I would like to go into film or television production. Someone in this field who inspires me is Stephen Moffat, current show runner for Doctor Who. I aspire to produce work as consistently high quality, clever, and entertaining as his.
In one episode of Doctor Who, Moffat manages to turn something as innocuous as garden statues into an incredibly creepy villain. Shown throughout the episode are parts of a clip, explained to be an Easter egg found on several unrelated DVDs, of the Doctor having half of a seemingly nonsensical conversation. The episode's protagonist, Sally, finally watches the tape in its entirety and responds accordingly, effectively having a conversation with someone 40 years in the past. Tension rises dramatically as the Doctor confirms what she had already started to suspect - the stone figures come to life whenever you aren’t looking at them. In fact, the blink of an eye could make the difference between life and death. The tension is finally released after Sally manages to trick the stone angels into looking at each other, imprisoning them in their rocky disguises for the foreseeable future. The plot of the episode is interesting and well executed, fully taking advantage of the Doctor’s ability to travel through time and the paradoxes that come with it. The rising tension in the episode makes the climax all the more satisfying.
Text versus subtext plays a large part in much of Moffat’s writing, but particularly in the finale of Doctor Who's fifth season. This next part is going to seem pretty stupid, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that it was awesome in context. Thanks to a series of ridiculously complex plot developments, the Doctor is going to disappear into oblivion unless his companion, Amy, can remember him. The night before her wedding, the Doctor tells her a story which, taken at face value, would only be the nostalgic ramblings of a 900 year old time traveling alien. (Seriously, better than it sounds.) However, the Doctor, in the desperate hope that someone would mention the old wedding adage, laces the story with hints designed to trigger Amy’s memory.
Disregard the fact that he is talking to a child, she’ll be in her early 20’s the next morning. (Honestly, if a writer can make all of that work, how could he not be brilliant?) The scene was very cleverly written, and resulted in a fantastic resolution to the episode and the season.
Sherlock is a mini-series that Moffat created last year. It is an updated version of Sherlock Holmes, set in modern London. Great casting, writing, and editing all play a huge part in the success of this show. However, coming from such well known and beloved source material, it is the contrast and affinity between the two that really create interest, especially for those familiar with the work or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The most obvious differences arise from the contrast in settings, however, much of the series translates surprisingly well into 2010. Sherlock and John meet in the same way - in a hospital, through a mutual acquaintance. John has just returned from war in Afghanistan, also a callback to the book. John’s shoulder wound and psychosomatic limp were a clever reference to Doyle’s complete disregard for continuity – in some stories, Watson had received a bullet to the shoulder, in others to the leg. They don’t call each other Holmes and Watson, though, because no one does that anymore. That would be weird. Anyway, I find it very inspiring that Moffat, a lifelong fan of the series, was able to breathe new life into it. There have been countless adaptations of this character, some better than others, but this one was truly refreshing. Moffat managed to stay true to the source material while simultaneously making it his own.
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