Moffat Moffatt everywhere
Watching All Creatures Great and Small last night, I noticed that one of the people involved was named "Peter Moffatt." 'That's odd' I thought to myself - 'Moffatt can't be all that common a name.'
Poking around in Wikipedia this morning trying to find if there were any intervening epsiodes between Power of the Daleks (the only 2nd doctor episode without Jamie in it) and Evil of the Daleks (see my two previous posts) (there aren't any, by the way) I happened to glance at lists of names for the 5th doctor era. It turns out John Nathan-Turner was a busy man! As the production unit manager on both Doctor Who and All Creatures, he imported most of his people from one to the other - specifically, Terrance Dudly, Peter Davison, and Peter Moffatt. 'My word!' I thought.
So I googled "Peter Moffat" to see if he was any relation of the great Steven Moffat who is currently doing such wonderful things for the show. And I found - nothing. Well, next to nothing. I found a Peter Moffat as a writer who had done several things, top among them Einstein and Eddington, in which David Tennant will be starring as Eddington. But no mention of either All Creatures or Doctor Who! And then I discovered the extra [t]
Thus we have:
Peter Moffatt
Peter Moffat
Steven Moffat
All different people, all connected to Doctor Who in some way - all apparently unrelated! Moreover, the two who worked directly on Doctor Who - Steven Moffat and Peter Moffatt - can't possibly be related because they spell their names differently. It is a small universe indeed. And one apparantly chock full of Moffat(t)s!
I can also now forgive David Whitaker for "The Edge of Destruction" - having seen Evil of the Daleks, heard Power of the Daleks, and seen part of The Enemy of the World (aka: In which it is discovered that Patrick Troughton is an Actor!). And many other good things. He also seems to have overseen a disproportionate number of cast changes, having introduced Vicki, Victoria, Zoe, and the second doctor!
All these wonderful things I would not have learned if I'd had my books handy.
[also - Peter Davison looks so YOUNG! It didn't help that I'd watched "Time Crash" earlier that day. But still - Ach, wee Trissie, thu art a cute'un!]
[also also - I am impressed by the ability of the dalesfolk to pronounce the word "the" as "t" no matter what other consonants it may co-occur with. Of course, phonetic naturalness and England have never been on the best of terms.]
[also also also - while we're going through British filmography trivia, Christopher Timothy (James Herriot) and Caroline John (Liz Shaw) were both in the opening cast of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - him as a random guard, her as Ophelia. The universe is, in fact, miniscule.]
Poking around in Wikipedia this morning trying to find if there were any intervening epsiodes between Power of the Daleks (the only 2nd doctor episode without Jamie in it) and Evil of the Daleks (see my two previous posts) (there aren't any, by the way) I happened to glance at lists of names for the 5th doctor era. It turns out John Nathan-Turner was a busy man! As the production unit manager on both Doctor Who and All Creatures, he imported most of his people from one to the other - specifically, Terrance Dudly, Peter Davison, and Peter Moffatt. 'My word!' I thought.
So I googled "Peter Moffat" to see if he was any relation of the great Steven Moffat who is currently doing such wonderful things for the show. And I found - nothing. Well, next to nothing. I found a Peter Moffat as a writer who had done several things, top among them Einstein and Eddington, in which David Tennant will be starring as Eddington. But no mention of either All Creatures or Doctor Who! And then I discovered the extra [t]
Thus we have:
Peter Moffatt
Peter Moffat
Steven Moffat
All different people, all connected to Doctor Who in some way - all apparently unrelated! Moreover, the two who worked directly on Doctor Who - Steven Moffat and Peter Moffatt - can't possibly be related because they spell their names differently. It is a small universe indeed. And one apparantly chock full of Moffat(t)s!
I can also now forgive David Whitaker for "The Edge of Destruction" - having seen Evil of the Daleks, heard Power of the Daleks, and seen part of The Enemy of the World (aka: In which it is discovered that Patrick Troughton is an Actor!). And many other good things. He also seems to have overseen a disproportionate number of cast changes, having introduced Vicki, Victoria, Zoe, and the second doctor!
All these wonderful things I would not have learned if I'd had my books handy.
[also - Peter Davison looks so YOUNG! It didn't help that I'd watched "Time Crash" earlier that day. But still - Ach, wee Trissie, thu art a cute'un!]
[also also - I am impressed by the ability of the dalesfolk to pronounce the word "the" as "t" no matter what other consonants it may co-occur with. Of course, phonetic naturalness and England have never been on the best of terms.]
[also also also - while we're going through British filmography trivia, Christopher Timothy (James Herriot) and Caroline John (Liz Shaw) were both in the opening cast of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - him as a random guard, her as Ophelia. The universe is, in fact, miniscule.]