Meeting James Moran and Toby Whithouse
James Moran and Toby Whithouse were in Poland! They came for Serialcon, and there were several panels with them. I went to two: a panel called "Inside Doctor Who" with both of them and Tom de Ville (who's a writer and a Doctor Who fan), and a panel with Toby Whithouse about writing supernatural creatures and writing in general.
(If you didn't watch the trailer after s10e01, don't open the spoiler cut)
What an amazing experience! I see now why conventions which have guests on them are so popular elsewhere (it's a standard in the USA, isn't it? In Poland, a convention often means the fans gather and talk to each other, and some of them make presentations about some topics). Toby Whithouse (it's weird to talk about them using their first, or only last names after actually seing them; I feel I should write "Mr. Whithouse" now) has that charisma that makes you want to just listen to him, regardless of the topic, and of course you feel they all really love Doctor Who. And there was no "they come from the big world and we're a tiny group of fans from a distant country, even if it's a really cool, modern building in Cracow" feeling, they were so warm and open that even I raised my hand and asked a question, and I'm very shy. I also came to Mr. Whithouse after the panel and asked for an autograph, and showed him my t-shirt with the "Tea, but the strong stuff. Leave the bag in." quote. He was pleased to see it! Unfortunately, I didn't manage to catch James Moran.
This is a photo of the group panel I stole borrowed from Facebook:
(From the left: the moderator, James Moran, Toby Whithouse, Tom de Ville)
Few things from the panels:
- Apparently, Steven Moffat hates the word timey-wimey and the fact that it's one of things he's going to be mostly remembered for. They asked how it was translated into Polish, and after we said one version was czasokuleczka (= a little time ball), Toby said Time ball could make a good title for the whole series :)
- James Moran confirmed that Russell T Davies "polished" his script and changed a lot, but he's grateful for it because he learnt from it so much, and he thinks it's amazing how Davies still kept James' voice in that script. When you write for Doctor Who, you have to agree to the script being rewritten.
- Toby Whithouse, on the other hand, didn't like the fact that he was being "polished", but when he started working on "Being Human" and got to rewrite other writers' scripts, he realised Davies was right. He even wrote him an email and apologized for his previous complaints.
- Steven Moffat doesn't "polish" the scripts the way Davies did. When you're hired to write an episode, you are given a two-line prompt, like: there's a hotel, there's an alien in it, a lot of running; and you write a two pages draft that has to be accepted by Moffat (sometimes you write three or four). Then you write a full script, and you might get some notes on what to change until it's accepted. According to Toby, Stevan Moffat has always 500 things to do, and when he can label one as "good, done", he does it and goes to other 499. He doesn't spend weeks on thinking about everyone's every line.
- Toby also said (and it was my question) that he doesn't feel the difference between Doctors when he writes a script as they play a similar role in an episode. When it comes to details, he had that advantage to write for the Doctors when there was at least one season for each already made, so he knew how they were like.
- James Moran said he was happy when he thought he was to write an episode with Martha because there were already several episodes with her, and when he heard she won't be coming back and he'd be writting Donna, it wasn't easy because he didn't know much about Donna yet.
- Tom de Ville was growing up with Doctor Who and he was happy when it came back, and still is a big fan. What he dislikes most about the fandom is people in Britain in his age who also grew up with the series, but now hate everything, hate that it changes and can't accept a female Doctor or a Doctor who isn't white.
- Toby didn't say anything about his episode in series 10, because he believed Moffat will find out. He also believes the least the audience knows about future episodes, the better. How amazing it would be if
- He joked he knows who the Thrirteen Doctor is, can't tell us, but she's going to be amazing :)
- James said he'd love to write for Doctor Who again. He even has a list of ideas he keeps on his computer in case they hire him again and ask if he had some ideas of his own. We said we'll start a petition to bring him back, but he said that's the thing to do to make sure it's not going to happen ;)
- Toby strongly believes it's characters that should drive the plot instead the plot driving the characters. When he creates a story, he thinks of characters first and what story could they tell. He often writes detailed biographies for the characters.
- On "Being Human": he was asked to write a series about three people who share the flat, and he thought it was the dullest idea ever. He came up with the characters, but it was lacking something. Then he started to write a movie about a werewolf (or maybe a vampire, I can't remember), and suddenly thought, what if one of the characters in his series was a werewolf(/vampire)? So he made them a vampire, a werewolf and a human, and firstly, he made it a sitcom, but it still didn't work, so he went for drama - and that was it. He said he thinks the series's good because he had those characters with personalities, faults and dreams before he added a supernatural factor to it so they feel real. (I must watch "Being Human" now!)
This is Toby's autograph. He even knew how my name, Marta, is spelled in Polish (if only people who wrote Class checked the name Mateusz!). Once or twice at the panels, he made sure we understand what he was saying, but they all spoke so clearly I understood everything, more than I do when I watch British tv. Miracle!
So, I was really happy I had an opportunity to see those two writers. I hope they had a good time, too.