A god amongst men

mini Moff

This is a Steven Moffat appreciation post.

In case you haven’t noticed I love the man. If I could write like anyone in the world, I’d choose to write like him. Because I genuinely think he’s one of the best writers alive today. Its also worth noting that I more or less worship him and refuse to hear, or read, a single word against him. Recently some people were being mean to him on Twitter. I had the strong desire to track these people down and set fire to their letter boxes.

Probably the worst thing you can say to me is “Steven Moffat’s good isn’t he?” That is assuming, of course, that you don’t want to have an extended and in-depth discussion on all the various reason why the man’s a genius and how this can be demonstrated conclusively in his scripts. But I’m yet to meet anyone who does. You’ve been warned.

This post then is a slightly more light hearted version of that rant. This is me, explaining it gently and with as little arm waving as possible. And trust me, you’re better off without the arm waving. I’ve accidentally slapped people before.

The advantage of fiction is having the leisure to come up with those great lines that always fail you in real life. But that’s just it- in real life its almost impossible to think of them. So its also quite difficult to give such lines to a character without it seeming fake. There is a very important difference between “I wish I was that cool” and “that would never happen.”

Moffat is a master at conjuring the former. He writes these incredible characters. Characters you either want to BE or who you’d immediately like to adopt. You have no idea how many times I’ve wished I was more like Lynda Day. Actually you possibly do. Especially those of you who’ve witnessed my haircut or seen me side part it. And what about Amy Pond? Wouldn’t we all give our left arm to be that effortlessly sexy? To charge feistily into the face of danger and never, ever chip your nail polish.

Take this exchange-
“Maybe its because I’m certifiably crazy about you.”
“Certifiable?”
“It’ll be your name I’m muttering when they take away my shoe laces.”
Now that. That would never happen in real life. No one could come up with a line like that. But somehow Moffat makes us hold out hope. It happened in Press Gang, maybe, just maybe, it could happen to us.

And here’s another thing. Death. Not once have I seen one of these wonderful characters go to the wall. The cast of Press Gang survived gun sieges, getting trapped in vaults, massive gas explosions. Lynda actually went to hell and back and yet, somehow, they survived (and yes, I stubbornly believe she survived). Think about the episodes of Doctor Who he’s written. In Blink the victims were allowed to “live to death,” Madam de Pompadour just got old and the people in the library were “saved.” His entire career can basically be summed up by that line in The Doctor Dances-
“Just this once, everybody lives!”

And yet somehow we hold out the belief that he WOULD kill them. It never once crosses your mind that maybe that’s something he wouldn’t do. I’m totally unable to figure out how he does it.

I think maybe I’m viewing it all through rose tinted glasses. I know that other people see fault but I’m still unable to find it. Plus I like it better this way. And I happen to think  that Mr Steven Moffat Sir has earned my adoration.

No wonder the power’s gone to his head.