Series 5 (Doctor Who)

Series 5 of Doctor Who ran from 3 April 2010 to 26 June 2010. It starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. The series opened with The Eleventh Hour and concluded with The Big Bang.

Overview
It consisted of ten stories and thirteen episodes. With the start of this series, the show was now helmed by new head writer Steven Moffat.

New production team
Executive producer and head writer Russell T Davies and executive producer Julie Gardner officially left production on Doctor Who at the end of filming of series 4's special episodes in 2009. Their last story, The End of Time, aired on 25 December 2009 and 1 January 2010. In May 2008, Steven Moffat, a multi Hugo Award winning Doctor Who writer for this outgoing production era, was announced as the Doctor Who head writer and executive producer.

Although he was not involved with the fifth series or any series involving Moffat as head writer, Davies returned to the series when he became head writer of the 2023 specials, having also written episodes of spin-off shows Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, along with involvement in the Doctor Who: Lockdown! event and the 2018 revival of the Target novelisations, during Moffat and Chris Chibnall's eras on Doctor Who.

Moffat stated that no characters from the first Russell T Davies era would return in series 5. This did not prove entirely true. River Song, a Moffat-created character from the Russell T Davies era, returned in four episodes of this series.

Gardner was replaced by her successor as BBC Wales Head of Drama, Piers Wenger. Beth Willis was added as a third executive producer — giving the show three execs for the first time since Mal Young left at the end of Series 1. The line producer of the series — a position once held by Phil Collinson — was split between Tracie Simpson and Peter Bennett, two members of the production staff who had risen to prominence during "the specials". For the first time since 2005, the series also credited a co-producer, Patrick Schweitzer, for episodes 6 and 10, the two episodes filmed in Croatia. Other senior members of the production staff, such as production designer Ed Thomas and composer Murray Gold remained at their posts.

Several departments underwent big changes beginning with The Eleventh Hour. Directors of photography Rory Taylor and Ernie Vincze — who between them had fairly evenly split responsibilities since 2005 — left, along with Davies and Gardner. They were replaced by a series of individuals, each handling only one or two episodes of the series.

The costume department came under the leadership of Ray Holman, who replaced Louise Page, the longest-serving designer since the Hartnell era costumer Daphne Dare. The change, however, was not just the replacement of one individual with another, as Holman brought in members of his design company to fill junior positions in the costume department.

Series 5 also saw a subtler behind-the-scenes change, especially for the more junior members of the production team. Combined with the general economic downturn that saw an across-the-board cut in jobs, it was also the first year since 2004 that Torchwood was not in some stage of production at BBC Wales. This meant there was some job competition at the Upper Boat Studios. Some long-term members of staff left the studios completely, while others took effective reductions in rank to remain. Arwel Wyn Jones, for instance, went from being the supervising art director for the previous two series to alternating set decorating duties with Julian Luxton. Still, others remained in Wales, but shifted to Moffat's other Welsh production, Sherlock, or found placement on, or other BBC Wales programmes.

Series numbering
While issue 410 of Doctor Who Magazine initially reported that the series' numbering would be reset to series 1 like the first Russell T Davies series had done before, by the time of the DVD, Blu-ray, and soundtrack releases, this series was officially known by 2|entertain and Silva Screen Records' cover design as series 5, with the following series being series 6, and so on. , BBC iPlayer officially listed this series as series 5 of "Doctor Who (2005–2022)".

New TARDIS team
During his acceptance speech for the award for Best Drama Performance at the National Television Awards on 29 October 2008, David Tennant announced that he would not return for the fifth series. His successor, Matt Smith, was announced as the Eleventh Doctor on 3 January 2010 during a broadcast of a special episode of Doctor Who Confidential entitled The Eleventh Doctor. Karen Gillan was cast as the Eleventh Doctor's companion, Amy Pond.

New icons
In addition to the cast and crew changes, many of the other continuing elements of the show also underwent major redesigns at the start of the series. Most conspicuous was the 6 October 2009 unveiling of a new series logo — the first significant departure from the one that debuted on Rose. Likewise, the TARDIS itself got a noticeable exterior and radical interior make-over. British tabloid media reported the switch was due to the show's switch to high-definition production, although Doctor Who had already started broadcasting in HD since April of that year.

A new Doctor Who theme arrangement was introduced, replacing the version introduced for the 2007 Christmas special. Like that version and variations of the theme introduced in Rose, Ron Grainer's theme was arranged by Murray Gold.

Cast

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

Recurring

 * Atraxi - David de Keyser
 * Liz 10 - Sophie Okonedo
 * Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
 * Edwin Bracewell - Bill Paterson
 * Daleks - operated by Nicholas Pegg, Barnaby Edwards and voiced by Nicholas Briggs
 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * Malohkeh - Richard Hope
 * Vincent van Gogh - Tony Curran
 * Craig Owens - James Corden
 * Sophie - Daisy Haggard
 * Cyber-Leader - Ruari Mears
 * Judoon - Paul Kasey
 * Dorium - Simon Fisher-Becker

Guest

 * Prisoner Zero - Marcello Magni, Olivia Colman, Eden Monteath, Merin Monteath, Matt Smith, Caitlin Blackwood and additionally voiced by William Wilde
 * Octavian - Iain Glen
 * Angel Bob - David Atkins
 * Rosanna Calvierri - Helen McCrory
 * Dream Lord - Toby Jones
 * Alaya/Restac - Neve McIntosh
 * Ambrose Northover - Nia Roberts
 * Commander Stark - Christopher Ryan

Producers
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Writers
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Directors
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Filming
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Episode notes

 * In September 2018, it was revealed that Jodie Whittaker, who portrayed the Thirteenth Doctor, was almost cast as a different character in Series 5.

DVD
All episodes of Series 5 were released in 2010. Note that this is currently the final series to release the series in separate volumes, as opposed to two parts or an entire box set.

Soundtrack
According to Who Online, the soundtrack for series 5 was released on 8th November, 2010.

Novels

 * Apollo 23
 * Night of the Humans
 * The Forgotten Army
 * Nuclear Time
 * The King's Dragon
 * The Glamour Chase
 * The Coming of the Terraphiles

Audiobooks

 * The Ring of Steel
 * The Runaway Train
 * The Jade Pyramid
 * The Hounds of Artemis