Doctor Who: Series Six’s strengths and weaknesses
By James Aggas
We look back on both Steven Moffat’s and Matt Smith’s second series of Doctor Who. How strong was it as a series, and what could have been improved?
I’m going to be really honest right now: I’m a big fan of Series Six of Doctor Who. Yes, there is no question that it is definitely flawed in some areas. Particularly with some of the episodes and their stories, such as The Curse of the Black Spot.
However, as Moffat’s second series as showrunner, it’s also full of ambition, and I can definitely respect that. Building on the success of his first series, he began to really flesh out some of the arcs and major unanswered questions with his second.
One aspect that I particularly liked was the Silence. Especially the main face of it. Not the creatures themselves, but the sinister character who was known in the first half of Series Six as simply “the Eye Patch Lady”: Madame Kovarian.
A particularly intriguing character, she was someone who came across as dangerously desperate and ambitious when it came to assassinating the Doctor. Using the child of his companions was a particularly nasty step.
And yet she completely believes that she’s doing it for the right reasons. The Doctor is a very dangerous threat, at least to her. While it would have been nice to have explored the character’s background more across the series, rather than saving it for the last episode, her motivations do become more understandable over time.
How well were the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River explored in Series Six?
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
River Song
However, while I enjoy a lot about this series, I can also understand some of the criticisms, too, particularly when it comes to River Song. Before, she had been a mysterious character, one with an immediately clear relationship to the Doctor.
But she had also been a great and fleshed out character in her own right, too. We knew that she was intelligent, an expert in archaeology, and could generally handle things well on her own, only occasionally needing the Doctor’s help.
While this did continue early on Series Six, there was also a lot more focus on the “mystery” of her character. And when the mystery was completely revealed in A Good Man Goes to War, while it was a great cliffhanger, it also saw a shift from the focus on her as a person to her relationship with the Doctor. In many ways, this was essentially a problem that Rose had, if not in Series Two, then certainly, in The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End in Series Four.
A character study
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Despite all of this however, I do respect Series Six a lot. Not just for Moffat’s ambition of telling a larger story with the Silence. But also how it explored how travelling in the TARDIS for too long can have a negative effect on the companions’s lives.
In particular, it was the first time that we had seen a married couple on the TARDIS, and it was interesting seeing how it affected Amy and Rory on a very personal level.
Even better was how the series looked at the Doctor, particularly his strong sense of pride, even arrogance. This hadn’t just started with Eleven, either. It was a clear character trait that we had seen with at least the Tenth Doctor, too, and we had seen it grow over time.
Series Six finally addressed how dangerous the Doctor’s arrogance could be, and even the negative effect that some of his travels were having on the universe. Particularly in the second half, which focused on the Doctor’s sense of mortality more and more. It’s an interesting character arc, and even suits the retcon that Matt Smith’s incarnation is actually the Doctor’s last life.
So while I do enjoy the story and the mystery threads that are told over the whole series, it’s the character focus that really draws my interest, even if River Song’s story isn’t quite as strong.
Series Six won’t be one of the most popular series of Doctor Who. But it will be one that I’ll always have a soft spot for.
Next. Series Eleven – how much of a clean slate do we need?. dark
What do you think? Are you a fan of Series Six? Do you think it’s underrated? Or is it a series that you’re less keen on? Let us know in the comments below.