Series 6 (Doctor Who)

thumb|250px|right|An official [[BBC One series 6 trailer]] thumb|250px|right|An official [[BBCA series 6 trailer]] Series 6 of Doctor Who, sometimes known as Season 32 to avoid confusion with Season 6, is currently airing on BBC One through Spring and later again in Autumn 2011. DWM 419 confirmed that it had been commissioned by the BBC, and producer Piers Wenger also announced the same at the BBC Press Launch for series five in March 2010.

Filming started in July 2010. This series was preceded by a 2010 Christmas Special, written by Steven Moffat. The series is split into two sections, with the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut airing on 23rd April 2011. It then paused after the seventh episode, A Good Man Goes To War was aired. The series will pick up with episode eight in the Autumn, and run through to the finale, episode thirteen. Short prequels were released on the official site to publicise the series.

Title Sequence
The title sequence for the sixth season was mostly the same as the previous season, when the opening credits were radically redesigned to fit the new Doctor. At the beginning of the episode, The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver pulses and opening vignette quickly transitions to a singular shot of the TARDIS flying unstably through the time vortex, being struck by bolts of lightning as goes. The lightning spins the blue box in a circle, and it flies in tune to “Doctor Who XI”, written by Murray Gold, cut short to just 38 seconds to match the credits. Lightning strikes and Matt Smith (The Doctor) and Karen Gillan’s (Amy Pond) names suddenly flash upon the screen, before the TARDIS swiftly transforms into the newly redesigned Doctor Who logo (now with a BBC logo attached underneath) and disappears into the time vortex, followed by the name of the current episode’s writer(s). The credits then fade back into the episode itself. However, starting in the sixth season, Arthur Darvill’s (Rory Williams) name is now included in the opening credits, before the new logo, and after Smith and Gillian’s names. This is because Rory is now a full-fledged companion of the Doctor (having been a part-time companion for sevenof thirteen episodes in the previous series). Darvill became an official series regular in the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special “A Christmas Carol”. Also, starting with the season 6 premiere “The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon”, the title sequence is now preceded by a short monologue by the Doctor’s companion, Amy Pond, recapping the events of first meeting with the Doctor in the series 5 premiere The Eleventh Hour and the rest of the fifth season. Amy tells of her adventures with the Eleventh Doctor, traveling through time and space, alongside her boyfriend/fiancée Rory Williams. This recap featured short clips from series 5, omitting the season’s filler episodes “The Beast Below”, “Amy's Choice”, “Vincent and the Doctor, and The Lodger” These short clips and excerpts include:

1. On Christmas Eve, 1996, a little girl named Amelia (Amy) Pond looks out her bedroom window and watches as the Doctor climbs out of his burning TARDIS. Both are still stabilizing from the Doctor’s recent regeneration from his tenth to eleventh incarnation a few minutes earlier, which caused the TARDIS to catch fire and crash in Amy’s front yard. She t meets him in person and believes him to be her imaginary friend, naming him the Raggedy Doctor. The Doctor leaves, promising to return soon so she can travel through time and space with him. Fourteen years later, at 11:50 P.M. June 25, 2010, the now twenty-one year old Amy Pond looks out her window again and sees the TARDIS re-materializes, her raggedy Doctor finally returning for her. The Doctor snaps his fingers to reveal the TARDIS’ interior and whisks her away into the distant future, in “The Eleventh Hour”.

2. The Doctor steps out of his TARDIS in a Dalek warship during The Second World War in “Victory of the Daleks”.

3. The Doctor and his future companion River Song pilot the TARDIS, chasing after the starship Byzantium as it crashes onto Alfa Metraxis (caused by a rogue Weeping Angel), in the two-part story “The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone”.

4. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory marvel at 16th century city of Venice, The three run away as a Guido’s home explodes, destroying the vampire-like fish aliens, in “The Vampires of Venice”.

5. The Doctor and Dr. Nasreen Chaudhry stare in wonder at the secret underground Silurian civilization in the two-part story, “The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood”.

6. A space ship flies by on an alien planet in the 51st century. The Doctor gives Amy a thumbs up, and scans the Stonehenge with his sonic screwdriver, in the two-part series finale, “The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang.

Cast
Matt Smith returned as the Eleventh Doctor alongside Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, the first male companion to do a complete series since 1975. Alex Kingston also returned as River Song.

Primary cast

 * Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill

Secondary cast

 * River Song - Alex Kingston

Guest cast

 * Captain - Pooky Quesnel
 * Kazran Sardick - Michael Gambon
 * Abigail Pettigrew - Katherine Jenkins
 * Co-Pilot - Micah Balfour
 * Eric - Nick Malinowski
 * Older Benjamin - Steve North
 * Chief Servant - Tim Plester
 * Isabella - Laura Rogers
 * Canton Delaware - Mark Sheppard
 * Richard Nixon - Stuart Milligan
 * Madam Kovarian - Frances Barber
 * Grant - Jeff Mash
 * Henry Avery - Hugh Bonneville
 * Toby Avery - Oscar Lloyd
 * Boatswain - Lee Ross
 * Siren - Lily Cole
 * Mulligan - Michael Begley
 * Idris - Suranne Jones
 * House- Michael Sheen
 * Uncle - Adrian Schiller
 * Auntie - Elizabeth Berrington
 * Nephew - Paul Kasey
 * Jennifer Lucas - Sarah Smart
 * Dicken - Leon Vickers
 * Miranda Cleaves - Raquel Cassidy
 * Jimmy - Mark Bonnar
 * Dorium - Simon Fisher Becker
 * Colonel Manton - Danny Sapani
 * Madame Vastra - Neve McIntosh
 * Jenny - Catrin Stewart
 * Strax - Dan Starkey
 * Lorna Bucket - Christina Chong
 * Thin Man - Dan Johnston
 * Fat Man - Charlie Baker
 * Lucas - Joshua Hayes
 * Arthur - Henry Wood
 * Eleanor - Annabel Cleare
 * Headless monk - Claudio Laurini
 * Adolf Hitler - Albert Welling
 * Julie - Sophie Cosson
 * Mrs Rossiter (China Doll) - Louise-Marie Bowmen
 * Young Amy Pond - Caitlin Blackwood
 * Young Rory Williams - Ezekiel Wigglesworth
 * NASA Man - Geoffrey Burton
 * Gibbis - David Walliams
 * News anchor - Meredith Viera
 * Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
 * Eldane- Stephen Moore
 * Mels - Nina Toussaint-White
 * Craig Owens - James Corden
 * Sophie - Daisy Haggard
 * Rita - Amara Karen
 * Mrs Rossiter - Leila Hoffman
 * Professor - Paul Bentley
 * The Creature - Spencer Wilding
 * Dr Kent - Emma Campbell-Jones
 * Check-in-girl - Josie Taylor
 * George - Jamie Oram
 * Alex (George's Father) - Daniel Mays
 * TBA (George's Mother) - Emma Cunniffe
 * TBA - Peter Bowles
 * TBA - Jimmy Vee
 * TBA - Fern Deacon
 * TBA - Frances Encell
 * TBA - Lynda Baron
 * TBA - Mark Gatiss

Casting notes

 * Steven stated that the unanswered questions of Series 5 - the Time Field cracks, the silence, and the mysterious external force that took control of the TARDIS and tried to make it explode - will play a role.
 * There are currently no plans to bring back Paul McGann or any other Doctors.
 * The IMDb entry for episode 13 of this series previously appeared to list David Tennant and Peter Davison reprising their roles as the fifth and tenth Doctors respectively. However the IMDb can be edited by anybody and so this was an error or, possibly a hoax.
 * James Corden will be reprising his role as Craig Owens in an expected sequel to The Lodger. Gareth Roberts will be writing the episode. It will be the episode before the series finale.

Aliens and enemies

 * Kazran Sardick
 * Sky shark
 * Sky fish
 * The Silence
 * Little Girl
 * Madam Kovarian
 * Siren
 * House
 * Nephew
 * Auntie
 * Uncle
 * Gangers
 * Headless monks
 * Dorium
 * Cybermen
 * Judoon
 * Sontarans
 * Silurians

Writers
Neil Gaiman has confirmed that he is writing an episode for the first half of this series. Gaiman told BBC News that his episode was originally titled The House of Nothing and was said to be the third episode of Series 6 on Neil Gaiman's twitter page. However, it was later revealed that Steve Thompson would be writing the third episode and Gaiman's episode pushed back to the fourth. Steven Moffat will return as Executive Producer and Head Writer and will write six episodes, including the 2010 Christmas special. It has been rumoured that Tom MacRae and Paul Cornell are writing for Series 6, though Cornell has denied the rumour.
 * Steven Moffat (6 episodes - Including the Christmas Special)
 * Steve Thompson (1 episode)
 * Neil Gaiman (1 episode)
 * Matthew Graham (2 episodes)
 * Mark Gatiss (1 episode)
 * Toby Whithouse (1 episode)
 * Gareth Roberts (1 episode)
 * Tom MacRae (1 episode)

Directors

 * Toby Haynes
 * Richard Clark
 * Julian Simpson
 * Jeremy Webb
 * Peter Hoar
 * Richard Senior
 * Adam Smith
 * Nick Hurran
 * Steve Hughes

New crew
DWM 424 confirmed on page 5 the following:
 * Sanne Wohlenberg will take over as Producer for Blocks One and Two.
 * Michael Pickwoad will be the new Production designer.
 * Barbara Kidd will be the new Costume designer.
 * Di Barton will be the new Line producer.

Production notes

 * Piers Wenger and Beth Willis will be staying as Executive producers.
 * Richard Clark will direct two episodes; the episode written by Neil Gaiman (originally third, moved to fourth), and the episode written by Mark Gatiss (originally fourth, moved to ninth).

Television stories
The first episode aired on BBC One in the UK on 23rd April and aired in the United States on BBC America on the same day.

Regular season
The series has been commissioned for 13 episodes, with 7 episodes being broadcast in Spring 2011 from 23rd April 2011 and the remaining 6 episodes in Autumn 2011. This is the first time this has happened in the 47 year history of Doctor Who, with the series usally being aired in just one block over a period of around 3-4 months.

Episode notes

 * Steven Moffat has written 6 episodes: A Christmas Carol, The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon, A  Good Man Goes to War, Let's Kill Hitler and Episode Thirteen.
 * On-set photos for episode nine showed some new, doll-like monsters.
 * There will be a three-month hiatus between the series' halves.
 * It has been announced that Mark Gatiss ' episode is now episode nine. Neil Gaiman 's episode is now episode four and a new episode, written by Steve Thompson, episode three.
 * Episode 9 was rumoured to be called What are Little Boys Made of? Due to the length of the title it was changed to either House Call or Night Terror. It will now be called Night Terrors.
 * Matt Smith has stated that there will be a 2011 Christmas Special.
 * Steven Moffat confirmed that the question Amy was going to ask the Doctor in Space will return in Series 6.

Rumours

 * In The Brilliant Book, several "hints" about Series 6 were revealed.
 * Matt Smith will leave after the 2011 series, a rumour picked up by several other media sources..
 * This has been denied by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan
 * Another BBC insider said that Smith will stay until the 50th anniversary of the show, in 2013.
 * In a newspaper it was revealed Matt Smith has stated he would continue for at least two more years to try and become one of the fan's favourite doctors.
 * A seventh series has been confirmed by the BBC, starring Matt Smith.
 * Karen Gillan is leaving the series.
 * Matt Smith has denied the rumours that Amy will die, or that Karen is leaving.
 * However, the rumours have resurfaced after Matt Smith gave an interview for Big Issue, which hinted at her departure
 * Matt Smith was being measured for a new outfit.
 * He was later seen on set donning a new tweed jacket, but there were no major changes to the outfit, though the elbow patches were gone.
 * A new outfit will appear, which removed the tweed jacket and is replaced with a green coat
 * The Celestial Toymaker will return.
 * The Daleks may return in their "old" form.
 * Steven Moffat has stated that the Daleks are not likely to return for Series 6, but, when they do return, the "old" Daleks will feature.
 * Skaro may be revisited.
 * There will be an episode with an Egyptian theme.
 * This looks more positive now that a rumour has surfaced about the redesigned classic Cybermen returning, mummified in an Egyptian tomb, which will be written by Steven Thompson.
 * The Weeping Angels may return.
 * Cybermen will appear.
 * Cybermen will also appear in episode twelve
 * Rory and Amy will leave the Doctor.
 * Amy and Rory will have a major fallout
 * Craig Owens may travel in the TARDIS.
 * Craig Owens has had a baby.
 * Paul McGann may return as the Eighth Doctor.
 * Episode 10 is rumoured to be titled 'The Green Anchor'
 * This was denied by its writer, Tom MacRae.

DVD and Blu-ray release
The DVD release of Series 6 will be in two parts, unlike the past series which was released in four to five parts over the duration of the series. Part One, which will contain episodes one to seven will be released on 11th July 2011, shortly after the airing of episode seven. Part Two will be released in the Autumn, shortly after episode thirteen is aired. Both parts will be released as a box set at the end of the year.