Moffat's course correction is a bizarre bit of paradox where he'll publicly deny, deflect, and belittle any kind of fan criticism before quietly incorporating it anyways. The female writers and directors are the most visible example of this. He got called out on having a mostly male crew on stage, and offered a…

I will not deny that the fandom can run kind of amok with this sort of thing. Just trying to parse out where it's coming from (mostly for myself. Lot of times when I'm writing a wall of text like that here it's for my own benefit to help me work out my thoughts more than anyone else's)

Hmmm I tried googling it and couldn't find any examples, but I believe you. I stand by that being dumb though, why risk leaving a bad impression like that?

Yeah, shallow's a good word for it. Like half of the S7 episodes felt like going through the motions of what a Who plot should be without any of the sense of fun or weirdness that makes it stand out.

I thought that season was mostly clunkers, so I don't know if it really will hold up for me.

It does a great job shading him, which I think is really necessary when a lot of the discussion around him is so overblown and hyperbolic.

Oh as for why Moffat gets more flack than Davies, that's because Moffat being sexist is a Media Narrative at this point, which isn't something that can be easily shook off. It's unfair and dumb, but at least it means attention is still drawn to the fuckups, whereas another producer can fuck up and not get the calling…

It's understandable. Davies' show appealed to a lot of female and queer fans (certainly because they were produced by a gay man and a woman), groups that had always found struggle feeling incorporated in mainstream sci-fi media. So Doctor Who sort of became a focal point for all of this, since few other popular genre…

Oh yeah, totally. Capaldi is hot, I've talked to a lot of people who find him hot. So really it's a controversy that's sexist AND ageist, a double whammy!

No, otherwise they wouldn't put it in the trailer. That'd be really dumb to advertise your show using unfinished effects.

Holding hope against hope that Harness' season 9 story is what proves himself to the public to be a successor. After his work on "Kill the Moon" and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell I'm totally ready for that.

Well it is true A LOT of people find them very attractive. But that's beside the point.

That always struck me as a really weird and kinda sexist "controversy". I'm sure some people watched the show solely for the Doctor's handsomeness, but the idea that it'd be any significant number of fans is ridiculous.

I know Smith was cast because Moffat was afraid of rocking the boat too much when he was fresh, and Capaldi was cast because they offered him the part directly. Neither of those are great reasons, but at least they're reasons beyond basic sexism.

It really is a tabula rasa of a premise. There's potential to do anything story wise, and especially when you enter Classic Who and the EU, the character bench becomes so deep the possibilities become infinitely variable. It has a perfect mix of enough interchangable parts to keep it fresh and enough constants to keep…

Oh in case you missed it, former AVC editor Sonia Sarayia conducted super insightful and fascinating interview with Moffat over at Salon. Ignore the awful headline and the fact that it's Salon, cause I found a lot of his answers really illuminating in regards to how he runs the show and some of his regrets during his…

The Master is a way more well known character than the others, and the concept (evil Doctor) makes him a little simpler to introduce than "the Doctor's granddaughter" or "his one time friend, and was also the president". Not that those are super complex either, but they'd require a slightly more involved touch, and a…

I'm frankly shocked I'm not tired of it, and I don't even take breaks from finding new Who material.

Yeah, and the mix fascinates me. Love to see Who playing around with its format.

Moffat also expressed interest in really playing around with what a two parter meant, some are super sized adventures, others are more loosely tied. The two parter Williams is in ("The Girl Who Died"/"The Woman Who Lived") sounds like it'll be centered on one character across two settings (though this is just judging…