The 2012 Timelash Awards - Part Two
Continuing our coverage of the good, the bad and the new Daleks of Doctor Who in 2011. Today we have an award that demonstrates if at first you don’t succeed… write another script four years later.
The Most Improved Award goes to writer Tom MacRae, who came from writing the derided-by-almost-all Series Two effort Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel to this season’s The Girl Who Waited which was one of the best, if not the best, Doctor Who television story this year.
I must be smug here and point out that I knew MacRae had it in him. In my Enlightenment review of the Series Two DVDs, I said, “[Rise/Age] smells to me of (a story) that had way too many cooks in the process of its creation and the story tried to satisfy everyone’s story notes, with disastrous results. Tom MacRae deserves a do-over more than any Doctor Who writer today”. I’m so glad Mr. MacRae finally got his shot.
An honourable mention goes to Matthew Graham. While The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People had its problems it was a quantum leap from the equally risible Fear Her...
Posted by Graeme on Saturday, January 7 at 11:09 pm
1 Comment...
I thought the Cybermen 2-parter was fine and introduced quite a few important aspects to the canon, in particular setting up Doomsday’s heartbreaking ending. So I don’t really see McRae as having to “improve”. Likewise, Matthew Graham created Life on Mars, so he had nothing to prove. His Gangers two parter only served to prove that Fear Her was simply a bad day, which all writers have from time to time. Now hopefully Steve Thompson will be given a chance to “redeem” himself since it looks like his Curse of the Black Spot will probably go down as the most unloved of the Series 6 episodes. Which is a shame because it had a cool-looking pirate ship, Amy with a sword (even if it was her ganger) and Lily Cole as a sexy alien doctor thingy. Can’t be any fairer than that!
Posted by Alex on 01/10 at 06:43 PM
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