Pip & Jane Baker

[Oh-Wise-One]

They have a reputation amongst Who fandom for being awful writers, but is it really fair? This wasn't an amazing story but it was pretty good and Terror of the Vervoids was ok, but then we have The Ultimate Foe and Time and the Rani, both of which are absolutely AWFUL! IMO, anyway.

What are your thoughts on the writing duo?

[TheDoctorDonna]

I thought they had written more DW stories than that?!?

Outside of DW, as far as I am aware I have never seen any of their work, so I can only base their reputation on what they did for this show, but I don't think they were particularly great writers. This story was great and they did a half decent job on TUF, which doesnt say a lot because it was still awful, but on the whole I have to say I am not overly impressed with their output.

[Dame Roger]

They had a tendency to write lines that probably looked great on paper, but just never quite sounded like realistic dialogue when spoken aloud. This story, for me, was by far their best, and it still had a few lines like that.

As for their other stories:
Terror Of The Vervoids is reasonably good, although far from great.
The Ultimate Foe is awful, although with all the chaos that was going on with the scripts for that season it's far from entirely their fault, and it's quite impressive they managed to make it make as much sense as it did.
Time & The Rani didn't really work as a new Doctor story. It had been written for Colin Baker then re-written for the (as yet uncast) new Doctor. If Baker hadn't been sacked I suspect it would've worked out much better than it did, although that doesn't excuse how bad the writing for the new-Doctor scenes was. (plus it would still have looked pretty awful, although you can't blame them for that)

So, no, Pip & Jane Baker are far from being among DW's best writers. The Mark Of The Rani is still a good story though.

[Aneurin]

This is the only one of their stories that I have seen, I think, and I quite like this. I wasn't aware that there was any particular bad rep attached to them but I suppose my opinion might change when we get to their other stories.

[Peri-Peri]

I wouldnt really hold them to blame over TUF because they didn't have a good deal to work with and it was already awful to start with. This was definately their best story though.

[Kovarians-Eye-Patch]

I wouldn't particularly say they were good writers, but I do think they are good storytellers. The stories they have written haven't been great but they haven't been totally awful either. It's the scripting of the stories, I think, where they stumble.

[Exterminate]

I didn't know they had a bad reputation to be honest. I don't think any of their stories are particularly great but I don't think they were awful enough for them to be so slagged of amongst fandom. I just did some Googling and some of the stuff written about them is particularly harsh. There have been far worse writing/writers throughout the run I think.

[Nyki]

The only one I'd really rate as awful was Time & the Rani.  The Ultimate Foe was a mess but, as PP said, that wasn't entirely their fault.  The other two I'd rate as not great, but enjoyable stories.