THE CURIOUS CASE OF MOFFAT REVISITING THE PAST 

Guest contributor Sam White examines Moffat’s penchant for revisiting past concepts.

I have found that Moffat’s greatest strength as a writer comes from his ingenious ability to transmogrify seemingly ordinary elements into horrific and at times sickening constituents. How do you translate an innocent enquiry like “Are you my Mummy?” into a spine chilling and at the same time extremely evocative affair? Of course, Moffat achieved this way back in

, his first televised story of New Who. Since then he has often revisited this schematic for storytelling, so much so that expressions like “Don’t blink”, “Don’t breathe”, “Stay away from the cracks in the wall” have become commonplace for the fans.

In fact if one simply digs a little deeper, they will find that apart from his indulgent and blatant amplification of typical day-to day forces into something much more sinister and nefarious, there also exists a trend of revisiting and reusing older stories, plot devices and narrative structures for the sake of fabricating entirely new fables. A recent article by Kevin Burnard elaborated on Moffat’s penchant for subverting expectations in his finales; another recognizable pattern in his storytelling. In fact, I think that at this point it’s safe to say that Moffat possesses a very distinctive and unique writing style, one that has become more and more apparent to the fans through his decade long history with this show. Let’s take a deeper look.

, in which we saw the Doctor capering about Amy Pond’s timeline, originally meeting her as a little girl, then accidentally jumping twelve years into her future and finally hopping an additional two years, again accidentally, before taking her on as a proper companion. Now, while the idea of a little girl completely enamoured of a stranger who hops into her life at various points in her timeline and influences her in numerous ways, might seem like a new one, it is one which Moffat had himself used in

. On further critical inspection, I have found that a similar framework lies at the heart of

, only this time with Eleven and Kazran Sardick.

Another curious case is that of the Clockwork Droids and the Weeping Angels, both monsters originally created by Moffat. After their universally acclaimed debut in

, Moffat decided to use the Weeping Angels once again, to the same effect in

. The employment of Angels as atmospheric agents of dread and horror, and the ceremonial usage of different time zones for the progression of the narrative feels much like

. The scene where Amy finds an old dying Rory in bed is also reminding of the one Sally had with old Billy. As for the Clockwork Droids, instead of a completely different take on them in

, Moffat decided to expand on what he had already established in

Fans may also remember Oswin Oswald from

, the first Clara echo to appear on Doctor Who. Admittedly, I found the episode to be quite unsettling, not because of Oswin’s unfortunate fate but because Moffat chose to portray her inner turmoil initially through denial and finally through tragic acceptance that eventually culminated into a poignant, moving and frankly distressing revelation. Interestingly, Moffat tried to engender similar feelings in the hearts of fans when he sentenced Danny Pink to an almost identical fate in

. A striking similarity in both these cases is that both Oswin and Danny are successfully able to retain their humanity even after full conversion owing to their strong will and capacity to love, and consequently prove to be vital to the resolution of the conflicts introduced in their respective stories.

Another fascinating case is that of Moffat’s obsession with human consciousness and its preservation through digital means, an idea which he has used not twice but thrice in his storytelling endeavors. The first use of this idea can be observed in

through CAL – a centralized management system for the Library, which saved Donna and thousands of other people in the Library to the core hard drive, when its attempt to safely teleport them out backfired. Moffat revisited this idea, but from a different standpoint in

, which entailed harvesting of living human minds through the Wi-Fi, integrating them permanently into the data cloud for later consumption by the Great Intelligence. The more recent usage of this idea came in the form of Nethersphere in Series 8. Cloaked in the myth of an actual paradise after death, the Nethersphere was in reality shown to be a Matrix data slice that Missy was using to upload dying minds.

I am sure that many fans have found the concept of questioning the Doctor’s moral viewpoint as a “good man” in Series 8 to be extremely intriguing and enthralling, but even this seemingly new facet had been previously touched upon by Moffat in Series 6’s

. The idea of viewing the Doctor as an officer or a General who can summon an army at one call, who can command and lead the said army into battle and who is himself no less a soldier and a warrior, forms the crux of the aforementioned story, and so, many parallels can be in fact be drawn to the Doctor’s overall Series 8 character arc. In the same story, Moffat also hinted at the power of a mother’s instincts and concern for her children through Amy, an idea which eventually formed the essence of

And for those not paying attention, I would like to point out just how structurally similar

are, in that both the episodes unravel as a sequence of bizarre events held together by an idea presented to the audience at the start, but which makes no sense until you get to the very end, at which point the story comes full circle and the events depicted at the beginning of the episode become much more coherent.

Apart from this Moffat has also shown a tendency of using repeated imagery in his stories, especially in Christmas specials, like the touching image of a lonely old man who needs saving in

, or the extremely memorable and stirring image of Clara and the Doctor tugging at a Christmas cracker in

, or the mesmerizing and breathtaking image of the Doctor riding a sleigh (well almost) in

So what does all this exactly mean? Throughout the article I have listed various accounts in which Moffat has taken inspiration from his earlier works (and there may be more) to fashion something new out of them, but I have refrained from giving any verdicts as to when or whether his attempts misfired. This is because issuing judgement was not the objective of this discourse (of course, you are free to do so in the comments sections), but rather to provide a scrutiny of how Moffat generally approaches new stories. In light of Series 9 I think a general understanding of his ways may help the fans with their expectations, because being too formulaic may make his stories predictable and excessive reuse of old themes and elements may rob his stories of novelty. Fortunately, despite of a few hiccups here and there, I have found the journey to be quite exciting and satisfying so far. Here’s hoping it will remain to be so.

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› Steven Moffat On Dealing With Showrunner Hate

In my opinion most writers just write the same thing over and over again differently. You just don\'t care because what they\'re trying to say gets clearer along the way.

@mczolly  That is why people stick with favourite authors, I am not sure it applies neatly to watching Who.

Slightly off-topic, but has anyone else noticed that a creature that featured in the Pertwee era has appeared back on UK screens this month? A race of aliens that when they appeared in The Sea Devils, even The Master commented they were "a rather interesting form of life".....

I wonder if we\'ll get to see Missy watching them in Series 9?

I think Moffat themes are really continuation of RTD Who themes.  We see Rose as a child in the memories of herself that are rewritten in Fathers Day.  The Doctor survives the Time War, he talks of fighting in the Time War - he is a warrior and a General established before Moffat. Bad Wolf is the first series spanning Timey Wimey arc (before that childish term which War Doctor doesn\'t like) is coined.

Moffat does not have the strong mother figures that RTD always featured and has concepts of marriage instead.

Moffat uses childish terrors and fewer deaths than RTD, but that is the only real difference.

Personally Moffat stories still surprise me, and I think now Gallifrey is back and the Doctor is mature we will be getting Moffat, writing for Moffat not following on the Time War inheritance and its consequences for the Doctor\'s character.

I think it might even be possible to look on “The Magician’s Apprentice” & “The Witch’s Familiar,”  as a continuation of Classic Who after Survival, how the 7th as Merlin themes might have played out if Moffat had brought the show back instead of RTD.

*also the idea that Ace was being tutored to bring fresh blood into the Time Lord race - a continuation of the \'dodgy eugenics\' that 4 \'accidentally\' undertook via Leela (Robot?, The Face of Evil, The Invasion of Time) - I say accidentally because there will now always be the \'Idris\' interpretation.

every one repeats themselves like a never ending cycle of life moffat is just a little bit scrunched up in a timey wimey way. but I totaly believe if Moffat left doctor who would probably get cancelled again.

Interesting article, although i do think the Good Man storyline from series 8 is not exactly a revisited idea from series 6, but a consequence of this arc. And both have differents effects on the Doctor.

Actually, that\'s how I see most of Moffat revisited ideas. And is brilliant how he can improve a previously concept and reuse in a different way.

As for the ACC/TTOT/LC parallels, I think this is more a proposital reference than anything else. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Fans may also remember Oswin Oswald for Asylum of the Daleks"

"may also remember"? It seems you underestimate the average Whovian\'s intense obsession with the show. Of course we remember Oswin!

Most interesting article! I think you\'re on the side that says there\'s nothing wrong with writers using their own tropes: I agree, although I think it can be overdone (I could, for example, do with seeing a few more genuine final deaths in the show, but see Eric Saward for a show with too many).

Anyway, here\'s my main point in support of writers re-using their own tropes: the Deadly Assassin and the Talons of Weng-Chiang both featured a disfigured and dangerous figure lurking underground. The Power of Kroll featured a gun-runner who was actually working for the enemy of the side he was supplying. All three stories were written by Robert Holmes.

Holmes would re-use these tropes of his (one for the third time), and created the Caves of Androzani. Now, if the genius that was Robert Holmes re-used his own tropes to create the masterpiece that was Androzani... Need I say more? How can there be anything wrong with that?

@Arkleseizure Terry Nations Dalek tales were highly generic - until Terrance Dicks told him they had been buying basically the same story of him so getting him to write Genesis of the Daleks.... Which apart from its overt Nazi symbolism and very sparse use of Daleks is also very much Nation \'Daleks as usual\'.

Fortunately his tropes like Holmes and Moffat tropes are repeated because they remain universally effective.

RTD too had tropes - strong mother\'s, people not quite worthy to be Tardis companions, fate/deux ex macina/McGuffin (not sure how to spell or pronounce those) big endings - tv rolling news reports.... also all good tropes.

I do not have a problem with Moffat revisiting past ideas... yes, the whole "don\'t blink/forget/breathe/think" (hell, don\'t think was used twice for goodness sake) is getting really quite annoying now, but other than that I have absolutely no problem with what he\'s done so far. 

A lot of it has completely blown over my head. I never noticed the old men at Christmas and people having their minds \'saved\' or whatever. I never noticed Renette and Little Amelia, partly because both still felt very different.

So as long as he doesn\'t repeat the whole don\'t blink thing or anything else too often then I\'m perfectly happy with it :P

(Please re-read the last paragraph). No that was not the point of this article. I am just saying that compared to other writers, I have found that he reuses

old themes more frequently. I think it\'s quite interesting that he can come at so many different things from so many different angles. Some times it works, sometimes it doesn\'t.

Also, I am not saying that he is bad because he reuses his own monsters. Frankly I\'ll be glad if the Weeping Angels or the Clockwork Droids make a return. I am just saying that the way in which the Weeping angles are used in midst of all the timey wimey, in TATM and Blink, is quite similar. The setting and certain plot points are also same. They were used to a different effect in 

Personally I think Blink did them more justice, while TATM felt like a pale imitation.

As for the Clockwork droids, well to be honest I wanted to see a completely different take on them. I mean not every time some abandoned ship named after some prominent french woman should be required for their return. But then I also loved how they were used as a symbolic representation for twelve\'s moral ambiguity.

 Twelve to the Half Face Man - "You are a broom. Question. You take a broom, you replace the handle, and then later you replace the brush, and you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer? No, of course it isn\'t. But you can still sweep the floor. Which is not strictly relevant, skip that last part. You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There\'s not a trace of the original you left. You probably can\'t even remember where you got that face from."

See how the above dialogue also relates to the Doctor, because even the Doctor has changed himself over and over and over again. Is he still the same man he was at the beginning? 

So the point of this article is, now that we can see certain trends in his storytelling then what does it say about what we are going to get in Series 9? Will we get to see the return of some grand timey wimey plot? Or will we see the return of some old theme that Moffat has been hinting at for ages but only subtly? Or will we get something entirely new? Whatever it is, it\'s always good to go in prepared. :)

@The Impossible Sam Personally I saw the broom section as a tribute to the classic Only Fools and Horses

@Planet of the Deaf @The Impossible Sam Could you remind us of the Trigger\'s Broom moment? 

@The Finn is excited for audio Kate Stewart! @Planet of the Deaf @The Impossible Sam Is it philosophy or semantics? When you repair something can you call it the same thing, a mostly the same thing, a partly new thing, a different thing, a new thing? At want point would each be considered the \'most true/practical discription?

It is the reverse of which came first the chicken or the egg.

But it applies to the Doctor is he the same man or is each incarnation a different man?  Moffat has always said The Doctor is the same character, yet on screen 12 really implies he is different and therefore perhaps not a good man? - or he never was good, but now he has changed he can see his past more clearly.

@Typo42 "Magic Carrots" @The Finn is excited for audio Kate Stewart! @Planet of the Deaf @The Impossible Sam It\'s a real philosophical question: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

After all this time, it\'s difficult to come up with original endings too. Two non Moff episodes, but Hide and Time Heist (both episodes I like) end with the revelation that the \'monster\' isn\'t in fact a baddy and is in fact trying to find his partner...

@Planet of the Deaf The usual ending is something killed, banished or destroyed or blows up! That is not original it is what we expect! Clockwork Droids killed, Robots of Sherwood Ship blown up,  Daleks tricked/banished, Skovox Blitzer disabled banished, Orient Express blown up, Boneless banished destroyed, magic forest banished/destroyed by magic solar flare, cyber pollen cloud blown up.  Hide and Time Heist are criticized for having the same ending because that type of ending stands out because of its uniqueness!

Oh forgot magic space Dragon flea flies off in disgust at lack of science rigour in story.. originality should not be at the sacrifice of credibility.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is the greatest thing on tv at the moment - I am not a Harkness hater by any means.

Every time the old Moff reprises an old theme, monster or concept, he tends to do it in the best of ways, twisting everything a bit so that it always looks fresh. Let\'s look at the way the Weeping Angels and the Clockwork Droids are different from their first to their second appearances. The core of the Weeping Angels is expanded in Flesh and Stone/The Time of Angels with the concept "the image of a Weeping Angel IS a Weeping Angel" or their power to communicate through the dead bodies. In "Deep Breath", the original concept of the Clockwork Droids using human organs to replace the missing components of the Madame de Pompadour Starship is switched to show how the Droids themselves replaced their own components to become more and more "human", with a taste of "Frankenstein" to the whole plot and provoking with a moral point. I know Steven sometimes missed the point and some occasions he drew a blank; still, I mostly enjoy his ideas and the way they\'ve put on screen. GREAT ARTICLE, anyway!

@AlessandroArsuffi  Reusing monsters is hardly a new concept actually, imagine if the Daleks or Cybermen had only appeared once and were never seen again! What a waste that would have been.

One of the beauties of Moffat\'s writing is how he uses some of his old material and just slightly twists it. I like it because it gives an organic sense of how his longer arcs all tie together and provides that unifying sensibility in his episodes. It\'s deliberate and artful and you feel familiar and comfortable and then BANG, he pulls the rug. I don\'t know how he keeps it all so fresh and exciting but I think having Matt and Peter so different as actors and doctors really helps make similar stories so distinctive.

The thing is Moffat mixes it up, he has it done in different ways so yes it can be seen as similar but it never feels the same and the time of the doctor last Christmas cracker thing was done on purpose as an obvious mention. Especially as it was a dream between them.

Anyway lets be honest the shows nearly 52 years old I think there\'s gonna be some repetition in it isn\'t there

@TheDoctor1235 Not to mention that drama as a performance form is some 2,500 years old... now *that\'s* bound to mean repetition.

Personally, I\'ve loved how Moffat manages to "regenerate" ideas he\'s used before.

Fantastic article! But the worst thing to happen to a writer is for their writing to start to become predictable. If I were Moffat, I\'d examine everything I\'ve ever written and then proceed to do something unlike any of them.

Really interesting article! I love it when Moffat revisits old themes and concepts (provided he makes it feel fresh of course), now if only he\'d do the same for Clara\'s echoes...

Glad I\'m not the only one that\'s noticed Moffat\'s repeated tropes. If fact "Last Christmas" proved to me just how stale the show has become, because he\'s just repeating the same ideas over and over again.

I really liked the parallel between The Time of the Doctor and Last Christmas with the Christmas cracker. In the former, Clara helps the Doctor, then and old man, to open the cracker. In the latter, the Doctor helps Clara, then a old woman, to open the cracker.

What can Moffat make us afraid of after blinking, forgetting, breathing and thinking? Don\'t drink? Don\'t sleep?

@Silent_Angel Don\'t sleep has potential. I can think of some interesting places to go with that.

9@Silent_Angel Don\'t touch/Don\'t drink has already been done in The Waters of Mars ;)

@Silent_Angel Don\'t drink has already been used in The Waters of Mars. I\'m afraid the next will be something like "Don\'t fart after eating a pound of beans".

@AlessandroArsuffi @Silent_Angel The question there is... who would eat that much beans anyway?

I don\'t get why people think "Are you my Mummy?" is innocence-turned-horror. This question is horrific enough if you think about it.

I don\'t understand this article. Are these complaints...and why? 

@Whovian312 It\'s not a complaint!. I am just listing out how many times Moffat has reused his previous ideas. An analysis of his writing style, where he often reuses his old tales for making new ones. It\'s up to you whether you like his style or not. I am just pointing it out.

@The Impossible Sam @Whovian312 It is a good article. It does not need defending.  You can take the drawing attention to themes as either a criticism or a way that increases appreciation - I am with the later group, I want more of Moffat exploring his favourite themes of meaning and identity, trust and love and goodness, and childhood games and fears.

Excellent article. Another common Moffat trick I mentioned in an article a while back is he like to subvert expectations. He loves to build speculation in one area only to pull the real twists in another.

@Malohkeh Thanks and Yo! I did mention your article in this one.

A recent article by Kevin Burnard elaborated on Moffat’s penchant for subverting expectations in his finales; another recognizable pattern in his storytelling.

 there also exists a trend of revisiting and reusing older stories, plot devices and narrative structures for the sake of fabricating entirely new fables.

Yes, This has been one of Doctor Who\'s devices for over 50 years now. It was a great Idea and one that many writers have used over the years

@Polyphase Well, that\'s true, but very rarely does a writer use his own works. Then again Moffat has written so many stories, I don\'t think I can blame him. He usually reuses with exceptional cautiousness. Moffat also uses lot of stuff from the classics, but very cleverly. Come to think of it, Clara splintering is similar to Scaroth splintering in

This could mean a whole other article but I am not well versed with the classics, so I don\'t know if I could do it!

what normal part of every day life might he twist next? We haven\'t had "don\'t talk" or "don\'t sleep" yet?

I can just imagine it. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! YIkes,

@OzGirl, Agent of D.O.N.N.A  "Don\'t talk. Don\'t even open your mouth. Say one word and they will find you. From now on, you\'re on your own. Good luck"

@thebluetooth Don\'t talk was Midnight and don\'t sleep is the scary thing about Last Christmas surely?

I wish Moffat would acknowledge the RTD era more by bringing back monsters/characters from that era. For example; in A Good Man Goes To War the Doctor had many interesting friends who could have appeared (alongside the amazing Paternoster gang off course) Novice Hame, maybe Brannigan and the two Vinvoccis - Rossiter and Addams - would have been amazing.

@TazminDaytime John Barrowman was busy filming Torchwood, otherwise he would have featured, And he\'s been begging to come back ever since :-)

@Planet of the Deaf @TazminDaytime Yea (although I\'m not really a fan of Jack) it would have been nice to see someone (anyone!) return. 

@TazminDaytime The names you mention are pacifists really! It would have been odd to have called them to fight!

@Typo42 "Magic Carrots" @TazminDaytime They were the only characters that I could think of which were interesting whilst still owed the Doctor. We\'ve seen Novice with a gun before, but not everyone who went to Deamon\'s run had to fight. The two Vinvocci\'s could have done something technical to stop the guard\'s guns from working? Or something like that.

@TazminDaytime @Typo42 "Magic Carrots" You are right - I would actually quite liked to see the two Vinvocci\'s as you suggest. I do think there is a slight tonal differences i.e. they are bright creations whilst Moffats are a bit darker so they might have looked out of place, and also presumably they got all the Curse of Black Spot crew filmed earlier... it would be expensive to have guest stars for a one off (I hate real life practical and aesthetic arguments that\'s why I have you the pacifist character one - a bit unfairly I am sorry)

@TazminDaytime @Typo42 "Magic Carrots" Novice Hame did wield a gun in Gridlock, I think this was for a bit of tension rather than violent tendencies.... a blatant red herring on RTD\'s part! I think it was because she was aware of the Macra danger and came armed.

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