Steven Moffat has been writing British television shows for a long time now. After a stint as a teacher in his earlier years, he broke into TV writing and proved to be very good at it. He was even made Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for his services to drama, and that's an extremely high honor.

Most audiences will know Moffat best from Doctor Who, where he wrote plenty of what is widely considered the best episodes. But he's created many other shows as well. As is the case with any writer, not all of them are winners, but he's certainly done enough to mark him out as one of the most popular writers of his era.

10 Inside Man Has a Strong Start But a Weak Finish

Inside Man starred David Tennant, who Moffat had already written for in Doctor Who, as a priest who finds himself in a difficult situation when his son (Louis Oliver — Moffat's own son) is accused of being a pedophile. The character's solution to this is to lock the accuser up in his basement and keep her prisoner, and after that, his thoughts turn to murder.

Inside Man is a great rollercoaster ride of a show when it first gets started, but unfortunately, it completely falls apart towards the end. However, it's worth watching for the great performances of everyone involved. And audiences loved it despite its weaknesses. It became the 7th most viewed individual show on the BBC iPlayer in 2022.

9 Douglas Is Canceled Was Wildly Divisive

Douglas Is Canceled came out in 2024, the same year Moffat returned to Doctor Who, so it didn't take long before everyone was talking about it. It proved to be one of the most polarizing shows of the year, and plenty of people have questioned whether Steven Moffat was really the right person to write a "cancel culture comedy."

The show got one-star reviews from some outlets and five-star reviews from others. Plenty of criticism was leveled at Moffat for the way he wrote the character of Claudia, an "activist" teen, but the plot itself was praised. It's the sort of show that everyone has to watch for themselves if they want to know what to make of it.

There are lots of elements of The Time Traveler's Wife in Moffat's Doctor Who work, especially when it comes to the story of River Song and the Doctor. So when the time came for a TV adaption of Audrey Niffenegger's book, no-one was surprised that Steven Moffat became the showrunner.

Moffat approached the show with love and passion; there's no doubt about that, but audiences just didn't respond. It didn't help that there had already been a movie version of The Time Traveler's Wife that was likewise a critical flop. The book, perhaps, is just very difficult to adapt successfully. But still, the show had enough fans that they were able to petition HBO for a second season after the show was canceled. They were unsuccessful, but it proved that the show did resonate with a lot of people.

7 Joking Apart Was a Personal Story

Moffat drew on his real-life divorce from his wife to create this show about a man and woman who fall in love only to fall out of it later. Moffat said in an interview with the New York Times that his ex-wife wasn't happy about having her and Moffat's dirty laundry broadcast all over the airwaves, so there's a chance that may color some people's perception of the show.

The show was subject to some bad scheduling, and so it didn't gain the fanbase it might have otherwise done, but it still garnered a cult following. One fan even went so far as to buy the rights and release the whole thing on DVD back in 2006! So that makes Joking Apart all the more accessible for fans of Moffat's work.

6 The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn Adapted a Beloved Classic

Hergé's Tintin had always seemed an ideal candidate to be turned into a big-budget movie, but that didn't happen until legendary director Steven Spielberg stepped in. And then he hired three writers: Edger Wright, Joe Cornish, and Steven Moffat. Together, they crafted an extremely charming movie about a boy journalist and his adventuring companions.

The film ended up being a success. Critics loved every minute of it, and it was the first ever motion-capture animation to win a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. While not all of that is down to Moffat's work on the script — the movie was a joint effort — his talent undoubtedly played a role.

5 Jekyll Was a Fun Twist on a Classic Story

Like Sherlock, one of Moffat's biggest hits, Jekyll was a modern-day update of a classic story. However, the miniseries wasn't actually an adaption of an existing work — it was a sequel to one. The Jekyll of the show is a descendant of the Jekyll from the famous book Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

It spun a chilling tale that still managed to be quite funny in places, and Jekyll proved to be a smash with critics and audiences alike. The writing was praised, and so were the performances. James Nesbitt, who played the title character, received a Golden Globe nomination for his role.

4 Dracula Channels Horror For a New Generation

For a while, Moffat was the undisputed king of creating successful TV shows out of Victorian stories that were already embedded in the public consciousness. Dracula hit all the beats that were expected from a tale of that name and added a few extra ones as well. The story, written by Moffat and Mark Gatiss, starts in 1897 before unexpectedly jumping forward to the modern day.

It's full of scares and some horrific moments that linger in the mind long after watching — take, for example, the cremation scene in Episode 3, set to the haunting tones of Robbie Williams' hit song "Angels," and the body horror which follows — so it's not surprising that it's considered one of Moffat's best shows by fans of his.

3 Press Gang Was a Mature Children's Show

Steven Moffat's first show and still one of his most beloved ones. Press Gang was all about a group of students who work at a children's newspaper, the Junior Gazette, and their searches for stories. It's clearly inspired by Moffat's time as a teacher, and all the characters are very well drawn.

Despite being aimed at children, the show treated its audience with respect and wasn't afraid to show the ins and outs of complicated or difficult concepts. So it was a hit with people of all ages and gained a passionate fanbase that persists today and even crosses over into Doctor Who fandom. Big Finish, the outlet which produces the Doctor Who audio plays, is actually named after an episode of Press Gang.

2 Sherlock Brought Holmes Into the Modern Age

Sherlock is a show people either love or hate — fans of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle may not approve of some of the changes made to the famous detective — but there's no denying it was a massive hit. The people who loved it really, really loved it and made it one of the most-watched shows in Britain.

Sherlock turned Benedict Cumberbatch into a star and showcased the talents of some other great actors, such as Andrew Scott and Martin Freeman. It utterly changed the television landscape of the 2010s and reminded everyone why Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were such fantastic characters to begin with.

1 Doctor Who Is Moffat's Best Known Work

Moffat took over from Russell T Davies as showrunner in 2010 and set about giving the show a twisty fairytale veneer. His first arc — and there are shades of The Time Traveler's Wife here, too — was about Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), a woman who first meets the Doctor as a young girl and has to wait for him to return to her. And after that, Moffat wrote other winning characters such as Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) and Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie).

Moffat's scripts sparkled, and his run was extremely successful. Though he stepped down as Doctor Who showrunner in 2017, he has returned to write episodes for the new Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) since then, and those have likewise been met with critical acclaim.