Gues who's writing two episodes this series.

[StCoop]

Yes, it's the man whose work as writer, actor, comedian, director and documentary maker I like in all of his other endevours but who can't write a good episode of Doctor Who to save his life (which won't stop him getting the showruner job when Moffat finally goes)...

So another series of episodes by Moffat and his Mates. And no women need apply, obviously.

 

[Rarewolf]

Excellent news. Wrote two of my favorite episodes from last year.

 

[Sindatur]

For those of us across the Pond, who is that? I Googled pics of Chris Chibnall, Toby Whithouse, Mark Gatiss and Neil Cross, and none them looks like that pic to me?

 

[3chordboy]

it's Mark Gatiss

 

[Sindatur]

it's Mark Gatiss

OK, heh, that was my first instinct, but, the images I get on Google don't look like that all

 

[starsuperion]

Have we already seen an episode written by him?

 

[Atticus]

it's Mark Gatiss

OK, heh, that was my first instinct, but, the images I get on Google don't look like that all

The Web of Caves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xETlYacSCHE

 

[Starkers]

Excellent news. Wrote two of my favorite episodes from last year.

Ditto, aside from The Name of the Doctor, Cold War and The Crimson Horror were the highlights of series 7B


Hey StCoop, remind me, who hired Gatiss to write episodes of Dr Who before Moffat did? And please, remind me again all the names of the myriad female writers that RTD used? Well there was Helen Raynor...and of course Helen Raynor, and who can forget Helen Raynor...

That said, I do agree with you to some extent with regard jobs for the boys, but it's Thompson I have a problem with as his episodes have been universally shit. Gatiss at least has a 50% hit rate IMO

 

[Starkers]

Have we already seen an episode written by him?

ER, try six of em!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Yes, it's the man whose work as writer, actor, comedian, director and documentary maker I like in all of his other endevours but who can't write a good episode of Doctor Who to save his life (which won't stop him getting the showruner job when Moffat finally goes)...

It's the "other endeavors" that make me think that Gatiss probably won't be Moffat's successor, because unless he's willing to give them all up or the BBC is willing to produce Doctor Who even more sporadically than it has been in recent memory, I don't see how Gatiss has the time.

With Hannibal's ratings cratering, it's possible that Bryan Fuller will be looking for work in the near future. Fuller would kick ass on Doctor Who.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Excellent news. Wrote two of my favorite episodes from last year.

While I tend to agree, I also think they were his best two episodes so far. Hopefully he's figured something out, but they still might be outliers.

 

[Candlelight]

Yay, the sequel to Victory of the Daleks maybe!

:P

 

[diankra]

Let's face it, if he wasn't already working on Who, then he'd be the first person they'd be calling up to see if he was interested in writing for it.
And the mess of Victory of the Daleks wasn't his fault, that was down to the director, and more than that the decision to try and restart with an entire new production crew as if that hadn't worked out horribly on the first block back in 2004 (that time it was unavoidable, obviously. Doing it again in 2009 was just plain stupid).

 

[Cutter John]

The Unquiet Dead wasn't bad either.

But yes, I'm with Rarewolf. I used to be a big non-fan of his work. But his two stories were high points of last season, and he certainly deserves props for An Adventure in Time and Space. So yes, I'm quite happy about this news.

For those of us across the Pond, who is that? I Googled pics of Chris Chibnall, Toby Whithouse, Mark Gatiss and Neil Cross, and none them looks like that pic to me?

Ah Mark Gatiss, Master of Disguise.

 

[Starkers]

Let's face it, if he wasn't already working on Who, then he'd be the first person they'd be calling up to see if he was interested in writing for it.
And the mess of Victory of the Daleks wasn't his fault, that was down to the director, and more than that the decision to try and restart with an entire new production crew as if that hadn't worked out horribly on the first block back in 2004 (that time it was unavoidable, obviously. Doing it again in 2009 was just plain stupid).

I wasn’t aware of that, but it did strike me that VotD was a bit of a poisoned chalice and that he was likely given a hefty shopping list by Moffat (in the same way I believe Raynor was over Daleks in Manhatten) “Ok Mark, I’ll need Daleks, British army Daleks, Churchill, Spitfires in space, brand New Daleks, a cunning plan, robot scientists…oh and did I mention the spitfires in space?” Plus he was writing for a Doctor he didn’t know

What’s surprising about VotD is that, in places, it’s kinda enjoyable.

It is surprising that people always tend to blame the writer if an episode is shite, rather than the rest of the production crew, but similarly I guess they laud the writer and forget everyone else for the good episodes. I mean Moffat’s script for Blink is great, but if the direction hadn’t been as good, the guest cast as wonderful, Gold’s score as evocative and the realisation of the Angels as imaginative it wouldn’t have been half as good.

As for whether Gatiss would give up his other interests for Who, I suspect much in the way that Moffat walked away from Spielberg he would. Then again he might be content for the odd episode of Who to be the sum total of his contribution. I would agree that whoever takes the role on next should give the job pretty much their full attention.

I’d rather have Gatiss over some other choices if only because he does at least get Who, and I think he’d have an overarching feel for how his version of Who would be (and I think it would be different to Moffat or RTD). Chibnall may have gone up in my estimation based on his work for 7A but I still don’t think he has the kind of vision you need for Who.

 

[Cutter John]

I've always had the same feeling about VotD Starkers. How much of that was Gatiss and how much was interference or even re-writing by the production crew? It did seem like there were bits missing from the story.


Same could be said about Nightmare in Silver. I still have a hard time believing Neil Gaiman could have written such a disappointing story.

 

[The Wormhole]

To be honest, the only Gatiss script I found disappointing was Night Terrors. For the most part, his other episodes were pretty good, even Victory of the Daleks which was largely just "we're redesigning the Daleks and doing an episode to show off the new design." I do agree his two season 7 episodes were his best Doctor Who scripts.

 

[diankra]

Let's face it, if he wasn't already working on Who, then he'd be the first person they'd be calling up to see if he was interested in writing for it.
And the mess of Victory of the Daleks wasn't his fault, that was down to the director, and more than that the decision to try and restart with an entire new production crew as if that hadn't worked out horribly on the first block back in 2004 (that time it was unavoidable, obviously. Doing it again in 2009 was just plain stupid).

I wasn’t aware of that, but it did strike me that VotD was a bit of a poisoned chalice and that he was likely given a hefty shopping list by Moffat.

As I understand it, VotD was intended to be a 70 minute special to go out on May day. But it was the first episode shot by the new production team, and too much of it didn't work and had to bereshot (just as parts of Rose had to be reshot five years earlier). Unfortunately there were limits on how much could be reshot, so the final episode consists of the stuff from the original shoot which was up to scratch (which tended to eb the conventional character/dialogue scenes) and the stuff which simply had to be reshot to make the episode work (the creation of the new Daleks), with the rest (Daleks playing nice) getting cut back .
As a result, the three plotlines are out of balance, with the 'Talk Bracewell out of exploding' stuff being a far greater proportion of the 45 minute transmitted version than it would have been in the planned 70 minute one (even though the actual minutes spent on it are the same). IYSWIM?

 

[Starkers]

Let's face it, if he wasn't already working on Who, then he'd be the first person they'd be calling up to see if he was interested in writing for it.
And the mess of Victory of the Daleks wasn't his fault, that was down to the director, and more than that the decision to try and restart with an entire new production crew as if that hadn't worked out horribly on the first block back in 2004 (that time it was unavoidable, obviously. Doing it again in 2009 was just plain stupid).

I wasn’t aware of that, but it did strike me that VotD was a bit of a poisoned chalice and that he was likely given a hefty shopping list by Moffat.

As I understand it, VotD was intended to be a 70 minute special to go out on May day. But it was the first episode shot by the new production team, and too much of it didn't work and had to bereshot (just as parts of Rose had to be reshot five years earlier). Unfortunately there were limits on how much could be reshot, so the final episode consists of the stuff from the original shoot which was up to scratch (which tended to eb the conventional character/dialogue scenes) and the stuff which simply had to be reshot to make the episode work (the creation of the new Daleks), with the rest (Daleks playing nice) getting cut back .
As a result, the three plotlines are out of balance, with the 'Talk Bracewell out of exploding' stuff being a far greater proportion of the 45 minute transmitted version than it would have been in the planned 70 minute one (even though the actual minutes spent on it are the same). IYSWIM?

Yes that makes sense . I see to remember hearing there was going to be a sub plot relating to one of the map girls who was going to lose her fiance (a spitfire pilot) as well.

Does this mean originally the interior of the Dalek ships wasn't some call centre basement then

 

[Cutter John]

As I understand it, VotD was intended to be a 70 minute special to go out on May day. But it was the first episode shot by the new production team, and too much of it didn't work and had to bereshot (just as parts of Rose had to be reshot five years earlier). Unfortunately there were limits on how much could be reshot, so the final episode consists of the stuff from the original shoot which was up to scratch (which tended to eb the conventional character/dialogue scenes) and the stuff which simply had to be reshot to make the episode work (the creation of the new Daleks), with the rest (Daleks playing nice) getting cut back .
As a result, the three plotlines are out of balance, with the 'Talk Bracewell out of exploding' stuff being a far greater proportion of the 45 minute transmitted version than it would have been in the planned 70 minute one (even though the actual minutes spent on it are the same). IYSWIM?

Thanks for the info. That explains quite a lot.