• Location: the home office
• Mood: sad

Dept. of Unwanted Inevitability

Well, Damn. He's Leaving.

I'm a Doctor Who fan, which means I am — or should be — used to, and understanding of, the inevitable changes that come with the show. Doctors, Companions, even TARDISes, they all change. Writers come and go, as do directors. So do producers, that old-fashioned name for show-runners.

And today, I learned that my favorite Doctor Who show-runner, Steven Moffat has put in his papers, and will be leaving at the end of 2017. 

Damn. Double-damn.

I started Moffat's tenure thinking kindly of him. Then I started feeling guilty for liking what he did, because a lot of people, some of whom I truly respected, began to talk about what they thought was his problematic attitude toward women. Others — again, many people who I respected — eyed some of his writing and producing shortcomings with a jaundiced eye. And as a writer myself, I could see where he fell short, or even fell flat on his face.

At various times I wrote about those shortcomings, and you can see as I wrote, how I was learning to love him even when I thought he was doing his occasional writerly/producerly face plant. 

 I couldn't help it.

I fell in love with the show he and his crew gave me, from S05 all the way through S09. He gave me broad story arcs, and I loved them. He gave me Matt Smith's Eleven, and River Song (Oh River, my River!), and Amy Pond and Rory Williams Pond, the boy and girl, the man and woman, who waited and triumphed even over an Angel. He gave me the Pandorica, and the Centurion, and a rebooted universe, he gave me a TARDIS that could say hello and be his wife, he gave me frozen time, and the power of love, and the Doctor's other wife and weddings on pyramids and tricks, and time-loops and time-paradoxes, and eye-patches and The Silence, and the Angels. He gave me Twelve, and Gallifrey Falls No More, and attack eyebrows and "I don't do hugs" until he does do hugs and the Impossible Girl who became the unforgettable Clara, and Osgood, and billion year long escape efforts and ... and ....

He gave me Faerie. He gave me Myth and Words as Power, and Love as an even greater Power. 

I don't mean he's perfect. I mean he created something that, for me, was damned near perfect. 

I'm sure Chris Chibnall will do well as his replacement (but please, if he must write, let him give his scripts to someone who can edit them well. More "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" and fewer "42"s or "Cybervixen's, pleasepleasepleaseohplease). I'm also sure I can survive ... barely ... a 2016 with no Who. 

As I said, I'm a Doctor Who fan. I can do change. 

But damn, I'm going to miss Moffat. This entry was originally posted at http://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/395193.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here; I watch both.