Down and Dirty: Doctor Who 50th Writers

Update: I'd like to note this article was written Febuary 2013, before the second half of series 7 of Doctor Who was released, and thus does not reflect my opinion after watching the episodes.

So I was looking at the returning writers for the latter half of series 7. So far we have Moffat writing the next episode, and then (thank god) only one more at the end of the series. Your highs don't get any higher, but you keep trying to write romance and cry cry drama, and that sends what could of been great episodes to the pits!

We'll also be seeing Mark Gatiss, who wrote The Unquiet Dead, Idiots Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, Invaders from Mars, and most notably Night Terrors. You might remember the Unquiet Dead as being the first Modern Doctor Who episode that features characters dressing up period accurate when traveling to the past. If Rose dressed in a Victorian dress doesnt remind you, think creepy angel things that haunted that girl who'd later go on to play Gwen in Torchwood. In Idiots Lantern, we see a second episode features Rose, once again dressed period accurate in Idiots Lantern, a episode that sadly failed to impress me, and came off quite annoying. Actually, thinking about the epiosdes in hindsight, I believe they would of benefited greatly having been done in the Moffat Era style, and he seems to enjoy dark, surreal and creepy stories, which came off obnoxious with RTD's Bright and shiny technology era.

Next under Mark Gatiss's lineup is Victory of the Daleks where we meet the power ranger daleks, a very fun episode to me, and then at last the extremely creepy Night Terrors, which featured that dreaded nursery rhyme that foreshadowed the Doctor's fate. Gatiss seems to enjoy a diverse palette, though has a hit and miss record, I believe under Moffat's style, he can flourish where he was a bit, eh, with RTD's style. He'll be writing two of the 8 coming episodes. Next we have Neil Gaiman who'll be writing the last Cyberman! Cant wait to see it! We have on guaranteed AMAZING episode to look forward to! I don't think I have to go into depth on why thats a guarantee, but for his previous work on Doctor Who, take a look at The Doctors Wife in series 6.

A odd entree I found is Neil Cross, a writer for Spooks and Luther, both of which I havent seen. New writer to the who-verse, yet he'll be doing 2 of the episodes? I can understand trying a new writer, but we haven't had any writer except the head writer, doing more than one episode per season, two parters not included. We already had two written by Chris Chibnall, who I was not impressed by, and this season, twice over so far, and again we'll be seeing Mark Gatiss doing two more episodes. Then we have Stephen Thompson who wrote curse of black spot.

Not exactly the most impressive resume. Granted all the writers have had hit or misses before, Can I see some more of Matt Jones who wrote satans pit, Simon Nye who wrote amy's choice, Gareth Roberts who wrote the lodger and closing time, two amazing episodes mind you, granted his previous works were kinda... meh. What about Tom MacRae? These, and of course Neil Gaiman, and Mark Gatiss who's already writing, I know I'd get to write the series taking place during the 50th Anniversary.