Recap of the Mark Gatiss episodes

[momentsmusicaux]

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?

Comments

[ruuger]

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.