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There's one Doctor Who moment that haunts Steven Moffat to this day...
Transcript
00:00Look, we all make mistakes. You make mistakes. I make mistakes. The Doctor makes mistakes.
00:05Still, it's not often you hear the cast and crew actually acknowledge the things that went wrong
00:09with the show, but sometimes they do. I'm Ellie for Who Culture here with 10 Doctor Who mistakes
00:15confirmed by the creators. Number 10, Clara being too passive. Companions are meant to evolve during
00:21their time in the TARDIS. As the 13th Doctor tells her fam in Arachnids in the UK, you're not going
00:26to come back as the same people that left here. Rarely has this been quite as true as with Clara.
00:31The Clara of Series 7 is almost a completely different character to the Clara of Series 8
00:36and 9. This radical reinvention was largely down to the Impossible Girl arc, which dominated her
00:42first run of adventures. Making the companion the series arc was an interesting idea on paper,
00:46but in practice it created problems, as Stephen Moffat has admitted. He said,
00:51one of the difficulties with her Impossible Girl story was that she wasn't actually a participant
00:55in it, because she didn't actually know about the mystery. It was always the Doctor fussing about
00:59it. She was completely oblivious until the very end, so it doesn't change her hugely. Moffat
01:03adjusted in Series 8 and made Clara a much more active character going forward, though some would
01:08argue that he overcorrected. I would be one of those people. Number 9, Susan's squandered potential.
01:14As the Doctor's first on-screen companion, Susan holds a special place in Doctor Who history.
01:20She was also his granddaughter and an alien in her own right, but sadly, this is something the
01:24writers quickly seem to forget. Following a promising introduction in An Unearthly Child,
01:29Susan was treated more as a human teenager than a Time Lord, playing second fiddle to the other
01:34leads. It's a great frustration looking back, not least for the woman who played her. Reflecting
01:38on her decision to leave the series, Carol Ann Ford recalled that it had become so repetitive.
01:43For a large part of the time, Susan was arriving somewhere with her grandfather and the other two,
01:47being told not to get into danger, having them come and get her out of danger, then flying off again.
01:52In the meantime, I was watching visiting actors do really interesting stuff. Ford wanted Susan to
01:57be a much more interesting character. She came to the show as a trained dancer, acrobat, swimmer,
02:01and horse rider, but was given no opportunity to use these talents in the script. She was also told
02:06Susan would have telepathic powers and a cool wardrobe, neither of which happened. Given that
02:10was 60 years ago, it's probably too late to make amends. Though, who knows what the future holds?
02:16This is Doctor Who, after all.
02:17Number 8, Redacting Wild Blue Yonder.
02:20Speculation for the 60th specials was dominated by the mysterious middle instalment, Wild Blue
02:25Yonder. This was a deliberate move from Russell T. Davis, who wanted to take one of the episodes
02:30and, quote, try to reveal nothing about it. This approach extended to all aspects of promotion,
02:35with trailer clips obscured by static and redacted text and three redacted actors in the cast list.
02:41But did it work? Well, that depends on who you ask. The secrecy did successfully preserve the plot
02:46and the villains. However, it also allowed fans to get carried away with their own theories,
02:50with many convinced that past doctors and companions would appear. Even Russell T. Davis is
02:54conflicted. He explained to the official Doctor Who podcast,
02:57this is actually the simplest one of the lot. That's why I kept it secret. But I wonder if that's
03:02had an unfortunate effect and made it disappointingly simple. Ultimately, he had the right idea,
03:07but some of the marketing was still needlessly secretive. Did Isaac Newton and Mrs. Meridue,
03:11characters who don't appear beyond the pre-titles really merit the redacted treatment? Perhaps
03:17we'll be able to appreciate the mavity of this decision one day, but as it stands, we're not
03:21convinced. Number seven, Hiding the Daleks. Resolution was a new type of festive special,
03:26not so much a coda to Series 11 as a second finale. Chris Chibnall would be the first to admit
03:31that Series 11's actual finale was fairly lacklustre. The version of the Battle of Ranskor
03:36Avcolos that went before cameras was actually a first draft. He told Doctor Who magazine in 2022,
03:42I really attacked Resolution, so hopefully I made up for it with that one. Many would agree,
03:47but there was one thing that fans took issue with. The fact that the Daleks were completely
03:51absent from the marketing. Instead, promotion focused mostly on Jodie Whittaker's scarf.
03:57This allowed the reveal of the Dalek to be a surprise, but it also meant that the episode
04:00potentially lost whole swathes of viewers by not showing it off ahead of broadcast.
04:05Even Chibnall concedes that this might not have been the best strategy. He said,
04:09We were torn between keeping it a secret or not, and I'm not sure that we got that call right.
04:14Thankfully, Revolution of the Daleks put the villains front and centre in the marketing. It
04:18was a have-your-cake-and-eat-it approach, allowing the defence drones to make a splash without detracting
04:23from the episode they appeared in. Win-win.
04:25Number six, Four to Doomsday's froggy failings. Four to Doomsday saw the Fifth Doctor go up against
04:30new foes, the Abankans. But not everyone was convinced by how they came across it on screen,
04:35cast and crew included. Stratford Johns, who played their leader, Monarch, had initially leapt
04:40at the chance to play an evil space frog, feeling that it would help him overcome typecasting. But
04:45when he was presented with a solid masterware, Johns refused, on the grounds that it would limit
04:49his performance. In one interview, he recalled phoning the director and saying,
04:53If you've got ideas like that, why don't you get another fat actor? If nobody can recognise me,
04:57there's no point paying my money. As a compromise, a thin latex mask was agreed upon. But even
05:02then, Johns was disappointed, believing he looked unrecognisable. Meanwhile, writer Terence
05:07Dudley had different reservations about the Abankans. Having envisaged the creatures as
05:11completely frog-like, rather than humanoids with frog heads, he was dismayed with how they
05:16were depicted, later describing the story as a, quote, travesty. Sadly, Dudley died long before
05:21It Takes You Away was broadcast. But on that basis, we're sure he would have been delighted
05:26by the Solitrax Ultimate 4. Johns, not so much.
05:29Number 5. Series 9 Stale Opener
05:32In a show that's been going as long as Doctor Who, it's important to offer jumping on points
05:36for new viewers, usually by introducing new leads. In recent years, almost every series has
05:41abided by this logic, and in fact, on only four occasions, has a main cast been carried
05:46over in its entirety. Series 6, Series 7, Series 9, and Series 12. Series 6 and 12's openers
05:52had different unique selling points by way of overseas shoots. Series 7's first chapter
05:57also featured scenes shot abroad, plus every Dalek ever. And it also technically saw new
06:02companion Clara make her debut, which leaves Series 9 as something of an outlier. The trailers
06:07had quite literally promised the same mould, just the Doctor and Clara Oswald in the TARDIS,
06:12with no new characters to look forward to. Even the return of Davros wasn't publicised
06:16in advance. Siva Moffat has since admitted that this was a mistake, recalling that, I quote,
06:20I feel as though I slightly fumbled it by not having a new thing. This is one of the reasons
06:24Series 10 ended up being so new, despite being Moffat's last. It's also why he opted to introduce
06:30Bill in the pilot, rather than the 2016 Christmas special.
06:34Number 4. RTD's shelved sequel.
06:36Russell T. Davis' first era as showrunner saw at least one classic villain return each year.
06:41In 2005, we had the Autons and the Daleks. In 2006, we had the Cybermen. In 2007, we had the
06:48Macra and the Master. In 2008, we had the Sontarans and Davros. And in 2007, we had Rassilon and the
06:54Time Lords. But as RTD has since lamented, he never wrote an out-and-out classic series sequel,
07:00as Chris Chibnall did for the Silurians and Siva Moffat did for the Great Intelligence.
07:04I'd have run the old episodes on BBC3 all week, then shown the sequel on the Saturday, he said in
07:102020, citing 1977's Image of the Fendal as a story ripe for revisiting. He said,
07:16Imagine. Return of the Fendal. Back in the ruins of Fetch Priory. Ancient evil stirs. Wand of
07:21Ventham reincarnated. I was so determined not to look back too much, I think I missed a trick there.
07:26Of course, it's entirely possible that Return of the Fendal, or another sequel, will become a
07:30reality in Russell's second era. The Fendal could even be the boss or the one who waits. You heard
07:35it here first, folks, just in case it happens. Number 3. The sitcom snog. Series 5 is rightly
07:41heralded as one of Stephen Moffat's best, but there's one scene that sticks out like a sore thumb.
07:46The end of Flesh and Stone, when Amy kisses the Doctor. It's not the first time the companion has
07:50kissed the Doctor, but in most other cases, the circumstances were different. There was a plot
07:54reason, as was the case for Martha and Donna, or an implied romance with the Doctor to begin with,
07:59for Rose and Astrid. Flesh and Stone gives us something different. A companion forcing herself onto
08:04the Doctor, in her bedroom, on the night before her wedding, to another man. It wasn't exactly a great
08:09scene to begin with, but it's aged terribly. And even Moffat agrees, citing it on more than one
08:14occasion as his single biggest misstep. I played it for sitcom-style laughs, he admitted to Doctor
08:19Who magazine, and it doesn't work. Brilliant episode up till that point. And then I screw it up with
08:24sniggering sex comedy. It rankles me to this day, he said in another interview, because it's just wrong.
08:30I'd say this is one to fix in the novelisation, if he ever does one. Number 2. The Plasmaton Problem.
08:35There's nothing worse than an unconvincing monster, and the Plasmatons rank as one of the
08:39most unconvincing of all. They were envisaged as powerful, amorphous henchmen, and the whole point
08:44of the costume was to hide the human shape. But they were blatantly just men in suits. No thought
08:49was given to the actors' eyelines either, so they couldn't move independently, save for the odd bit
08:54of lumbering. As the big bads of the Fifth Doctor's first finale, they failed spectacularly, a fact the
08:59man himself is under no illusion about. They were just nothing at all, Peter Davison recalled. It was just one
09:04more indignity that was heaped upon the story. It was a real symbol that the BBC had run out of
09:10money. What can we do for these Plasmatons? Let's just make them lumps of polystyrene. It's a trend
09:15that continued in the Fifth Doctor's other finales, with the execution of Chameleon and the Magma Beast
09:20also leaving a lot to be desired. However, the case of Andrazani featured one of the show's most
09:25enduring villains in the form of Shara's Jack. Every cloud, I guess. Number 1. Matt Smith's
09:30Regeneration Regrets. When Peter Davison was cast as the Doctor, Patrick Troughton advised him to do
09:35no more than three seasons in the part. It's an unwritten rule that generally sticks, as was the
09:40case when Matt Smith exited after Series 7. Stephen Moffat has since revealed that Series 8 was pitched
09:46as an eleventh Doctor run, with many of the same elements present, the Doctor questioning if he was
09:50a good man, and some other characters, i.e. Missy, trying to tempt him to a darker path. It's not known
09:56how far these plans got, or how late in the day Matt Smith confirmed his intentions. Whatever the
10:01case, there was a feeling that The Time of the Doctor was a slightly lacklustre end to the eleventh
10:06Doctor's era, and that certain plot points were wrapped up rather hurriedly, and the man himself
10:10would seem to agree. Was it the best episode it could be, Smith said in an interview? I don't know.
10:14Maybe, maybe not. I was proud of the body of work up to that point, but I think everything can
10:18always be better. Is this him throwing shade at The Time of the Doctor, or something more? An admission
10:23that he should have stayed for that fourth series after all? Either way, he seems less
10:27than satisfied with his Doctor's ending. We know how to fix that, Matt Smith. Come back
10:31in a cameo roll. Come back in a cameo roll. Did anyone else hear that? And there you have
10:36it. Make sure you also check out ten times Doctor Who reused footage, and hoped you wouldn't
10:41notice. In the meantime, I've been Ellie for Who Culture, and in the words of River Song
10:45herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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