Previously on Self Distract… I’ve read scripts all my life and I love it, but since late December 2017, I’ve read at least one per day. Once a year I do a personal top ten for no very clear reason, although oddly it wasn’t until I wrote 2021’s list that I realised how thematically connected all ten were.

Anyway. Now, read on.

There’s obviously a week or two left of 2022 and I will continue to read a script every day, but up to this moment, I’ve read 515 during the year. That’s about typical, especially if I’ve been involved in any awards judging and I have again this year.

But otherwise, this has been an unusual year because – so far – 238 of the scripts I read were from the same show. Doctor Who. Chiefly the 1963-1989 version, though I’m only up to 1981, and some scattered reading of the revived series, scattered because I’ve already read those and usually was just going back to re-read good ones.

Speaking of good, as well as counting the scripts I read because that’s obviously vitally important to me for some reason, I do also make an extremely brief note next to each. Good. That word comes up a lot. Of the 238 Doctor Who scripts, a near majority were “good”, though there were some that were “a bit tedious”, others that were “fine” or “okay”.

Then there were five that I noted as being “very good” — and by coincidence, also five that I’ve listed as being “utter shite altogether”. Details on application.

None of the Doctor Who scripts made my personal top ten for the year, although Blink by Steven Moffat might’ve got in if it hadn’t been the fourth time I’d read it.

It’s not like my top 10 is significant, but then for completeness, it’s also definitely not in any way statistically valid. My top 10 for 2022, just for starters, contains only a single script that was actually written in 2022. The rest range across all of recorded history, making the list this year only because I happened to read them in 2022.

So don’t see this as judgement or pontification or anything remotely about me, other than how this is a way I can show you ten pieces of writing I think are brilliant – and include links out to nearly all of them. If you don’t happen to have read them already, I envy you having them ahead of you.

10. Justified: The I of the Storm by Dave Andron (read online on January 16)
9. Battlestar Galactica: Mini-Series by Ronald D. Moore (read part one, part two online on November 20 and 21)
8. Motherland: Pilot by Holly Walsh, Sharon Horgan, Graham Linehan, and Helen Linehan read online March 28)
7. My So-Called Life: Dancing in the Dark by Winnie Holzman (read online April 23)
6. Slow Horses: Failure’s Contagious by Will Smith (read December 6)
5. Lou Grant: Nazi by Robert Schlitt (read April 22)
4. Peggy for You by Alan Plater (read January 24, buy from Amazon)
3. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (read July 10, buy from Amazon)
2. CODA by Sian Heder, based on La Famille Bélier by Victoria Bedos, Thomas Bidegain, Stanislas Carré de Malberg and Éric Lartigau (read online February 12)
1. Derry Girls: Season 3 Special: The Agreement by Lisa McGee (read September 29)

Peggy for You and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead are stage plays, CODA is a film, and the rest are TV. Thank you to Hat Trick for the Derry Girls script, and Apple TV+ for Slow Horses.

Thanks too, to Charles Martin who got me a lot of 1970s and 1980s Doctor Who scripts. .

And most especially to possibly my favourite site on the internet, TV Writing. Only 20 of this year’s scripts came from there, and I am astonished because it’s usually so many more.

I expect it will be in 2023.