by ladyfan
As the media salivates over the ucoming season 7 of Doctor Who, lauding Steven Moffat’s work on both it and Sherlock, thereseems to be a good deal of jumping over the four seasons that actually brought Doctor Who back to life. Yes, we speak (reverentially) of what will surely in the future be known as the Russell T. Davies Dynasty (for you non Who-vians, the RTD Dynasty = Season 1-4 of new Who). Although Moffat was a freelancer on the show before his upgrade to showrunner, the voice and tone of the first four seasons is unquestionably Davies’.
The excellent and painfully truthful book about TV writing he’s co-written with Benjamin Cook reveals just how involved Davies was in the episode-to-episode process of the show – and while we wonder about how he was ever able to sleep (ever) we admire the unity of tone and carefully crafted subtle plot arcs that span from season to season each year. Bad Wolf? Torchwood? Harry Saxon? There is always a little extra credit for paying attention to the details (and if you’re an extra super nerd, like we are, watching the episode that fourth or fifth time illuminated that one reference we missed the first four times. It did! And it was worth it!)