Former Doctor Who showrunner, Steven Moffat, has shared his thoughts on the importance of prioritising entertainment over things like subtext and philosophy in storytelling.

Steven was showrunner for the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors’ (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, respectively) eras, and also wrote popular serials outside that time like The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances, Silence in the Library/ Forest of the Dead, and Boom.

Moffat appeared on the Half the Picture podcast (which isn’t solely sound — there’s a new fangled thing called video that host, Billy Barnell, takes advantage of), and he reflected:

“They never mention the word ‘entertainment’, which is the minimum condition of anything you write. Not theme, which some poor sods ask me about, and not subtext. Oh, do me a favour. It’s entertainment. That’s all you’re doing.

“When people come home at night to watch a TV show or go to the cinema to watch a movie or the theatre, that’s all they’re going for. They’re not going there for your thoughts on things. They’re not wanting to decode the inner mystery of it. They want you to provide approximately 90 minutes of entertainment so they can go to a restaurant and have a nice time. That’s it.”

Nonetheless, Moffat stressed that narratives can and should have deeper meanings beyond pure entertainment:

“If you’re anything beyond that, if you have deep philosophical insights, that’s fine, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of being entertaining.”

Steven’s stories tend to be some of the most layered and thought-provoking tales in Doctor Who (and other series, of course), but he’s right: being entertaining means that those deeper messages can sink in more easily.

But Moffat is a natural. There are some writers who struggle to tell a story that is entertaining on the surface and has heaps of subtext and meaning too. Some focus solely on getting a message across and that (in my opinion) is where you lose an audience.

We’re sure DWC readers have some thoughts on this.

(Thanks to Rick Lundeen.)