That was strange too.
Officially no series 8 in 2013
- Thread starter Samurai8472
- Start date
Seems to me that the BBC needs to hire some help for Moffat. Not a huge increase in the budget, but some people to help keep the production organized and on-track even when Moffat is distracted by, say, Sherlock.
Or, hire more help for Sherlock, so he can focus more on DW.
He can still be the showrunner but things shouldn't come to a standstill when he's overloaded.
Mr Awe
Sounds like they need some leadership. Someone who can come in and figure out what's best for the whole rather than some petty little fiefdoms.
Mr Awe
What family connections do you mean?
My one complaint most people usually see me posting about.
Thank goodness Christmas in modern day London is safe and no one is crying
"WE NEED THE DOCTAA!!!"
"We can't wipe our behinds without HIM!
Yeah I do think Moffat would probably be better off simply being the head writer for these shows, instead of also being the producer/showrunner.
Making DW alone is probably a massive enough challenge every year; I can't imagine also having to produce three 90-minute, feature-quality Sherlock episodes.
Making DW alone is probably a massive enough challenge every year; I can't imagine also having to produce three 90-minute, feature-quality Sherlock episodes.
Moffat's mother-in-law Beryl Vertue. She's a power player in the British television scene.
And yet RTD was able to produce three series at the same time.
He still did more writing on Torchwood and Dr. Who than Moffat has to do on Dr. Who and Sherlock.
The BBC commission the number of episodes and decide when they are broadcast, hell Moffat has even been critical of the time the BBC has aired Doctor Who in the past. I don't buy that this is him being unable to produce a 13 episode series and an Xmas special every year.
And Moffat's written two eps. of Sherlock. Sherlock has also been around since 2010 and we've only had two seasons of three eps. each.
I meant spoiled in the sense that they start to feel entitled to more of it when there might be practical reasons not to have more of it at the moment. There are shows where a series is about six episodes long. We're still averaging more than six episodes a year with Doctor Who.
But not in any sense that's really relevant to this: she's a very successful producer who's worked her way up from starting as an agent's secretary (back in the days when a woman was supposed to start as a secretary and stay as a secretary), but she's never had a management position at any TV station, and at 80-ish she's leaving it a bit late to get one. Her only influence is the respect of younger people in TV, and the fact that she's an owner of the company that makes Sherlock.
The one with Arthur and the sharks was great material for captioning and photoshopping thanks to him looking like a sex offender in it.
But isn't that basically Caroline Skinner's job?
I was going to quibble this until I realised you were actually right, of course Moffat only writes one episode of Sherlock per series (although you don't know how much work he's doing on Gattiis and the other fellow's scripts.)
Of course the best episodes of Torchwood RTD wrote came at a time when Who was "taking a semi-break" and coincided with a couple of quite poor specials (which were anything but).
At some point I think creators need to be tied into a contract to spend at least a vast proportion of their time working only on Who. From what I can ascertain about Moffat if the BBC put their foot down I'm not certain he'd take his bat and ball and walk away, he got burned by his experience with US tv, and whilst he was obviously feted by Spielberg I still suspect he likes the level of freedom the BBC affords him.
But again, I think it needs stressing, comparing Who now with Who of even a few years ago needs to take into account the radical change in finances the BBC as a whole are dealing with.
Always two there are, a showrunner and an executive producer.
RTD had Julie Gardner as his executive producer during his entire run, Moffat had Beth Willis for his first two years or and now has Caroline Skinner as his Executive Producer.
