Sunday, October 16, 2011

In My Song There Rings A Melody -- An Overview Of Doctor Who Series Six


I held back posting this because my friend Rachel had yet to see this year’s finale of "Doctor Who", but if she hasn’t seen it by now, I doubt she ever will.

Yes, you probably knew all along that River Song (i.e. Melody Pond) was the daughter of Amy and Rory. And you probably knew that River was in prison due to killing The Doctor. Yet I don’t believe many of us knew how The Doctor was going to cheat his own death, a fixed point in time!

This year’s series of The BBC's "Doctor Who" revolved around The Doctor dying in the first episode and circumventing his death in the last, The Wedding Of River Song. Showrunner Steven Moffat did a wonderful job leaving the clues for the viewer throughout the series that enabled the last of the Time Lords to escape his fate.

Despite the overall story arc, there was still plenty of good old-fashioned time and space adventure! Even super-sexy Amy got into the fun, being a swashbuckling pirate (The Curse Of The Black Spot) in one episode to a futuristic robo-fighter (The Girl Who Waited) in another.

I truly enjoyed the diversity of the episodes for this series, with the comedic (Let’s Kill Hitler), the touching (Closing Time), and the just plain odd (A Good Man Goes To War). And like Series Five, my favorite episode this year was not written by Moffat. The honor goes to Neil Gaiman’s superlative The Doctor’s Wife, where The Doctor comes face-to-face with his oldest and most faithful companion: his own Tardis.

Just when I think that Moffat can do no wrong, we get the wedding of River (the amazing Alex Kingston) and The Doctor. That’s okay in-and-of-itself, but didn’t we have the wedding of Amy and Rory last year? However, Moffat did give us The Silence, the creepiest set of villains since Moffat created The Weeping Angels. And he did give The Doctor the direction for next year’s series, where the question hidden in plain sight, “Doctor who?” may finally be answered.

I am going to miss Arthur Darvill (Rory) and Karen Gillan (Amy), but I have become absolutely enamored by Matt Smith’s portrayal of The Doctor. The BBC must feel the same way, picking up Smith’s option, ensuring the he will be The Doctor through the show’s fiftieth anniversary in 2013.

That’s at least two more years of a mad man with a blue box on a show created for ten year old British kids. That's cool!

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