Russell T. Davies vs. Steven Moffat – Bonus Round – Blue Towel Productions

Back in 2015, I did a four-post episode-by-episode face-off between the showrunning tenures of Russell T. Davies, who ran the series from 2005-early 2010, and Steven Moffat, who took over from 2010 until 2017. I judged between their first episodes (Rose and The Eleventh Hour) and then their second episodes (The End of the World and The Beast Below) and so on. You can read them here, here, here and here.

In the end, after counting up each producer’ victories, Moffat came out on top. This wasn’t surprising because I have always preferred Moffat’s approach to the show over Davies’. But I was surprised at how close the race ended up being, with Moffat winning 32 competitions and Davies 27.

As you may know, Moffat ended up producing more episodes than Davies did on his first time around, so the competition only went up to Moffat’s Under the Lake.

But as you may also know, Russell T. Davies surprised everyone by coming back to the show in 2023, and ushering in a new golden age for the show.

Or, err…maybe not quite a golden age, based on the evaluations of myself and many others. And not quite as long of an age as maybe we expected.

In fact in the end, “RTD2”, as the era has come to be known by some, delivered only 21 new full length episodes of the show, which leaves Davies overall total episode count still under Moffat’s total (even if you don’t count the fact that Moffat was given back his executive producer credit on the two RTD2 episodes that he wrote. But now that there are 21 new Davies episodes that can go to war against some more of Moffat’s stories, how will that impact their overall rankings?

(Of course, it’s possible that if I revisited all my prior opinions, I’d revise some of them, but I’m not going to bother with that. 2015 Ben’s views on Doctor Who stand, for now).

So, picking up where things left off…

61.  Before the Flood vs. The Star Beast

The Star Beast was the start of the second era of Russell T. Davies as showrunner, the start of David Tennant’s second stint as the lead character, and the start of the series’ 60th anniversary celebrations. As such, there were high expectations, and at the time that I first saw it, those expectations were at least partially fulfilled. There was a sense of silly adventure to The Star Beast that had been largely lacking under Chris Chibnall, which made me hopeful that the series was in for good times ahead. However, regardless of how those later hopes ended being mostly dashed by a whole set of circumstances and creative choices, there is just no way to argue that The Star Beast is actually good. It’s flippant and silly, and bogged down some of the worst-executed social messaging I have ever seen in anything. Under the Lake, on the other hand, is good, and delivers a satisfying payoff to what I’d consider to be an underrated but overall excellent two-part story in a generally strong season.

Winner:  Moffat (Under the Lake)

62.  The Girl Who Died vs. Wild Blue Yonder

Wild Blue Yonder is far and away the best of the three 60th anniversary specials that kicked off the second Davies era, succeeding as a creepy story with our heroes in isolation, anchored by good performances from David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and overcoming some truly goofy special effects. It also has a brief cameo by Bernard Cribbins in his final performance, just to boost it up a bit more. The Girl Who Died isn’t bad (and it’s better than its follow-up episode), but it doesn’t quite rise up above the competition in this case.

Winner:  Davies (Wild Blue Yonder)

63.  The Woman Who Lived vs. The Giggle

The Giggle is an overstuffed mess, jamming together too many concepts to make into a coherent story, and too many characters to have a hope of utilising them all satisfactorily, including a returning classic villain whose appearance is a disappointment and who barely resembles at all the original character, and a conclusion that bandies around some lore changing mythology without even attempting to make sense of it. As such, it is basically a perfect representation of almost the entire RTD2 era. Seriously, why did we expect anything else?

But what it is not is forgettable, which I have to say The Woman Who Lived is. The Woman Who Lived is also not the worst episode of its series, but I think it is the second worst, and as such it loses here even though I think almost everything in The Giggle is pretty stupid.

Winner:  Davies (The Giggle)

64.  The Zygon Invasion vs. The Church on Ruby Road

The Church on Ruby Road has its fans, but I am not one of them. I think it’s a story that is told with such a lack of style and such an abundance of clunk and cringe that it just about succeeds in burying the charm and appeal of its new leading man, and is a strong contender for the worst episode of both the series of specials that it finished and the new season that it led into. The Zygon Invasion, on the other hand, is overrated but never sinks to the idiotic levels of Ruby Road.

Winner:  Moffat (The Zygon Invasion)

65.  The Zygon Inversion vs. Space Babies

People love to hate Space Babies, but I thought it was a significant improvement on the episode that it came after (see above) and was also better than the one that came after (see below). What works about it for me is that this the first time we get an effective showcase of the personalities of both the 15h Doctor and Ruby, as well as how their relationship works. However, The Zygon Inversion is going to win this face-off. This two-parter has got some serious problems, but there is much that I like about it especially in this part. In particular, it’s a lot of fun to see Clara face off with the evil doppelgänger who is controlling her, and of course Peter Capaldi gets his impassioned anti-war speech at the end. I like Space Babies, but not enough for it to win.

Winner:  Moffat (The Zygon Inversion)

66.  Sleep No More vs. The Devil’s Chord

The luck of how these episodes were ordered here means that we are now having two episodes that I really dislike facing off. The Devil’s Chord is just so irritating and so stupid–I find Maestro non-sensical and annoying, the climax comes with no weight (just write some random musical notes and that’ll do it) and of course the arbitrary musical number at the end is not only confusing, but boring. As an extra nit-pick, the portrayal of the Beatles is not only the least convincing that I’ve ever seen, but the least convincing that I can imagine. (On the positive side, the only thing I can think of is that sequence where there is no sound, I thought that was interesting).

But having said all that, it’s up against Sleep No More, which is just the worst. It’s drab, it’s unengaging, and it’s dopey. The only appeal is the creepy shot of Rassmussen, but I’ll be honest, I find a story in which the Doctor loses but never even knows it to be kind of offensive–not morally, but just in terms of what brings me to this show.

Winner:  Davies (The Devil’s Chord)

67.  Face the Raven vs. Boom

Face the Raven is pretty good, and obviously an important story in the series at that time. Clara’s death was devastating but also intensely interesting, coming as it does as a result of her own recklessness, and well played by Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi. But I can’t say I actually love the episode, especially as most of the impact really does come from the ending. I don’t know if I’d say I loved Boom either, not precisely, but I did like it a lot. Steven Moffat (serving as a writer this time, not as a showrunner) came up with compelling concept–the Doctor stuck on a landmine–and turned it into a gripping episode. It was the first genuinely good episode for the 15th Doctor, and ultimately the best of the season.

Winner:  Davies (Boom)

68.  Heaven Sent vs. 73 Yards

Oh boy, what a face off.

Heaven Sent epitomises everything that is great about Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who–clever stories which showcases the Doctor’s brilliance, all brought to life with excellent direction, dialogue, editing and music. On the other hand, 73 Yards showcases…well, not everything wrong with Russell T. Davies second run on Doctor Who, but it one of the most annoying things, which is a seeming disregard for his audience in its utter disinterest in making actual sense of its story. That story has got an interesting set-up to be sure, but it ends up developing in some strange directions and then concluding in a way that hints that maybe there is something interesting going on, but seems to blame the audience for wondering what it is. This take is supported in behind-the-scenes interviews where Davies has said things along the lines of, “I know what is going on here but I don’t plan on ever telling the audience,” as if the guy has forgotten the fact that his whole job is literally to tell a story.

If what we did get had created a sense of awe and mystery that still delivered a satisfying viewing experience, then maybe you could get away with that sort of ambiguity, but 73 Yards does not. It instead just leaves you (or me, anyway) with a sense of frustration at the obnoxious smugness of a script that throws a bunch of underdeveloped ideas at a wall and pretends that they add up to something meaningful, and then blames you for caring enough to try to figure out what it all means.

I’m ranting here, but I think my opinion is clear.

Winner:  Moffat (Heaven Sent)

69.  Hell Bent vs. Dot and Bubble

This is a tricky one. Both of these episodes have got some interesting things going on, but are flawed. I think I have to give it to Hell Bent, though: the main disappointment with the episode is just that it resolved the story that had been building up over the season in such an unexpected and kind of undramatic way. I’m not crazy about the character of Ashildr, and I thought the image of Clara flying around with her in a time traveling diner was kind of dumb, but once I got past my unmet exceptions I found I really enjoyed the episode, especially the character work with the Doctor and Clara. Dot and Bubble is astoundingly badly designed story (see here for details) that is saved by very strong execution. I think it might even be my second favorite episode of the season (after Boom), but it’s still not enough for it to win this face-off.

Winner:  Moffat (Hell Bent)

70.  The Return of Dr. Mysterio vs. Rogue

A other of people seem to really like Rogue, but I think it’s really bad–maybe the worst episode of the season. It’s got a badly developed enemy in a badly developed plot which is all just an excuse for a badly developed romance. Dr. Mysterio, on the other hand, is extremely silly but fully satisfying in terms of its narrative and characters, and it’s also really funny. As a comic book an, all the superhero easter eggs also worked for me.

Winner:  Moffat (The Return of Dr. Mysterio)

71.  The Husbands of River Song vs. The Legend of Ruby Sunday

I don’t love The Husbands of River Song as much as some, but I do still enjoy it, particularly the romantic and bittersweet ending. Also, the episode incudes the hilarious scene of the Doctor pretending to be awestruck by the TARDIS interior, which is comedy gold. Meanwhile, The Legend of Ruby Sunday creates some anticipation set up for the season’s two-part finale, but even though the episode is well-produced, it’s made up almost entirely of red herrings and misdirection, and thus turns out to be pretty vacuous (although Wish World was still a year away, so at this point we had no idea).

Winner:  Moffat (The Husbands of River Song)

72.  The Pilot vs. The Empire of Death

I love Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor, I like Pearl Mackie’s Bill, and I think Matt Lucas’ Nardole is hilarious, but I didn’t like The Pilot. The whole thing of treating Heather the Oil Creature as some sort of great love for Bill is just dopey (I think if Heather a guy who had been replaced by an oil creature, nobody would have bought the romance for a second). The Empire of Death is flawed in a whole lot of ways (building a story dependent on so much deep-cut lore, having Sutekh be stuck on the TARDIS for the whole story, the nothing-burger of the mystery of Ruby Sunday, etc) but in the end I still found it the more enjoyable of these two options.

Winner:  Davies (The Empire of Death)

73.  Smile vs. Joy to the World

I don’t remember Smile very well, except that it fails to pull together a solid story around its creative concept (killer emoji-robots). Joy to the World, being a lot more recent, is an episode I remember a lot better. It’s got big problems, but it also introduces the nifty concept of the Time Hotel, and also Anita, one of the best characters of the most recent era of the show.

Winner:  Davies (Joy to the World)

74.  Thin Ice vs. The Robot Revolution

There are some nice things about The Robot Revolution, mostly around the introduction of Varada Sethu as Belinda, but overall the episode is far too much of a mess for me to truly like it. Thin Ice, on the other hand, is an episode I don’t recall super well except that it was the first one its season that I thought was actually pretty decent. Overall, it wins out here.

Winner:  Moffat (Thin Ice)

75.  Knock, Knock vs. Lux

Knock, Knock was creepy but ultimately unsatisfying. It gives us a bit more of a look at Bill as a character and the way she relates to the world, but the main story doesn’t maintain a lot of interest for me. Lux on the other hand is better than the episode that came before it, with an inventive adversary and some truly off-the-wall storytelling that I genuinely enjoyed. At this point in in the season, the 15th Doctor / Belinda dynamic seemed like it might end up one of the series’ great TARDIS teams. As it turned out, that fell pretty flat on its face, but I still liked Lux.

Winner:  Davies (Lux)

76.  Oxygen vs. The Well

The Well had a lot of opportunity to be a classic, but it threw much of that away toward the end. But still, it’s a solid and enjoyable episode (even if the connection to Midnight ended up amounting to nothing). But it’s got to lose in a match-up against Oxygen. Oxygen is a combination of a great concept, pointed and effective messaging, and solid execution–one of the era’s most solid stories, which only gets better as time goes by.

Winner:  Moffat (Oxygen)

77.  Extremis vs. Lucky Day

Extremis was a great episode–a really strong hook and a surprising and creepy payoff. Lucky Day, on the other hand is an episode with a potentially intriguing premise that is squandered by a whole bunch of stupidity. It features a good performance from Millie Gibson as Ruby (generally she’s stronger in her limited appearance in the second season than she was in the first), but it’s the sort of plot that depends on a lot of people acting really like they are really dumb. I get into all that here, but the gist of it can be summarised by one sentence from my post: “The central conflict in Lucky Day is based on a villain whose motives are too broad and thin to be meaningful, and only possible because of heroes who are too incompetent to know better.” So yeah, this is an easy pick.

Winner:  Moffat (Extremis)

78. The Pyramid at the End of the World vs. The Story and the Engine

On the other hand, this is a much harder pick–I enjoy both of these stories. The so-called “Monk Trilogy”, of which Pyramid is the middle chapter, has certainly got some clunk to it, but overall I found this episode to be gripping and well constructed. The Monks turn out to be an intriguing creation, aiming to conquer the world via being invited to take to power, rather than doing so through military conquest. Meanwhile, over in The Story and the Engine, we get a story which perhaps gives the 15th Doctor more to do emotionally than any other episode from the era. The setting and threat are unusual–a Nigerian barbershop has been taken over by a mythic storytelling barber who is upset that credit for his work has been stolen by storytelling gods. But in spite of how much there is that is interesting, there are a lot of flaws in the episode–the Barber pretends to be the storytelling gods that he is angry at for no reason, the script purports that the owner of the shop lured the Doctor to this shop to sacrifice him so he could be set free but gives him no way to have actually done that, and Belinda’s role is underwhelming. In the end, though both stories are worthwhile, I have to give it to Moffat.

Winner:  Moffat (The Pyramid at End of the World)

79. The Lie of the Land vs. The Interstellar Song Contest

I really liked The Interstellar Song Contest when it came out. From what I’ve read since then, I have a bit of a minority opinion; it seems like a lot of people didn’t like this story. But the episode did something which made me particularly love it, something weirdly rare on the show in recent years, even though it’s the sort of thing that should be pretty standard: it has the Doctor, through quick thinking and cleverness, save the lives of a whole lot of people. The image of all of the song contest audience being brutally sent to their deaths in space was impactful, so the reveal that the Doctor had actually saved them was really meaningful. There are a bunch of flaws in the story (some people really don’t like how vindictive the Doctor becomes) but overall the whole thing holds together pretty well. Well, aside from the ludicrous “twist” with Mrs. Flood at the end, including the doubling-down of the terrible “bi-generation” idea. The Lie of the Land is also a decent episode, though it’s the weakest part of the Monk trilogy. There is an effort here to go deep with Bill’s character, but the results are mixed. So with all of that I have to give the point to the Davies story, in spite of its excesses.

Winner:  Davies (The Interstellar Song Contest)

80. Empress of Mars vs. Wish World

I have long had a fondness for the Ice Warriors, thanks to The Curse of Peladon in which they were written as characters and not just monsters. Empress of Mars makes an effort to continue that trend, and even features a surprise cameo by Alpha Centauri, a memorable alien from that classic story. However, it is not what you call a great episode–it’s serviceable, but largely forgettable. Wish World, on the other hand, is not forgettable, but you wish it was, because it is such a colossal waste of time and energy that it’s truly mystifying that professional people would think, “This is the way we should use one of the precious eight storytelling slots that we’ve got for this season–a whole episode in which is used to set up things we know will not pay off at all because the episode’s own plot will establish that they were all irrelevant.”

Although to be fair, some of the things in the episode (like the tease about Omega, for instance), do pay off in the following episode, they just do so extremely badly. So maybe that’s not specifically the fault of Wish World, but still that doesn’t bring the episode any good will. I can think of worse episodes of Doctor Who, but I can’t think of any that are more pointless.

Winner:  Moffat (Empress of Mars)

81. The Eaters of Light vs. The Reality War

When I realised that this was going to be the final match-up in this series, it depressed me so much that I almost didn’t finish writing this. The Eaters of Light is a bad episode, possibly the worst of its season, wrapping a weak story in a forgettable package.

But The Reality War is an absolute mess of an episode. It’s got some good moments, but many more that are egregiously bad. There’s a cobbled together feel to it that surely was contributed to by Disney’s half-heartedness to the series and Ncuti Gatwa’s decision to jump ship, but none of that explains, for instance, the miserable writing and directing that went into the big “verbal confrontation with the Rani” scene in UNIT headquarters in the middle of the episode (I litigated extensively against that scene in this rambling post).

But in spite of the evident weaknesses of The Reality War and in spite of its lack of cohesion, there are moments in The Reality War including from the reshoots, which work really well (Ruby noticing Poppy’s slipping out existence and her arguing with the Doctor to do something about it, plus Jodie Whittaker’s fan-service cameo, for instance). These moments mean there is at least something of value in the story, which compels me to override my distaste for Russell T. Davies’ last ever episode (probably) and give him this contest’s final point.

Winner:  Davies (The Reality War)

So there we go. For this bonus round of our face off between Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat, the score is as follows:

Russell T. Davies – Nine points

Steven Moffat – Twelve points

It’s just too bad that Davies didn’t manage to eke out three more episodes so that we couldn’t run through the entirety of Moffat’s run. (Although those would have had to have been pretty extraordinary episodes to beat out World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls).

Anyway it definitely surprises me that there were nine episode in this recent Davies era that I prefer over their Moffat counterparts. But still Moffat has obviously won, and has increased the margin of his victory over Davies when you look at the overall total.

Final Scores

Russell T. Davies – 36 points

Steven Moffat – 44 points

I’m sure anyone reading this will disagree somewhere along the way. Some of my choices even I am not positive about. Someday after I rewatch all this I’ll have to see how well my opinions hold up.