Ultimate Doctor Who: Season 6

[SiHart]

We reach the first of the Matt Smith seasons to be split. We also reach perhaps the most complicated season long story ever. Plots include the Silents, the replacement of Amy with a Ganger, a baby, the death of the Doctor, Cybermen in a department store and allsorts of other stuff beside!

So which of them is your favourite?

[Wayne]

The Girl Who Waited.

For me this is by far the outstanding episode in a season which saw my antipathy rise to the point of not watching anymore.... (Actually it was 2 eps into the following season before I couldn't be bothered anymore, but it was really this season that did the most damage. Although the underground stream of discontent travels as far back as S2)

That said, The Girl Who Waited was a very good piece of drama, and well worth voting for.

[Rob McCow]

It's a very, very close battle for me between The Doctor's Wife and Closing Time. And I think I like Closing Time a little better.

Haven't watched them in a while though, so I may be wrong!

Again, huge minus points for The Curse of The Black Spot, which is the worst Doctor Who story that side of Rings of Akhaten.

[SiHart]

It was between The Doctor's Wife and The God Complex for me. The Doctor's Wife won out in the end.

[Dirk Gently]

Doctor's Wife for me too. I gave it 10/10 when I first saw it (in some pretty excellent company I might add) & when I saw it again a few weeks ago I still rate it highly.

[Andrew Curnow]

I didn't enjoy season 6 much at the time - The Doctor's Wife was one of the best of the bunch, but is maybe not all that great on its own terms. It was just a season which seemed largely very dark, literally. Film some scenes in the daylight people!!

The last episode, that said, I greatly enjoyed even though it was totally bonkers. However, since the poll also includes A Christmas Carol which I think is an absolutely gorgeous episode, I'm going to vote for that.

[Dino]

I really didn't like and still don't like the split season stuff. However, once the dust has settled, and although The Doctor's Wife was a good episode, I really went for The Almost People two part story. Yes, the ending's terrible. But it's grown on me a lot.

[MacNimon]

This is a season I didn't enjoy at all. I'm really struggling to pick a story from this lot, The Rebel Flesh is possibly my favourite from the regular series but it's still tied in to the arc too much. A Christmas Carol was one of the most enjoyable Christmas episodes of them all though, so it gets my vote.

[Anthony Williams]

I generally agree with those who didn't enjoy this season - the arc was a little too heavy, focused too much on a character that I can't stand (River Song), and for some reason, Amy and Rory just didn't seem to care that traumatic events (including having their daughter snatched away from them, and being raised to be an assassin) happened to them. If you're not willing to deal with the consequences of an event such as that, then don't have the event.

So, as it happened before all of that nonsense, and since it was actually the one bright part of the season, it has to be The Doctor's wife for me!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Good bits about this season involved Rory really developing to become someone who would quite challenge the Doctor.

Far and away the Doctors Wife stood head and shoulders above the rest of the season, a wonderful piece of writing, something sadly missing from many episodes.

[Stuart Wallis]

Night Terrors, the best of another horrendous season, only slightly better than the previous one.

[Wayne]

I'm genuinely surprised at the love for the episode where the TARDIS is anthropomorphised as a madwoman who looks like a poundland version of Helena Bonham-Carter with big tits, who adopts the name "sexy", is in love of the Doctor, and decides where he goes because she knows every that has and ever will happen, anywhere in the universe.
I really thought that was a gob-smackingly awful episode.....

It seems I'm the only one however, who rates The Girl Who Waited, which IMO was one of the most poignant, and touching episodes in recent years.
Oh well, It we all liked the same things etc.. etc..

[MacNimon]

I really didn't like that episode myself Wayne, for exactly the same reasons. The Girl Who Waited is certainly one of the most enjoyable episodes but I just simply don't like the season as a whole and struggle to muster much enthusiasm for any of the episodes in it.

Give Moffat his dues though, the next series maybe wasn't much better but that was for totally different reasons. At least we can't call his time on the series repetitive or formulaic like we did the RTD years!

[Wayne]

At least we can't call his time on the series repetative or formulaic like we did the RTD years!

I think he has a different formula, but then so did much of the Pertwee era, (for example). I suppose it depends whether you like the formula.

When I look back at Moffat's first season, it seemed to have so much potential. There were things I liked and things I didn't like, but I saw it as promising. But in general, S6 seemed to lose a lot of what I liked, and ramp up all the things I didn't like. It felt like 2 steps back after the 1 step forward of S5.
I know that's as vague as hell, but there are only so many hours in a day.
Tbh, I think I just ready to concede defeat and admit that I wanted to like it (just because it was Dr Who) than I actually really did, deep down.

[Rob McCow]

On the plus side Wayne, there are more people who have voted for other stories than for The Doctor's Wife.

Personally I'm not too bothered by the personification of the TARDIS, although naturally I'd have preferred it if they'd made it into a leech-obsessed erratic granny from Sunderland. The creepy bits with House were successfully creepy and the Junk TARDIS was wonderful. That's what made it for me.

At least it wasn't The Curse of The Black Spot, which was the most by-the-numbers, zero-effort collection of pirate clichés ever strung together in a vague sci-fi plot.

[Wayne]

On the plus side Wayne, there are more people who have voted for other stories than for The Doctor's Wife.

Personally I'm not too bothered by the personification of the TARDIS, although naturally I'd have preferred it if they'd made it into a leech-obsessed erratic granny from Sunderland. The creepy bits with House were successfully creepy and the Junk TARDIS was wonderful. That's what made it for me.

At least it wasn't The Curse of The Black Spot, which was the most by-the-numbers, zero-effort collection of pirate clichés ever strung together in a vague sci-fi plot.

Dunno, I didn't mind The Curse of the Black Spot too much. Whilst I agree with your analysis of it, It didn't actively bother me like The Doctor's Wife did. It's not that the idea of anthropomorphising the TARDIS is a bad one, It's that the 'personification' was just so wrong on every level, IMO.

[MacNimon]

I think he has a different formula, but then so did much of the Pertwee era, (for example). I suppose it depends whether you like the formula.

When I look back at Moffat's first season, it seemed to have so much potential. There were things I liked and things I didn't like, but I saw it as promising. But in general, S6 seemed to lose a lot of what I liked, and ramp up all the things I didn't like. It felt like 2 steps back after the 1 step forward of S5.
I know that's as vague as hell, but there are only so many hours in a day.
Tbh, I think I just ready to concede defeat and admit that I wanted to like it (just because it was Dr Who) than I actually really did, deep down.

Agreed. It wasn't that S5 was brilliant...it wasn't. But after the series seemingly becoming stuck in the same formula year after year with RTD, this season seemed like a breath of fresh air with so much promise and potential for the future. Promise and potential which Moffat has spectacularly failed to deliver.

I agree with your comments about The Doctor's Wife as well. It wasn't the concept which I disagreed with, in fact it was one I had found fascinating over the years, but it was just so shoddily done; a major disappointment.

[Nyder]

I seem to be a lone voice, but it's "Let's Kill Hitler" for me - full of exuberance and excitement. I really enjoyed it!!