Rank the New Who writers

[Bones2]

What a talented bunch, eh?

Nah, go on, have a go. It'll be fun, like.

1. Robert Shearman
2. Steven Moffat
3. Richard Curtis
4. Paul Cornell
5. Matt Jones
6. Toby Whithouse
7. Simon Nye
8. Mark Gatiss
9. Keith Temple
10. Russell T Davies
11. James Moran
12. Tom MacRae
13. Matthew Graham
14. Gareth Roberts
15. Helen Raynor
16. Chris Chibnall
17. Stephen Greenhorn

 

[Admiral_Young]

What criteria are we using for the ranking of these writers? Just straight up if we like their work or not? I'm not even aware of a third of them for starters.

 

[Bones2]

Pretty much based on their DW work (though I've seen Born and Bred, and that poor man's Heartbeat isn't moving Chiball a notch). It's tricky when some only have one episode, but I've had a go.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ You ranked Russell higher than I thought you would have I'll give it a go a bit later.

 

[Bones2]

That's a measure of what an incredibly ungifted set they are.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Okay I'll do mine.

1. Steven Moffat
2. Paul Cornell
3. Richard Curtis
4. Russell T. Davies
5. Mark Gatiss
6. Toby Whithouse
7. Simon Nye
8. Gareth Roberts
9. Keith Temple
10. Matthew Graham
11. James Moran
12. Tom MacRae
13. Helen Raynor
14. Chris Chibnall
15. Matt Jones
16. Stephen Greenhorn

 

[Starkers]

I'm going to have to double check which episodes some of them wrote... back later!

 

[Starkers]

This is really hard! Anyway here's mine...

1. Steven Moffat
2. Russell T Davies
3. Richard Curtis
4. Paul Cornell
5. Robert Shearman
6. Matt Jones
7. Toby Whithouse
8. Keith Temple
9. James Moran
10. Gareth Roberts
11. Helen Raynor
12. Mark Gatiss
13. Simon Nye
14. Tom MacRae
15. Stephen Greenhorn
16 Matthew Graham
17. Chris Chibnall


To be honest both Moffat and especially RTD are up there by weight of numbers and it's really hard to judge based on a load of episodes, especially hard to untangle the good from the bad with RTD (and in some cases Moffat). I think I've done this as a list of 2, followed by a list of 15 if that makes sense!

It's hard when people have only written one episode, much easier with people like Roberts, Chibnall, Gatiss, Rayor etc who've written multiple episodes and multiple stories. Chibnall's had three bits of the cherry and I haven't especially liked any of them, hence why he's bottom. Gatiss has had three shots as well but at least one of them was v good, with Raynor however poor Daleks was, I liked the Sontarans. As for Roberts, well people slag him off but, Unicorn and the Wasp excepted, I quite like his episodes, fluff, but entertaining fluff. The list is perhaps a trifle unfair, I think most people accept that Graham is a much better writer than Fear Her suggests, and I'm really hoping his series 6 episode will prove this. I didn't like Amy's Choice but I blame that more on the direction than Nye's script, and this is where it gets very tough when people have only written one episode. If we were taking other non Who work into account both Greenhorn and Gatiss would be higher...

 

[Admiral_Young]

Honestly I ranked the bottom half where they were because I really was unfamiliar with their work on the series I probably should have looked them up and might still do that and edit but I think the bulk of my list stands as it is. I've become a pretty big Moffat fan, I enjoyed most of Russell's episodes, the other three in my top fiveare in there because I've enjoyed their episodes. This list might be revised if I decide to look up those other writers lol.