Peter Capaldi has come out to defend Steve Moffat's run on Doctor Who. Steven Moffat was the showrunner of the modern era of Doctor Who from the time of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor to Peter Capaldi's Twelfth. During that time, Moffat was responsible for expanding and streamlining Doctor Who canon with a host of critically acclaimed episodes like The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang.

But not everyone was a fan of Moffat's run on the show, with much of the criticism aimed at his overly convoluted plotlines and turning The Doctor into a grandiose, invincible, godlike being and thus stripping away his previously down-to-earth persona. But Peter Capaldi at the recent Boston Fan Expo had only kind things to say about Moffat's work on the show. In answer to a question about the writing of some of his episodes, Capaldi commented.

"The writers' name that appears at the start [of an episode] isn't always the writer that did the best work."

So it seems that fans looking to have Capaldi blame Steven Moffat for the show's writing's weak spots are going to be left hanging. In fact, Capaldi stated that Moffat deserves even more praise for the show's positive aspects than he is given credit for.

"Steven will not take credit for the incredible jobs he did on some other writers' things, and some of the incredible invention that he brought some scripts that were in trouble."

Moffat and Capaldi worked together on some of Doctor Who's most critically derided arcs, like the one with the moon hatching an alien, or a bizarre, bureaucratic version of hell presented in Death In Heaven. But Capaldi seems to prefer to focus on the positive aspects of the work they did together on the show instead. He added a ringing, final endorsement of Moffat as a writer with these words.

"A lot of people who have negative things to say about Steven do not have a clue... about the stories and the scripts that he did, many of which those same people love. He's an incredible writer."

Whatever Moffat did on the show, despite it meeting with criticism by several fans, is clearly something his former colleagues deeply appreciate. That is why Moffat also enjoys the goodwill of the BBC Network and is working on another high budget production for them, a reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Meanwhile, Capaldi's portrayal of the Twelfth Doctor will always be remembered fondly by fans. The actor had the unenviable task of taking over the role of The Time Lord after fan favorite Matt Smith's exit from the show. Capaldi rose to the occasion, giving fans a new take on The Doctor, as a man who is more grumpy and mercurial, eschewing the puppy-dog antics of the Eleventh Doctor in favor of a being who is aware of his great age and the toll that a very long and stormy life has taken on him, but who is still at heart a kind, if sometimes sarcastic Gallifreyan who would go to the ends of the universe to save a life. This news comes from Doctor Who Watch.