The Doctor In The TARDIS

Travels In Time And Space => Cold War => Topic started by: Roranicus on August 08, 2013, 07:20:23 pm



Title: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Roranicus on August 08, 2013, 07:20:23 pm
He is one of the writers who very much divides fandom, so do you think he did a good job with this or not?


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Roranicus on August 08, 2013, 07:22:18 pm
Personally, I think this is written better than most of his stories, but I just don't think it was good enough to carry and bring back the Ice Warriors. It should have been a two parter and there should have been more of them. And I don't think we should have seen anything from inside of the suits. As I said when rating it, I think if this was a story featuring 'Alien X' then I would have liked it a whole lot more, but it just wasn't good enough for the return of the Ice Warriors.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Nyki on August 08, 2013, 11:25:57 pm
I don't consider him nearly as bad as some people seem to, and he's written some stories I really enjoy.  I think he did a good job with this one.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Iceman on August 08, 2013, 11:29:39 pm
I've liked two of his stories. The Unquiet Dead in s1, and the Crimson Horror.

Thats it.

Everything else bored me as much as Lord of the Rings does. (Which is a lot)

I really hope he doesn't become showrunner when Moff leaves.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: The Doc on August 09, 2013, 12:11:44 am
I really hope he doesn't become showrunner when Moff leaves.

I think that's pretty much in the bag


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: hannahcole93 on August 09, 2013, 09:47:13 am
I actually really Gatiss episodes. I love The Unquiet Dead, I LOVE The Idiot's Lantern, I love Night Terrors and Cold War also. The only ones I don't like are Victory of the Daleks (although that one has very much grown on me since the first time I saw it) and I really don't like Crimson Horror.

Personally I really like his writing and I know that I am potentially in the minority with that. But I think he does a pretty good job of his episodes.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Aneurin on August 09, 2013, 01:29:47 pm
Overall I think he has missed far more than he has hit, but I found this story to be amongst his better ones. I have a feeling he will be the next showrunner, and I am not happy about it, because overall I don't think he is particularly good at writing for the show, but with this story he has gone some way to redeeming himself.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Peri-Peri on August 09, 2013, 05:46:43 pm
This didn't win me over and I'm still not a fan of the idea of him taking over the show, however I think this was far better than his last 3 stories.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Vampyros Adric on August 09, 2013, 08:12:00 pm
Gatiss is a writer who frustrates me more than any other. He has all the credentials to be the perfect writer for Who. He should be the natural heir to Robert Holmes but he never has quite kicked on and done this. Cold War is, however, a story that I very much enjoyed. It was a rudimentary tale but one which Gatiss told well. This wasn't a 'Holmes-style' classic but it was a good 'base-under-seige' story that was very reminiscent of old-school Doctor Who.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Tardis-Console on August 09, 2013, 10:50:17 pm
Generally I haven't been much of a fan of his work but I thought he did a pretty good job with this. Expectations were low so it wasn't hard to meet them


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Tardis-Console on August 09, 2013, 10:50:38 pm
That sounds like such a backhanded compliment


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Nyki on August 10, 2013, 01:46:38 am
but it was a good 'base-under-seige' story that was very reminiscent of old-school Doctor Who.

Such as pretty much every Cyberman story from the 60s  8)


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Iceman on August 10, 2013, 01:52:11 am
I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and crap a better script than Mark Gatiss writes.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Saber on August 10, 2013, 02:09:41 pm
I want to be careful how I word this, but I pretty much think the entirety of this script was 'borrowed' from other episodes. And I don't mean as inspiration. I mean pretty much a copy and paste job where names and locations are changed and that's about it. After so many flops, if Gatiss now needs to rewrite other peoples scripts and pass them as his own I think there is no hope.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Exterminate on August 11, 2013, 02:28:26 pm
For me, he just keeps falling flat. He seems like a nice guy and it's awesome that he is so invested in the show. Getting fans to write for it is awesome. But his stories keep falling flat and I think perhaps he is best off as a fan rather than a staff member.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Joshua on August 14, 2013, 05:30:26 am
Although this was as bad as his usual *enter appropriate diarrhoea/vomit-related comment here*, it still wasn't a brilliant story and wasted a pretty cool setting. He also wrote Clara pretty poorly I found.

I really hope he doesn't become showrunner when Moff leaves.

I see it happening, and I dread it.

That sounds like such a backhanded compliment

This made me laugh so much.


Title: Re: Mark Gatiss
Post by: Sparky on August 14, 2013, 11:34:23 am
His best effort since The Unquiet Dead, but as a DW writer I still think he suits being a fan more.