@bluesqueakpip @jimthefish
At the beginning of Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad stops off at a diner to blag a ride. He doesn’t even go into the diner and yet Steinbeck brings the waitress, who we never meet again, completely to life through the simple device of having her inspect a lump under her ear, while talking to a trucker (who we, again, don’t meet after he drops Joad off, but who is similarly and economically fleshed out).
Moffat’s gift is similar economy. We feel for Anita and both the Dave’s because he has used enough craft to make the entire Song team feel like a group of people, not a group of plot devices.
In 42 all of the crew are pretty much interchangeable (and the two survivors even looked too much alike – a basic casting error) and felt a lot more red-shirty – although this didn’t bother me as much as it does Jim.
But also, that was in 2007, the fat end of a decade ago, and one would hope CC has developed as a writer. There is sufficient evidence that he has, within Who, but cause for concern in the Show that May Not Be Named where two key new characters were 100 degrees proof spirit plot device, and a waste of fine actors and a cancer on the story. His downright petulant response probably didn’t help perceptions, though.
(Whithouse has 5 seasons of Being Human (and a format sale to the US) under his belt and had to manage massive cast changes as people got big job offers, and has a Who portfolio of highly-regarded character-driven stories – while the most recent experience of CC is the shoeing he got for TSTMNBN. It is simply not as clear-cut as you assert, pip – but also entirely moot)
