Steven Moffat, the genius writer who helmed Dr. Who through six seasons, contributed classic episodes before that such as "Blink" and "Silence in the Library," re-imagined Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock, would be a fantastic choice to write the next Star Trek feature. Many of his Who episodes are sprinkled with Trek references, so he obviously knows and respects Trek. What better writer is out there who is skilled in handling iconic characters and re-invigorating them for the visual medium?
Hire Steven Moffat to Write Next Trek Feature
- Thread starter Gauling
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No, thanks!
He's ok but hardly a genius writer, he wrote some great Who episodes but his best work happened when RTD ran the show, as soon as Moffat took over the quality of his writing took a nosedive, his story arcs where for the most part at the same time obvious and unnecessarily convoluted. He overused the timey wimeyness he's obviously in love with, kept characters around way too long and missed obvious points for their exit that would make sense only to write them out later in a stupid way.
And Sherlock is pretty bad, if you want to see a good modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes watch Elementary. Better Sherlock, better Watson, better chemistry between the leads and generally better writing.
He's ok but hardly a genius writer, he wrote some great Who episodes but his best work happened when RTD ran the show, as soon as Moffat took over the quality of his writing took a nosedive, his story arcs where for the most part at the same time obvious and unnecessarily convoluted. He overused the timey wimeyness he's obviously in love with, kept characters around way too long and missed obvious points for their exit that would make sense only to write them out later in a stupid way.
And Sherlock is pretty bad, if you want to see a good modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes watch Elementary. Better Sherlock, better Watson, better chemistry between the leads and generally better writing.
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Alan Ball could write the drama in a new DS9, ... and Neill Blomkamp could fix the sci-fi stuff...
I'd love to see a David Lynch take on the franchise.
If there were someone above him, a supervisor willing to keep him in check, then yes, he could do Good Things, but if he's left unchecked then, as @Takeru notes, you'll most likely end up with a convoluted, self-satisfied jumble that induces headaches only The Alternative Factor could rival. Also, his faithfullness to source material doesn't seem to extend much beyond the surface, if Sherlock and the Tintin movie he helped write are any guide.
Aside from one interview where he claimed to be a fan of TOS but never bothered with "Next Generation, Deep Space Voyager, or whatever the other one was called" Moffat has been generally down on Star Trek. Indeed, in The Empty Child story when the Doctor gets after Rose for introducing him as "Doctor Spock" and she defends it by saying the fact he doesn't have a name makes people ask "Doctor Who?" the script originally had the Doctor replying "I prefer Doctor Who over Star Trek." The line was removed by request of RTD. Or then there was another interview he gave about how he hates having technobabble in his scripts, claiming real people don't want that, and he described the only ones who do as essentially stereotypical Trekkies (though, to be fair, I agree with him on that one).
He has written good Doctor Who episodes, and I generally enjoyed Sherlock (haven't yet checked out Dracula), but really Moffat's writing is very one-note. He's constantly revisiting the same tropes and even plot points, and he's far too in love with making his stories unnecessarily complicated and/or non-linear. And that's before you get into his love of never-ending monologues, though in fairness, Star Trek is now doing that on its own as evidenced with Disco's season 2 finale.
So, in conclusion, no I don't see Moffat writing Star Trek. Ever.
Actually, most Sherlock Holmes experts tend to think of Sherlock as being one of the more faithful adaptations out there.
That's a bit to unpick.
Moffat has probably written the very best Who episodes since it came back. I somehow hoped under him as showrunner it would all be that good, but that sort of quality doesn't come from mass production.
Sherlock was the best thing on TV for a while, but even that faltered under the weight of expectation and, even considering how few episodes there actually were, probably went on too long.
Elementary is a different beast altogether. A very good procedual with a twist, it burned longer and more productively, if not nearly so brightly.
His somewhat mediocre take on Dracula just kicked up a gear with episode two and ended with a hell of an "Oh My !" moment that I suppose I should have seen coming, but didn't . And it's an "Inside No.9" to boot !
I'd not have him do a Trek series, but I'd certainly hire him to pen an episode or two parter and really do his thing on it.
When RTD was the show runner I couldn't wait for Moffat to take over. When he did I wanted RTD back. Moffat's arrogance and confusing convoluted for clever are why I stopped watching Doctor Who.
He's fine as a writer, with someone else having final say, but I wouldn't want him anywhere near Star Trek.
He's fine as a writer, with someone else having final say, but I wouldn't want him anywhere near Star Trek.
Oh I wouldn't go that far - RTD wrote all the shit episodes...
That honestly surprises me. Yes, Sherlock himself is pretty on the money, bar some aggravating lapses to service plot, as is Watson, but they take serious liberties with many other Holmes characters, Irene Adler most prominently. How you get from opera singer and society belle to dominatrix only Moffat knows.
Agree fully on his love of the same tropes. Gets to the point you can play a decent round of bingo with it.
You want Trek looking like a bad acid trip?
God...no. Branon Braga's Time/Wacky Anomaly related episodes were bad enough. We don't need one of the more ridiculous writers of past Doctor Who episodes coming in to make things WAY worse.
I may have misworded. By faithful, I meant they think of Sherlock as a more truer spiritual successor to Conan Doyle's work than other adaptations.
Gotcha. Of modern-set ones, I'd firmly agree. Of original time ones, you can't top Brett, for me. But that's personal preference as much as anything else. :-)
I'm not talking about writing individual episodes. I'm talking about the show runner role.
I thought Doctor Who went to shit after Matt Smith. I've no idea who the showrunners or writers are for subsequent incarnations but if he's one of them, pass.
It’s interesting that whenever an experienced, distinguished showrunner comes up as an entirely hypothetical candidate for Star Trek, they tend to be faced with some kind of a “No, thanks, since I can zero in on X as a weakness” response, whereas CBS’s relative unknowns (aside from Kurtzman) tend to get a hopeful pass because people can’t really think of anything they did wrong. Why not be worried instead that CBS is giving too many people a chance, which could easily lead to them leaving their show (like Chabon did) instead of staying with it so it becomes the next phenomenon driven by a unique vision?
I recall some of Disco's writer room credits including Batman and Robin and a bunch of dreadful Christian movies. And they were savaged for it here just as established names are.
Akiva Goldsman isn’t a showrunner, but rather an established screenwriter with some successes to his credit but generally a poor track record. Moffat is an actual, experienced showrunner with an excellent run on Sherlock and a good- to great one on Doctor Who.
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