As I may or may not have mentioned elsewhere, I really enjoyed this season of Doctor Who. For me, as a whole, it’s the strongest season since Sylvester McCoy’s final year.
Battlefield, Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric, Survival … that was a great year. Ironic really since it was also the year the show died.
This season has been just as enjoyable … or rather, I’ve enjoyed it just as much. I can see there are flaws, there always are, but I’ve immensely enjoyed the season as a whole. To my mind there’s only been one duff episode* …
Okay, maybe one and a half.
But all in all it’s been great fun. Everyone involved has been at the top of their game and really pulled out all the stops …
And then there was Heaven Sent … which was just sublime.
Again, to me. You may disagree. Personally I found this to be not just one of the best Doctor Who episodes ever^, but one of the best bits of TV I’ve ever seen.
Maybe I get out too much?
Anyway, Cracker number three is the scripts for Heaven Sent and Hell Bent. Even if you’re not a Doctor Who fan, you should read these scripts because they’re amazing. Well, Heaven Sent is amazing; Hell Bent is merely very, very good. Which in itself is amazing but script writing is hard.
Anyone who criticises a film or TV show for having a bad script because they don’t like one or two lines of dialogue should read these scripts and hopefully understand that the dialogue is the smallest part of script writing. It’s the last thing, the decoration, not even the icing on the cake but the dusting of icing sugar put on the plate after the ingredients have been farmed, processed, bought, baked decorated, packaged, sliced and arranged neatly on said plate.
Script writing begins with choosing which piece of land would be best to buy in order to grow the wheat to bake the cake. Dialogue … pfft. That’s such an infinitesimally small part of script writing it may as well not exist.
Um … this rant has nothing to do with Doctor Who, just a reaction to reading something which annoyed me on Facebook earlier.
Never mind, carry on stuffing your faces with mince pies and snuggle up by the fireplace with a cup of tea and these two scripts.
* Make your own mind up as to which one. We’ll have different opinions … I just thought this one was a real stinker.
^ Which is odd since, depending on your point of view, you could argue it’s not really a Doctor Who episode.
The Jobbing Scriptwriter 
I’ve said time and again that Moffat needs more space to get his ideas displayed to their best advantage. Heh, time and space, heh heh…..
But I loved these last two. And I’ve eaten at that diner, you know… It’s in Cardiff Bay, not far from Ianto’s shrine. Thanks for the scripts, and Merry Whatever-you-choose-to-celebrate-or-not-at-this-time-of-year.
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