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The Smoke and Mirrors of Steven Moffat | Doctor Who vs Women Appendix Video (Patreon)

Published:
2023-10-29 16:16:53
Edited:
2026-08-23 07:59:15
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Content

Patreon exclusive video! For a while we were very torn between doing a video on women in Doctor Who and focusing more on Steven Moffat's oeu

Patreon exclusive video! For a while we were very torn between doing a video on women in Doctor Who and focusing more on Steven Moffat's oeuvre. Eventually we decided to focus on women and the show and make an appendix video for patrons analysing some of Moffat's patterns and tricks! Enjoy!

Files

The Smoke and Mirrors of Steven Moffat - Patreon Exclusive

How Steven Moffat makes you think he's being clever, basically lol. Patrons only! Video by Ada Černoša and Verity Ritchie Patreon: http://patreon.com/verityritchie Verity's Twitter: https://twitter.com/verilybitchie Verity's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/verityritchie/ Ada's Twitter: https://twitter.com/theliterarybi Ada's website about bisexual books: https://theliterarybisexual.neocities.org/

Comments

Vince Whitacre

Now this is the cringe content we've been looking for 😎

Theo Falling

Here's my Steven Moffat impression: "Love... is like death. Because every human being does it. But also some don't– because they're afraid, since fear is life's way of telling you that no one loves you. And no one should be afraid of death– death should be afraid of love." please hand me my bbc drama tv series now thank u

Ariella

I thought that the Romans were because the Nestenes needed a look for their army so they just took inspiration from Amy's mind bc she lived next to the crack for years so her thoughts went into it or something. And I had to watch it multiple times before I even got that. As far as his other series arcs, to this day I'm still confused about them. Something blew up the TARDIS and it was maybe the Silence? But also maybe it was that super secret organization that kidnapped River as a baby and brainwashed her into becoming an assasin to kill the doctor (and I'm still not sure why they did that? like, surely there's better ways and people to kill the doctor. just knock out a companion and steal their TARDIS key and send in a dalek or something)? But there were also some monks whose organization was based on the question "doctor who?" for more reasons that I still don't understand So I guess what I'm saying is that the episode is so confusing and disorganized that

Verity Ritchie

So as far as I can tell, the crack didn't influence the Nestene & co.'s choice to take the Romans inspiration from Amy. The Daleks or Nestene or whoever went to Amy's house (I vaguely assume the Daleks because the landing pattern on the grass reminds me of "Remembrance of the Daleks") took a psychic print of Amy's house to get information on her. The Doctor explains this is possible to do because psychic residue is the reasons houses have ghosts. So they took the inspiration from things in Amy's bedroom like the book on the Romans and the book on Pandora's Box. River says, "It's a trap. It has to be. They used Amy to construct a scenario you'd believe, to get close to you." Which doesn't make sense, in my opinion. Why would Amy knowing stuff about the romans make the situation anymore believable? Totally random. Why would Amy fancying Romans make the Doctor more likely to take her to them? Unless it was for some kind of hook up or something? Its frustratingly random! We actually had originally written an elaborate 10 minute segment all about this story and why it doesn't make sense, but decided it would be boring to anyone not super familiar with the episode, so we cut it and just focused on how stupid it is that they would use the roman book and Amy fancying romans to somehow "lure" the Doctor into a trap. As for why the TARDIS exploded, that is revealed in a throwaway line in "Time of the Doctor". Its revealed that Tasha Lem's church is the origin of all of River and the TARDIS explosion, but it was done by a faction which broke off from the main church. The monks come from Tasha Lem's church. Which most people didn't pick up on because its the biggest anticlimax in all of history lol!

Ariella

(Complete comment bc Patreon posted it when I wasn't done, oops) I thought that the Romans were because the Nestenes needed a look for their army so they just took inspiration from Amy's mind bc she lived next to the crack for years so her thoughts went into it or something. And I had to watch it multiple times before I even got that. As far as his other series arcs, to this day I'm still confused about them. Something blew up the TARDIS and it was maybe the Silence? But also maybe it was that super secret organization that kidnapped River as a baby and brainwashed her into becoming an assasin to kill the doctor (and I'm still not sure why they did that? like, surely there's better ways and people to kill the doctor. just knock out a companion and steal their TARDIS key and send in a dalek or something)? But there were also some monks whose organization was based on the question "doctor who?" for more reasons that I still don't understand. Also something happened at Trenzalore; I'm almost sure of it. So I guess what I'm saying is that Moffat's Who is so confusing and disorganized and full of plot arcs that might not even ever get resolved but also you can't tell if they get resolved or not bc they're all a jumbled mess. And even with all that, my absolute least favorite thing he did was bring back Gallifrey. It was such a horrible decision and I'll always be bitter about it. The whole point of the time lords is that they're incredibly powerful and arrogant, experiencing the universe on a level that we can't even comprehend. So when we see them on the show and they just look like normal people, that ruins all of the awe factor. Like you said, they're best experienced in the imagination. And there's no better example than the time war!! It's a devastating war between two of the most powerful races in the universe, fought on a scale we can't even imagine. RTD did it perfectly—e.g that conversation between the doctor and the master in the end of time. "The nightmare child, the could-have-been king with his army of meanwhiles and never-weres" is burned permanently in my brain. It's terrifying and intimidating—we have no idea what that is but we can feel the horror it must have been. This is an immensely powerful force that we can't even imagine, so far removed from anything we have a reference for that it's impossible to even conceive of it. And then Moffat swans in and decides it would be a great idea to show it to us. Suddenly it's not a cataclysmic wave of destruction between two unstoppable forces; it looks exactly like a warzone on earth but with laser guns instead of bullets. Gone is the impressiveness, the cosmic import, the knowledge that nothing we imagine can even get close to what happened. Now it's just two sides shooting at each other. Of all the garbage decisions he's made, that is the most unforgivable one for me. Anyway, super sorry for the very long rant; I just love that there's someone else who understands how awful he is. Also, sorry for deleting the original comment; it wasn't finished but I tried to put a paragraph break and patreon posted it instead. Loved the video! (obviously, lol)

Asaf Sagi

I absolutely loved this video and the main video! Really opened my eyes to Moffat's works which I enjoyed in my earlier years.

Elsa

Moffat really took his parody from the 90s ("Doctor, how did this happen?" "I'll explain later") and made it the backbone of his writing

Nicole Song

I guess all the praise about Clara has been said (and all the criticism is misogynistic)... just wanna hear more people talking about Clara but maybe I'm not looking thoroughly enough. Because plain praise isn't interesting (I should read that fanfic I've queued up...)

Nicole Song

enjoyable video. i treat watching moffat shows like watching a Jackie Chan film. the plot isn't the point, but look how cool the tricks are! wow, how did they set that up? whoa, the action's so fast! -- actually I have a read for the 'love is a promise' line which is the Doctor learning from Clara how to love a person and what it means when you love a person and it means you 'go to hell' to get them back as in Dark Water and Heaven Sent! but I did not get that until I read meta. so, is that part made up by the fans, or was it in the text of the show? or not the text but the substance? and the plot does not make sense -- sometimes you are just stringing together technobabble to set up a psychodrama -- in the same way Jackie Chan strings together plot lines to set up action sequences. if I had genie wishes i'd wish for 'Listen' (S8E4) to be reshot in a surrealist way.

Niko

Thanks for that - I always new there was someting wrong for me with Moffats writing, besides overcomplicated and cheap plot twist. And it wasn't also my love for 10th Doctor which kept me from liking 11th Doctor more. At the point of Peter Capaldi I ditched the Doctor Who. I came back around Jodie Whittaker times - only to find out that the episodes are really bland. Still I think with the better writer, Jodie's seasons would be amazing - she made a very fun Doctor. She was the closest to 10th Doctor vibe, but also different, with the personality of her own. Now I came back to watch Ncuti Gatwa's as a Doctor and I actually liked it!

JoshuaMartian

Moffat: Knock Knock You: Who's there? Moffat: Orange You: Orange who? Moffat: *dark chuckle* You're asking the wrong question. Don't be embarrassed. Amateurs always do. First of all, ask yourself what *kind* of person would use the name Orange as an alias. What does it tell you about them? Still confused? Check your phone; an Uber's arriving to take you to the airport. You're booked on the next flight to Beirut. The next piece of the puzzle. Don't keep me waiting. MANY MANY HOURS LATER You: Okay, that was all very clever sounding but you never answered my question; Orange who?? Moffat: I don't know

JoshuaMartian

A deeply satisfying watch in 2026. His return one-off episodes in RTD2 play to his strengths: clever high-concept sci-fi scenarios that he is forced to resolve on 45 minutes. By contrast, 'Inside Man' is everything he's not so good at. Namely, all social commentary, whether it's social media or the darkness of the human soul. Oh, and women.