3: From the Archive, 'Moffat! Or how I'd like to topple the king of television'

Ahem. Back in the dark days of 2014, I was a very angry 14 year old. I was angry about a lot of things. Luckily, most of these things involved television programme and thus I didn't go to prison/become a serial killer. Hooray! And so, I present to you, because I didn't have enough time to write this week, the ramblings of a 14 year old on how Dr Who isn't good enough anymore. Just as every 14 year old has thought since the show began.

Enjoy.

Moffat! Or, why I'd like to topple the 'king of the television'.

#MoffatHate. #MoffatCritiscism. #Don'tyouthinkhelookstired. These hashtags smother the blogs and twitterspheres of your average Doctor Who fan. Steven Moffat has transformed you favourite science fiction family show into a confusing, tedious, undeveloped and utterly ridiculous and unrelatable sitcom starring your favourite stereotypes. He is frequently sexist, unable to take criticism on his poorly written characters and often produces episodes with such low quality you wouldn't even use them to wipe your bottom with.

And yet, inexplicably, both of his BAFTA winning shows are as popular as they have ever been, in the UK or abroad.

Mister Moffat somehow has the world at his fingertips and the adulation of press and Broadcasting Corporation alike. At ComicCon and world over, he is officially 'king of the nerds'. Yet “all kings are the foes of the men they rule”and this Fan-Made-Good, with every misplaced sexist, elitist or straight-biased comment, shoddy storylines and disfigured image of the Doctor becomes more of a foe to the united fandom day by day.

1: The Reset Button.

It's 23^rd of November, 2013. The biggest event of the year is about to begin: Doctor Who's Fiftieth Anniversary, the jewel in the BBC's crown. Almost nine years on from when it made a triumphant return to television screens after a sixteen year hiatus, the show is well established and well loved. By this point, we all know the facts: Gallifrey is destroyed. Destroyed by the Doctor, in fact, prompting a great deal of meaty character development that has spanned over seven series.

Yet by the end of the episode, Gallifrey is back. In fact, Gallifrey was never destroyed. In fact, the Doctor saved it and squirreled it away for a plot for Series Eight.

Where does this leave the past nine years? Where does it leave the fans, who have travelled with the Doctor on his so-called 'emotional journey' dealing with Gallifrey, and his exquisite character development? Where does it leave 'The End of Time', David Tennant's swansong, which hinged on the reintroduction of the dead planet?

Where does it leave post-2005 Doctor Who?

It's the same for 'The Time of The Doctor'. The Doctor ages inexplicably during a 300 year period, before returning to his original form for the last five minutes. Why? What is the point of showing your character going through some development and then kicking it all away for five minutes of sentiment? What about Amy and Rory in 'Asylum of the Daleks', who appeared to be experiencing a major change in their relationship, going through a clearly harrowing divorce, but getting over their problems and getting back to normal within the space of a forty-five minute episode?

It begs the question: was there any point in adding that change in at all, or was it placed to give an illusion of the development that has been missing since their first series? The fact their daughter is River Song is also frequently glossed over, clearly assuming that we are willing to accept that this has rarely affected the Ponds in any way and go back to enjoying wizz-bang special effects and feisty lines of dialogue.

The Reset Button is one of Moffat's most overused and most stupid plot points. He claims his Doctor is 'the man who forgets'. If that is true, Steven Moffat is 'the man who makes his character forget any character development'. Russell T. Davies' characters moved forwards: Steven Moffat's stand still.

2: The Doctor

In the Day of the Doctor, the grizzled War Doctor, as played wonderfully by John Hurt, asks the Eleventh, 'Do you have to talk like [a child]?'. That's what the Eleventh Doctor is, really. It's how Steven Moffat characterises him and is stopping any meaningful relationships or adult, unselfish goodbyes with his companions.

At his basest, the Eleventh Doctor is a whining, whimpering schoolboy with rare moments of lucidity. In 'The Angels Take Manhattan', Amy Pond decides she wants to stay with her husband, Rory,who she has previously declared to be 'the most beautiful man she's ever met' and who has died twice already in the episode. The Ponds have gone on the greatest 'journey' and character development throughout the series, their shoddy time-twisted plotline held together by their eternal love for one another and their willingness to sacrifice a life with a madman-in-a-box for their relationship. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Amy's final decision is to take on ordinary life without the Doctor in lew of loneliness.

This is not so in the Doctor's eyes. He seems surprised and over-anguished by her wishes, her right of choice, trying to persuade her that a life with him, an alien who crashed in her back garden by accident, is better than one with the man she chose and married. This selfishness is horrendously out of character with the man who was one willing to sacrifice his life so that an only briefly known friend might live.

Compare it to the departure of the Tenth Doctor's companion, Martha. She decides that she wants out, because she's found someone else and because she knows that she can't have a good time with the Doctor anymore. He gives her a mature, adult and beautifully unselfish response: he lets her go. He recognises the importance of free choice and the right to live your life as you see fit, allowing her to have a chance at being happy. Even the forced departure of Rose Tyler, arguably one of the most painful ever to be seen on the show, was handled with maturity and dignity worthy of a rounded, fleshed out human being.

In only a few series, how much has changed.

The Doctor's secrecy and selfishness continue as his tenure progresses. Throughout the entirety of Series Seven, for example, he conceals the momentous mystery and plot arc of Clara's multiple selves from her, even when she is travelling as his 'best friend' in the TARDIS. Neither does he tell her about why he is taking her, or the fact that she has died multiple times, nor the fact of his multiple bodies and faces that she sees in his time stream. Is this the act of a benevolent alien who takes ordinary people and makes them extraordinary? Hiding their own personal history and ulterior motives from someone who trusts them as much as fourty-five minutes will allow? To him, Clara is merely the 'Impossible Girl', merely 'perfect' for him in every way, merely there, a passive participator in action-packed stories.

Steven Moffat doesn't hinge on her personality, only her mystery. What we're left with is a hollow shell, with a job, family and home that change per episode and seem to contribute nothing to her story or her typical feisty, sarcastic and dominative companion we've come to expect from the post 2005 series.

In fact, it's almost as if she's only there to fuel a plot arc.

Could you see Tom Baker's Doctor marvelling in his selfishness and cleverness as Eleven does? Or David Tennant begging a grown woman to stay as if she is a child? I certainly can't and perhaps it's that which alienates me personally from Matt Smith's brilliant acting wasted on a sham of a series.

Moffat's Doctor swears, whines, brooding in his TARDIS above the clouds.

He doesn't want to save a species or a friend anymore, he'd rather save himself.

To be perfectly honest, he's just not like the Doctor.

3: The Grand Moff

At last, the man himself. Or rather, what comes out of a serpent mouth, ready to flick acid at women, their looks and bodies, the Queen, non-straight members of society and even his own wife. The hisses of Moffat's unfortunately uncensored mouth often come out as smug, showing a man who knows where he is and who he is and, most importantly, that he can get away with it.

For example, he's been quoted as being glad that his wife is no longer 'the size of a boat', during the 'scary' time of her pregnancy, clearly unable to cope with a woman who is 'wee and dumpy', preferring those like Karen Gillan, who was mainly cast because she was 'slim and gorgeous'. Of course, Moffat's sexual voracity is in no question, as he '[worked] his way ’round television studios like a mechanical digger', ending up married to one of the most influential women producers in the country.

His only canonical gay character, Irene Adler, a woman who fell so far away from canon that she fell in love with a man whom she beat only in the lauded Arthur Conan Doyle books and certainly not in a Steven Moffat script, where the best you'll get is a mousy pathologist who is only really finding her feet after three series. If a Moffat character is homosexual, then you can be sure they're just 'going through a phase' such as Oswin Oswald in 'Asylum of the Daleks'. In the Mind of Moff, a growing minority who have to fight for better representation and acceptance don't exist as any more than a phase. Not even the bisexuals, who are having 'too much fun' and are 'far too busy' to watch his brilliant programming. Certainly not asexuals, whom Sherlock Holmes isn't one of because 'there's no fun in that'. To Moffat, there's no point in fair representation if you don't exist, after all, which is why his shows have so few queer people you need a magnifying glass to see them.

To top it all off, he's said that though he lives in 'a culture' with such a 'huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male' he knows he can still be the most successful writer in the room.

This is Steven Moffat: this is the man behind Sherlock, behind Doctor Who, behind more money than the BBC can count. Who made the joke about the 'Queen being played by a man' in regards to there not being a female Doctor. Who said that 'women are needy' and spend all their time 'out there hunting for husbands'. If it were a politician who had said this, the country would be in uproar and the cries of 'Down with UKIP' would reign.

Yet he's still working in television. Yet he's still in control of Doctor Who, which in the words of one fan is 'taking longer and longer to produce content of lower and lower quality'.

The 'King of the Nerds' is still sitting smugly atop his piles of money, a Smaug to the hated fan's Bilbo Baggins. Still swathed in adulation and the power of producing anything and the fans will still watch it.

Steven Moffat knows that whatever he does, he'll still be on top, because in Moff-Land, he's rewarded for his problematic and dismissive writing. No one will care is he destroys eight years worth of history, or never has a female writer. In his mindset, the quality can decrease, the words can get worse and he'll still be bringing in more money than the Beeb have seen in decades.

Don't you think he looks tired?