So, I recently had a lovely conversation with some friends of mine about how we should kill ourselves and burn in hell for having different opinions.
...
Only joking. It was an RTD vs Moffat debate though, so anything's possible. We were discussing their treatment of story arcs and characters. I naturally found myself serving on the side of the Moff, so here's what I had to say on the issue.
Character vs Story
Yes, RTD's focus on the companions and their families definitely helped where the characters were concerned. However, his story arcs failed as a result. Moffat did the opposite. He had big, complicated story arcs, with lots of twists and turns and questions and shiz, but focused decidedly less on the companions family.
Now, with Amy Pond, he accomplished this brilliantly. He made the lack of her family part of the plot, with the crack in time having eaten them up. Her extended family were definitely there for her introductory episode (Jeff, her aunt, etc etc). Rory, her fiance, also became a regular companion.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Daniel, these characters only appeared once, then all vanished for the remainder of Amy Ponds era". Yes, you're right. But is that a bad thing?
You see, Doctor Who is a show that can go anywhere and do anything. It has truly infinite possibilities. As much as I love all the family stuff in RTD's era, he did visit present day earth a little too often. In a show with such a wide scope of ideas, I'd much rather visit strange alien worlds or different times, instead of the one particular year the show happens to be broadcast. That's what Moffat did.
Whatever you think of series 5, 6 or 7, you cant deny that they're easily more varied than anything in series 1, 2, 3 or 4. Series 6 and 7 especially are massive in the variety of locations they visit. I much prefer that to the frankly boring setting of contemporary earth, just so we can learn more about the companions family.
Story Arcs
We also talked about who had the better story arcs: RTD or Moffat? For me, the answer is beyond obvious. RTD didn't have story arcs at all. He had a single word or phrase that kept popping up in every other episode. Even series 1, arguably the most arc-heavy of RTD's era, was nothing in comparison to even series 5, never mind series 6.
Lets take series 6 for example. While it did rely on certain episodes as info dumps, we still got information in episodes that weren't just the finale, unlike in RTD's era, when we got the same word repeated until the finale when we found out what it meant.
So, series 6. In the first 10 minutes we get our big question, 'How did the Doctor survive?', along with answers to some running questions from series 5 (who are the Silence?). Then, although it takes 4 episodes, we start getting more answers. Why did Amy keep wearing the same clothes? Because she's a Ganger! Who is River Song? She's Amy's daughter!
Then, from this new info, we can start to speculate about other things. Who's inside the astronaut? Is it River? In that case, was the regenerating girl at the end of Day of the Moon River as well? Then when LKH rolls around, we get some more answers, as well as a bit more explanation about the silence, which also opens up more questions. Then at the end of the series we get our final answer to the big question (how did the Doctor survive?), as well as some new questions preparing for series 7.
No, it's not perfect. I would much prefer to have a steady stream of info as the series goes on, instead of specified info dumps. But in a show like Doctor Who, where every week is completely different, that's not so easy.
So to conclude, both RTD and Moffat are good. It all comes down to personal taste. RTD writes better characters, but Moffat writes a better story.
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