to the TARDIS, the doctor can do nothing for the villagers aside from buy them time. Missy’s entire arc of growth is under threat of totally unraveling due to the appearance of her former self, and Bill is utterly trapped as a Cyberman. Oh, and the doctor is dying but holding back his regeneration so that he can help everyone else survive this desperate situation as best as he can.

The fleeting moments of hope offered in this episode are also almost all either snuffed out very quickly (such as when Missy chooses to stand with the Doctor, solidifying her arc, but is quickly taken out by her former self, leaving them both to die) or seem like they are nearly foolish to hope for at all given the circumstances (the doctor is given a small degree of hope by Bill’s crying real tears as a Cyberman). The most realistic hope that they have and what the doctor, nardole, and Bill are working towards for most of the episode is the hope of moving the villagers a few floors up and slowing down the cybermen, even if they can’t stop them for good. This small kindness is what the doctor’s whole speech to the master and missy is about. He knows he can’t win. He knows he is trapped and will die here. But he is going to do what he thinks is right regardless, without hope, without witness, without reward. Bill by this point has also lost all hope that she can be saved and make it out of this tragedy and she plans to go down fighting the Cybermen as well alongside the Doctor because she doesn’t want to live if she can’t be herself.

However, as dreadful as all that may be, the absolute most hopeless and tragic part of the episode comes when the doctor appears to have died in the explosion that takes out most of the Cybermen, choosing not to regenerate. He utters possibly the saddest line the doctor has ever said and the next time we see him, Bill has found his body in the wasteland left behind by the explosion. Bill is in complete and utter despair at this point, crying over the doctor’s body, looking up at the “sky” (really the top of the ship) practically begging, nearly praying for help with her tears. She has nothing in this moment. There is nothing she can do and as far as she knows there is no help coming.

But then, suddenly, help does come. At the point where the episode reaches peak despair, a corner is turned. Bill is saved by virtue of exactly the doctor’s earlier foolish hope. Her tears have called Heather to her and Heather takes Bill from the cybersuit and reforms her, giving her new life and even the choice to be human again in the future if she wants. They save the doctor and bring him back to his TARDIS and while it is unclear to them whether he will survive, Bill continues to hope that she will see him again and leaves him her tears as a reminder of that hope.

When I first watched this episode, I very much experienced the feeling that Tolkien describes in his definition of eucatastrophe. Bill had been through so much that seeing her be saved by Heather and save the Doctor in turn brought me to tears. I mean, I was already in tears because of the peak despair moment, but these were different tears. They were hopeful, nearly joyful. And something that solidified the way I feel about this story was Moffat’s later interview where he says quite plainly that “Doctor Who is a big hearted, optimistic show that believes in kindness and love and that wisdom will triumph in the end. I don’t believe it’s the kind of show that says there are bitter, twisted, nasty endings because it’s not. It’s not gritty; it’s aspirational. It says, ‘It can work. And wisdom and kindness will triumph. And love will always come through in the end.’ I think there aren’t enough people or enough shows saying that and I’m damned if Doctor Who is going to join in with the general chorus of despair.”

Moffat masterfully managed to produce the “highest function of fairy-stories” in this episode. It is a masterpiece of emotion, tragedy, ethics, and hope against despair and even 5 ½ years later I still cry about this episode every time I think of it. We need more stories with these kinds of endings in the world.

[abossycontrolfreak]

Listen...

@tillthenexttimedoctor replied: Hmm, maybe “Listen”. Might be interesting to look at it in retrospect, as a point where The Impossible Girl has ended and Doctor figure Clara is only slowly beginning.

I haven’t watched Listen for a long time, so the specifics are going to be vague, but you’re right that it is an important transition point for Clara’s arc - it’s the first real challenge to her trying to live two lives. People often cite The Caretaker as the big clash between Clara’s Doctor-life and Earth-life, and it’s obviously a big theme in Series 8, featuring heavily in Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night. But I feel like Listen is really where that starts. It’s the first time we see Clara really engaged in Earth-life, where she seems to be trying to build something.  We’ve seen her jobs and friends and family before, but they are all things she’s been happy to drop for an adventure with the Doctor. And then… Danny. Danny who makes Clara want more, want something as special as she gets with the Doctor right here on Earth. He’s a loveable dork who doesn’t let her walk over him, or in other words: exactly her type. 

But of course, the Doctor is there too, with his high stakes adventure and intriguing mystery, and Clara starts to feel the tension. She’s having to choose, now, between two things she desperately wants. And that is when she starts to be the Doctor, isn’t it? The Impossible Girl is a storybook heroine who has it all, who saves the day with a big heroic act, the star of the show. But she’s not someone who needs to face reality, because that’s the point of The Impossible Girl for Clara - she’s an escape. She’s the hero Clara dreamed of being back when her mum was still alive.  But being the Doctor, that’s trickier. That’s hard choices and impossible decisions and a responsibility - a duty of care - to look out for those around you. Clara’s put in the position of knowing awkwardly more about Danny than she has any right to, and she has to navigate that. She’s having to deal with the same moral and ethical complexities that the Doctor does every day, an idea that only grows over the course of her arc.  To mirror this new challenge for Clara, we have Danny who also has had to grapple with the moral complexities of what he had to do. He’s further along in his journey than Clara, but he also doesn’t have her ambition. He’s after the simple life - a good job helping students, a partner who he loves and who loves him back, and finally a bit of peace though. Clara though… what Clara wants is going to mean increasing challenges, increasing situations where there’s no easy answer (or maybe no right answer at all). And she’s going to have to embrace that as a fundamental part of the life she yearns for. (Spoiler: she does)

[abossycontrolfreak]

@littleironi replied: “I’ve missed reading your meta on Clara. If you’re looking for a episode: Robot of Sherwood. I’ve been thinking (again) about the idea of impossible heroes and Clara as a storyteller and the hero of her story. And I know you’ll have some wonderful thoughts on it.”

I think what I love most about Clara, and Series 8, and Moffat era Who in general, is that everything happens in layers? We’ve got this S8 arc about self determination and deciding what sort of person you want to be, and we’ve got Clara’s long term arc about storytelling as a form of control especially over herself, and then we have this wonderful quaint story that presents as fun filler, but has the same echoing themes throughout.

Robin Hood is a storybook figure, comfortable in his own position in the story - he knows he’s the hero and the main character. The Doctor then comes in, trying to take over Robin’s role - this is after all, Doctor Who. The two of them fight for that main character spot, the one they both believe is theirs, because in their respective home narratives, they are the main character. 

And then we have Clara, who’s the Doctor’s companion and sidekick, and is dressed as the love interest from Robin Hood, who would never be the main character. And yet, through her determination, she outwits and outshines both of them to be the hero of this story. Clara doesn’t have it given to her, doesn’t have some historic precedent she needs to prove she’s earned the right to. She carves out the space on her own.  And it’s just a silly fun adventure, but it’s foreshadowing, isn’t it? For when Clara, a season and a half later, steals a TARDIS and runs away and becomes a mythic figure of the universe, the main character of her own untold adventures. 

[moffatappreciationlife]

I know moffat appreciation day is almost over, but did you see that the BBC released all the Sherlock shooting scripts the other day? A wonderful resource if anyone wants to dig deeper into moffat's writing. I always learn something when I read his scripts.

Thank you for letting me now, that's great news!

[tillthenexttimedoctor]

The companion Doctor

This Doctor Who meta was written way back in 2017. I’m publishing it on tumblr for Moffat Appreciation Day 2022, but it covers the entire time period between 2005 and 2016.

The companion as a Doctor figure has been a theme which Doctor Who has been fascinated with at least since Rose Tyler first appeared on our screens in 2005. One by one, every companion since then, from Rose Tyler to Clara Oswald, has come step into the role in some way or other, allowed to move in and out of the spaces on the show the Doctor inhabits.

Keep reading

[littleironi]

Becoming the Impossible Girl

In the beginning, we were introduced to Clara's echoes before we ever see the real Clara.

The brilliant Oswin Oswald: the last survivor of Starship Alaska, junior entertainment officer, "total screaming genius" and a confident flirt. It turns out she had been a Dalek all along. She survives by dreaming up a better life for herself. And from that dream, she interacts with the world. She spends a year hacking the most advanced warrior race in the universe from, not only inside the Dalek asylum, but from inside a Dalek. An invitation to the TARDIS later, her dreams meet reality in a shattering moment of realization. Faced with the truth of her existence, she turns the force field off and tells the Doctor to run, saving him as she stays behind to die.

And then along comes the fascinating Clara Oswin Oswald, part time barmaid, part time nanny. She tells the most fantastical tales and claims they are all true. She knows the exact right word to snap the Doctor out of his grief induced isolation. And the right words to convince "a Lizard Woman from the Dawn of Time" and her wife. At ease in the world of strange people and unbelievable creatures, she seems to walk the line between the two. Her charming personality and quick wits juxtaposed against the mystery of a face and parts of a name, we've already seen before. A mystery we are aware of but the Doctor has not yet realised exists.

Both Oswin and Clara Oswin Oswald are intriguing on their own but together they are the Woman Twice Dead and seem pretty impossible. And so the moniker is born. And the Doctor decides to solve the mystery of the Impossible Girl. And then he meets the actual woman behind the monikers.

The Doctor's preoccupation with this mystery casts a shadow over an otherwise easy friendship. The Doctor maintains his distance from the world by looking at his companion like a puzzle to solve rather than a person. Throughout the arc, he is told again and again by Clara, by evidence and by others, that Clara is just Clara, "a perfectly ordinary girl". His obsession persists until he confronts Clara about the mystery and she tells him that he is scaring her. But a reset button later that interaction is forgotten. Finally,  it is Clara who solves the mystery. Clara is just Clara, just an ordinary woman, but that doesn't mean she can't do extraordinary things.

Clara, in every iteration, as every echo of herself, is a storyteller. So that's what she does, writes herself into the Doctor's story. So when the Doctor asks when she started "believing in impossible heroes", her implied answer might be the Doctor, but perhaps, the reverse is true too. Because when Clara wrote herself into the Doctor's story, she became the impossible girl and the Doctor's hero in turn.