Moffat has talent, no doubt, and can pull the odd, quirky, wonderfully creative story out of his bag of tricks. While visually the show looks better than the overly saturated approach RTD preferred, that’s about the only place it scores higher under Moffat’s tenure for me. Nonsense stories that bend and twist upon themselves; huge questions that go unanswered; characters so shallow you couldn’t drown a fly in them; are all bad enough, but worse for me is this simple truth – the show feels old. It feels dated. It feels like the JNT era: caught up raiding its past while forgetting to build a future.
Worst of all it took a wonderful actor, Matt Smith, and gave him NOTHING TO DO with the role for three series. Seriously. Who is his Doctor and what makes him tick? I have no idea. Eccleston’s and Tennant’s Doctors had depth; dramatic, compelling conflicts driving the heart of their characters. Matt’s Doctor? He’s goofy and awkward around girlies. Beyond the brilliant The Eleventh Hour script, I had no interest in Matt’s Doctor. He truly was Doctor who? I have no idea who eleven was.
When Who returned in 2005 it scored heavily with me because it added one thing the original series lacked – characters of depth. It wasn’t simply the old solve the problem of the week puzzle and move on. It was populated with layered characters, written in a humanistic way, who engaged me (and I would argue the more casual viewers), and took us along for the ride. Moffat’s era seriously lacks that humanity. Characters are plot points, written as such and frankly I don’t care about any of them.
As long as the show continues to be led by a creative who puts plot before character we’ll get more video game Doctor Who. Style over substance.
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