Recap of the Mark Gatiss episodes ["You look Time Lord."]

Mark Gatiss recently said he might not be writing for Doctor Who any more in the post-Moffat era, so I thought it would be a good time to look back over the episodes he wrote.

Which are:

The Unquiet Dead (season 1 - Nine - 2005)
The Idiot's Lantern (season 2 - Ten - 2006)
Victory of the Daleks (season 5 - Eleven - 2010)
Night Terrors (season 6 - Eleven - 2011)
Cold War (season 7 - Eleven - 2013)
The Crimson Horror (season 7 - Eleven - 2013)
Robot of Sherwood (season 8 - Twelve - 2014)
Sleep No More (season 9 - Twelve - 2015)
Empress of Mars (season 10 - Twelve - 2017)

I was surprised to see that he'd only written two episodes in the RTD era. Since then, he's done one episode per season, with 2 for season 7 (which was really two short seasons in 2012 and 2013...)

What's your favourite? Which ones are the worst? Gatiss does have a bit of a tendency to produce slightly pants episodes, but then he's also done some I consider decent:

The Unquiet Dead I remember as being solid, if not amazing, and more like Doctor Who than some of the stuff RTD wrote in the first season (I'm thinking of the pig alien and the stupid farting aliens...).
Victory of the Daleks. Yes, everyone hates the Tellytubby Daleks (except me, actually. I rather liked them). But aside from those, this one has quite a few good bits. I'll forgive the slightly cheap spitfires in space for the excellent scene where the Doctor holds a whole load of Daleks at bay with just a jammie dodger.
Sleep No More I thought was very good, and as I recall it, is missing the Gatiss-ish quality that most of his other episodes have.

I have to say, I remember nothing at all of Night Terrors, Cold War, or The Crimson Horror. The Idiot's Lantern I thought was a bit silly, but some of that was the direction and the over-egging of the 1950s theme. I've seen people really pan Robot of Sherwood, but I thought that if you accept its silliness, it works.

What do you all think?

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I've always been partial to The Unquiet Dead, and Sleep No More. I thought they were interesting, and evocative.

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The Unquiet Dead - loved the setup of it; have rewatched recently and really enjoyed

The Idiot's Lantern - liked it right up until the last few mins when Rose projects her daddy issues onto the person with an abusive dad. Total lack of empathy from Rose, and marked the start of my change from loving her into disliking her intensely

Victory of the Daleks - "Danny Boy to the Doctor" still makes me cry/whoop. I know lots of other people disliked this one, but I have a big soft spot for it.

Night Terrors - can't remember much about this one, except that it has Satan from Ashes to Ashes in it.

Cold War - really really loved this. Excellent reintroduction of the Ice Warriors.

The Crimson Horror - really really loved this too, thought cousin Di and second cousin Rachel were fantastic in it, and LOVED Ninja!Jenny

Robot of Sherwood - this was the point where I actually started to suspect that Gatiss was writing episodes just for me. The Alan Rickman Sherriff references! Beardy Ben Miller! Scifi and fantasy in one episode! Silly-yet-serious Doctor!

Sleep No More - can't actually remember much about this one.

Empress of Mars - loved it loved it loved it. Loved the Predator-esque Empress, loved Bill's reactions to Victorian sexism/racism, loved Capadi Doctor... I am sure that Empress of Mars was Gatiss going "fuck it, I don't have to self-censor if this is my last one" and I am sad it was probably his last one.

Seeing as my first episode of any version of Doctor Who was The Unquiet Dead, and I have an unending love for Victorian horror, I'm voting for that as my favorite of the Gatiss penned stories.

The rest of his episodes I never particularly cared for, aside from The Crimson Horror (again, the era I love) and a few moments of Robot of Sherwood.

Mark Gatiss recently said he might not be writing for Doctor Who any more in the post-Moffat era...

What? My birthday was last month!

lol mte

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i find nearly every gatiss episode massively tedious and literally the only episode on this list i wouldn't be happy to excise from doctor who history in exchange for an additional episode of "delta and the bannermen" is "the crimson horror". "victory of the daleks" is probably in my top ten most hated doctor who stories of all time.

Delta and the Bannermen? Ouch, that's harsh! :D

I've found most of Gatiss' episodes fun and enjoyable. Then again, I'm not exactly super-picky over Doctor Who in general. Favorites from his list would be The Unquiet Dead, The Crimson Horror, and The Empress of Mars. The only one I've really felt "meh" about was Sleep No More. The story idea was interesting, but it lost something in the execution. The lack of resolution was especially disturbing - the Doctor and Clara just escape in the TARDIS, no stopping the monsters, no mention of what might happen to the populations the station serves, etc.

I'll have to be honest: I ragequit Series 10 after "Thin Ice," so I have no comment on "Empress of Mars."

I can't remember "The Unquiet Dead" without looking it up on a wiki. I'm meh about "The Idiot's Lantern," "Victory of the Daleks," and "Night Terrors," and everything else I've seen that he's written I've absolutely hated. "Cold War" is my least favorite of all his episodes--yes, even more than "Sleep No More."

I hated Series 10 but loved the two-part finale, so you might want to try watching it.

I'll say this for Gatiss: he doesn't piss me off. At his worst he can be staggeringly boring, but I've never felt the need to throw things at my screen when I'm watching him, which is a bit of a distinction on Who. Most of his episodes have at least a handful of ideas good enough to keep my interest. He manages genuine poignancy, genuine humor, and genuine horror in turns, so there does tend to be some real weight to what he writes, even if the plot and occasionally charaterization can leave something to be desired. His fondness for history and Classic Who don't really do anything for me, but I don't hold them against him.

My favorite episodes of his are Crimson Horror and Robot of Sherwood. Worst are Sleep No More and Empress of Mars.

Interesting note: Fear Her is the first episode of Who I ever saw. Admittedly, it did not make me a convert, though I seem to like it more than most people.

I rather liked The Idiot's Lantern when I rewatched it last month - it's not great, but it has a lot of the elements that I liked best about the Ten/Rose era. The Unquiet Dead was nice and creepy, too.

I can't actually remember *any* of his Eleven era episodes... I suspect that I haven't even seen the season 7 episodes.

I didn't like Robin of Sherwood the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me on rewatches. I really liked Sleep No More (unpopular opinion, I know), but Empress of Mars was probably my least favourite episode of season 10.

I'm a little bit late to this post, but I really liked both of Sleep No More and Empress of Mars.

For me, most of his other episodes range between "fairly good, but not amazing" (like The Unquiet Dead) or "thoroughly naff, did not like" (like The Idiot's Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, Robot of Sherwood). I think I somehow missed most of season 7 (?) so I don't remember either of those episodes...

"You look Time Lord."

Recap of the Mark Gatiss episodes

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October