The crack of doom: the uncanny echoes of Steven Moffat's Doctor Who

Abstract

This paper analyses Steven Moffat's contributions to the British sf series Doctor Who between 2005 and 2010, both as a screenwriter and as executive producer. This analysis is framed specifically by the Freudian notion of the uncanny, and suggests that Moffat's work on Doctor Who confronts unconscious perceptions, repressed fears and death itself through storytelling techniques which attempt to connect directly with the audience by deconstructing the distance between material reality and the series's fantasy space.