Series 6 (Doctor Who)

Series 6 of Doctor Who ran between 25 December 2010 and 22 November 2011. It starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. The regular series was preceded by A Christmas Carol, opened with The Impossible Astronaut and concluded with The Wedding of River Song.

Overview
It consisted of twelve stories and fourteen episodes. This series was the first since season 26 to not introduce any new lead cast members; Matt Smith continued on as the Eleventh Doctor, still joined by Karen Gillan's Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill's Rory Williams, from the previous series. This series was split into two parts and dealt with overarching elements such as the Silence, the identity of River Song and the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio.

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 5 in March 2010.

Filming began in July 2010, and concluded 29 April 2011. The main run of this series was preceded by a 2010 Christmas special written by Steven Moffat, A Christmas Carol. The series was split into two sections, with the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut, airing on 23 April 2011. It paused after the seventh episode, A Good Man Goes to War, was aired on 4 June 2011. The series picked up with the eighth episode, Let's Kill Hitler, on 27 August 2011 and ran through to the final, thirteenth episode, The Wedding of River Song on 1 October 2011. Short prequels were released on the Doctor Who website to publicise the series, the first time such brief productions had been made since the Tardisodes of series 2.

For the first time since the 1970s, the version of the series syndicated outside the UK contained a major difference: the opening credits of most episodes of Series 6 broadcast in Canada, US, Australia, Germany and Israel were preceded by a special introductory narration by Karen Gillan (as Amy Pond) explaining the concept of the series, with footage taken from Series 5 episodes.

The story arc of this series involves River Song's true identity, revelations of the mysterious Silence referenced in series 5 and the apparent death of the Eleventh Doctor.

Series 6 began with the Eleventh Doctor inviting Amy Pond, Rory Williams and River Song to a picnic in Utah using blue envelopes, where a figure clad in an Apollo spacesuit shoots the Doctor and kills him before he can regenerate. After burning the Doctor's body, the companions find the Doctor alive and well in a diner; the Doctor that was shot and killed was a future version, and he apparently invited his companions and past self to instigate a plan in 1969 America. The rest of the series makes references to the future Doctor's plan and his apparently final death.

The Silence was also revealed in this series; they are a religious order dedicated to eliminating the Doctor before he can answer "the Question".

Finally, River Song's true identity was revealed, a mystery that has been present ever since her introduction in Silence in the Library in 2008. Whilst there have subtle clues and plot points concerning a mysterious little girl, Amy's seemingly failed pregnancy and a lady with an eye patch throughout the first half of the series, the mystery was finally revealed in A Good Man Goes to War; River Song is Amy and Rory's daughter, raised and indoctrinated by the Silence for the sole purpose of assassinating the Doctor. Because she was conceived within the TARDIS during flight she absorbed the energy of the Time Vortex, making her human, but with a Time Lord's capability of regenerating. Her Time Lord-like physiology and abilities also made her the perfect assassin for the Doctor. The series concluded with the final outcome of the Doctor's plan throughout the series; the spacesuit-clad figure who killed the Doctor was River Song, with the Silence-modified spacesuit forcing her to commit the deed. However, the Doctor had faked his own death and made it a fixed point in time in order to trick the Silence, getting them off his back at least for a while. Whilst most of the universe is convinced that the Doctor is dead once and for all, a handful of individuals including his companions know otherwise.

However, there were still unresolved matters following the conclusion of the series; the Silence, whilst their numbers have fallen, are still present and they may still learn later that the Doctor was not killed. This series has also addressed a mystery that has been part of Doctor Who since its creation and one that head writer Steven Moffat has mentioned in at least two episodes (The Girl in the Fireplace and Forest of the Dead). The oldest question in the Universe is revealed to be "Doctor who?"

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan, Caitlin Blackwood
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill, Ezekiel Wigglesworth

Recurring

 * River Song - Alex Kingston, Sydney Wade, Nina Toussaint-White, Maya Glace-Green
 * Madame Kovarian - Frances Barber
 * Canton Everett Delaware III - Mark Sheppard, William Morgan Sheppard
 * Silents - Marnix Van Den Broeke
 * Madame Vastra - Neve McIntosh
 * Jenny Flint - Catrin Stewart
 * Commander Strax - Dan Starkey
 * Dorium Maldovar - Simon Fisher-Becker
 * Henry Avery - Hugh Bonneville
 * Toby Avery - Oscar Lloyd
 * Cybermen - Paul Kasey and voiced by Nicholas Briggs
 * Carter - Richard Dillane
 * Craig Owens - James Corden
 * Sophie - Daisy Haggard
 * Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
 * Dr Malohkeh - Richard Hope
 * Dalek - Nicholas Briggs
 * Ood - Paul Kasey

Guest

 * Kazran Sardick - Michael Gambon, Laurence Belcher, Danny Horn
 * Abigail Pettigrew - Katherine Jenkins
 * Idris - Suranne Jones
 * House - Michael Sheen
 * Jennifer Lucas - Sarah Smart
 * Miranda Cleaves - Raquel Cassidy
 * Colonel Manton - Danny Sapani
 * Lorna Bucket - Christina Chong
 * Adolf Hitler - Albert Welling
 * Alex - Daniel Mays
 * George - Jamie Oram
 * Rita - Amara Karan
 * Minotaur - Spencer Wilding
 * Charles Dickens - Simon Callow
 * Gantok - Mark Gatiss

Producers
to be added

Writers
Showrunner Steven Moffat wrote, as head writer, six episodes in the series. Steve Thompson debuted as a writer for Doctor Who with episode three, as did Neil Gaiman writing episode four.

Matthew Graham returned as a writer for episodes five and six.

Directors
to be added

Filming
Filming began in July 2010, and ran through to 29 April 2011.

DVD Box Set Mini-episodes
These five mini-episodes were released on the series 6 DVD boxset. They were all given an umbrella title of Night and the Doctor.

Episode notes

 * Series 6 is the first series of the 2005-present revival not to include Daleks, save for a cameo appearance by the Supreme Dalek in the finale.

DVD
All episodes of series 6 were released in 2011.

DVD and Blu-ray release
The DVD release of series 6 was issued in two parts, unlike the preceding series, which was released in four or five parts over the duration of the series. Part One, which contains episodes one to seven, was released on 11th July 2011, shortly after the airing of episode seven. Part Two was released in the autumn, shortly after episode thirteen was aired. Both parts were released as a box set on November 22 with the Night and the Doctor minisodes and the Doctor Who Confidential cutdowns. Omitted from the set, however, was the international version of the opening credits with the Amy Pond narration.

Novels

 * Death Riders
 * Heart of Stone
 * System Wipe
 * The Good, the Bad and the Alien
 * Dead of Winter
 * The Way Through the Woods
 * Hunter's Moon
 * Touched by an Angel
 * Paradox Lost
 * Borrowed Time
 * The Underwater War
 * Rain of Terror
 * Web in Space!
 * Terminal of Despair
 * The Silent Stars Go By

Audiobooks

 * The Eye of the Jungle
 * Blackout
 * The Art of Death
 * Darkstar Academy