Doctor Who series 6

The sixth series of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who was shown in two parts. The first seven episodes were broadcast from April to June 2011, beginning with "The Impossible Astronaut" and ending with mid-series finale "A Good Man Goes to War". The final six episodes aired from August to October, beginning with "Let's Kill Hitler" and ending with "The Wedding of River Song". The main series was preceded by "A Christmas Carol", the 2010 Christmas special. The series was led by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, alongside executive producers Beth Willis and Piers Wenger. Sanne Wohlenberg, Marcus Wilson, and Denise Paul served as producers. The series was the sixth to air following the programme's revival in 2005 after the classic era aired between 1963 and 1989, and is the thirty-second season overall.
The series stars Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in his TARDIS, a spacecraft whose exterior resembles a British police box. It also stars Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as his companions, newlyweds Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Alex Kingston also returns as River Song, a mysterious woman from the Doctor's future who is revealed throughout the series to be Amy and Rory's part-Time Lord daughter and the Doctor's wife. In addition to Song, the series continues story threads from the fifth series, most notably the Silence and the cause of the TARDIS exploding in "The Big Bang".

Episodes

This series was the first to include a mid-season broadcast break since Season 18, with twelve weeks between the transmissions of "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler".

Supplemental episodes

Two three-minute mini-episodes titled "Space" and "Time", directed by Richard Senior, were released on 18 March 2011, filmed under the sixth series' production cycle as part of BBC One's Red Nose Day telethon for the charity Comic Relief. The episodes form a two-part story, set entirely within the TARDIS, starring Matt Smith as the Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, and were written by the programme's head writer Steven Moffat.

Prequels

A number of short prequel videos were released online prior to selected episodes' airings.

Casting

Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill continued their roles as the Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams. Darvill had appeared in the previous series in a recurring role in seven episodes, acting as a companion in six of them, but became a regular in this series, having had his "fingers crossed" that this would happen.
Alex Kingston returned as River Song. Although Kingston did not expect to return before the fifth series, Moffat always intended for River to return to the series. James Corden also reprised his role as Craig Owens from "The Lodger" in "Closing Time", and Simon Callow briefly reprised his role as Charles Dickens from the first series episode "The Unquiet Dead", as did Ian McNeice who briefly reprised his role as Winston Churchill from the fifth series episode "Victory of the Daleks". A young version of Amy was played by Gillan's eleven-year-old cousin, Caitlin Blackwood, in the episodes "Let's Kill Hitler" and "The God Complex". Gillan and Blackwood first met on the set of the fifth series, but, although Blackwood had to audition, Gillan recommended her for the role.
"A Christmas Carol" guest-starred Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins as Kazran Sardick and Abigail respectively. Guest stars of the main series included Michael Sheen as "House" in "The Doctor's Wife", Imelda Staunton as "Interface" in "The Girl Who Waited", Suranne Jones as Idris in "The Doctor's Wife", David Walliams as Gibbis in "The God Complex", Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole as Henry Avery and the "Siren" respectively in "The Curse of the Black Spot", Mark Sheppard as Canton in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon", and Daniel Mays as Alex in "Night Terrors". Other guest stars included William Morgan Sheppard, Chukwudi Iwuji, Stuart Milligan, Kerry Shale, Lee Ross, Mark Bonnar, Sarah Smart, Marshall Lancaster, Raquel Cassidy, Christina Chong, Danny Sapani, Simon Fisher-Becker, Richard Dillane, Nina Toussaint-White, Amara Karan, Dimitri Leonidas, Sian Williams, Bill Turnbull, Meredith Vieira, and show writer Mark Gatiss.

Production

Development

The sixth series was commissioned in March 2010, before the fifth series aired. Neither Peter Bennett nor Tracie Simpson returned as producers, with Sanne Wohlenberg covering the role for "A Christmas Carol" and the first two episodes filmed for the main series. Marcus Wilson produced every other episode except "Closing Time", where Denise Paul produces and Wilson is credited as "series producer". Production designer Edward Thomas was replaced by Michael Pickwoad. Lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat stated that the purpose of the previous series was to "reassure" the audience that the show was the same, despite the many production changes. However, he wanted this series to be more of a "ghost train" and "worry" the audience. The series is much more serialised than previous ones; the arc-driven nature was inspired by positive reactions from fans when the Doctor from the fifth series finale "The Big Bang" appeared in the earlier episode "Flesh and Stone". Moffat decided to "rest" the Doctor's arch-enemies the Daleks for the series, as being the "most frequent" enemies of the show made them "the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe".
The series continues to build the mystery of the Silence, which had been introduced in the fifth series. Moffat did not wish to end the arc in the previous series, as he felt it would be "more fun" to continue it. Moffat had planned the revelation about River Song "for a long time"; when creating Amy's character, he chose "Pond" for her last name to create a link. Moffat intended for the "answer to be as complicated as the question". Moffat informed Kingston of the secrets of her character at the end of the previous series and she was not allowed to tell anyone; Smith, Gillan, and Darvill were unaware of the identity of her character. Song's identity was kept in top secrecy; the script read at the read-through of "A Good Man Goes to War" had a false ending, and only a select few were issued the real script.

Writing

was not able to write an episode as he was slated to for the fifth series because he did not believe he would have enough time. Moffat then asked him to write the two-part episode "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People". Neil Gaiman had written "The Doctor's Wife" for the previous series, but due to budget constraints it was replaced with "The Lodger". This necessitated changes to the script, including the addition of Rory as a companion. During the production process the order of the third, fourth and ninth episodes was changed. "The Curse of the Black Spot" was swapped with "Night Terrors" because Moffat felt that the second half of the series was too dark. This necessitated minor changes for the episodes to fit into the storyline, most notably in "Night Terrors".
Moffat wanted to start the series with a two-parter that had gravity and a wider scope in plot. He also aimed to make them some of the darkest episodes. In contrast, the following episode, "The Curse of the Black Spot", would allow the characters to "kick back and have some fun". Gaiman's episode was based around the TARDIS, and allowing the Doctor and the TARDIS to speak to each other. Graham's two-parter was intended to lead into "A Good Man Goes to War", the mid-series finale, but have a main plot about "avatars that rebel". Graham took Moffat's pitch and added many of his own aspects, such as the monastery setting and the Flesh. Then, in addition to revealing who River Song is, "A Good Man Goes to War" presented the situation of the Doctor, who was typically a pacifist, being provoked enough to assemble an army. Moffat described the ending as "game-changing cliffhanger" and split the series in two because such a climax could not be done at the end of a series, as it would be "too long before it came back".
The mid-series premiere, "Let's Kill Hitler", was intended to be the opposite of the "grim and dark" tone of the series premiere. Mark Gatiss wrote "Night Terrors" to be a scary episode, surprised that dolls had not been used in Doctor Who before. "The Girl Who Waited" is a "Doctor-lite" episode, an episode in which the actor playing the Doctor is not required for much of the shooting, which allowed Tom MacRae to explore Amy and Rory's characters and relationship. The concept of "The God Complex" was originally pitched by Toby Whithouse for the fifth series, but it was pushed back as Moffat felt that it was too similar to the stories in that series. The penultimate episode, "Closing Time", is a sequel to series five's "The Lodger" and allows the Doctor to have some fun while building up to the finale. Writer Gareth Roberts also wanted to bring back the Cybermen, as there were no other returning monsters in the series and he thought "there should be a sense of history about the Doctor's final battle to save Earth before he heads off to meet his death". The finale was described by Moffat as "a big roller coaster ride of Doctor Who madness" and concludes the Doctor's death arc, though it intentionally leaves some mysteries.

Music

composed the soundtrack to this series, with orchestration by Ben Foster.

Filming

"Night Terrors" was the first episode of the series to be filmed in September 2010. It was mainly filmed on a council estate in Bristol, with some scenes filmed in Dyrham Park. Production of "The Doctor's Wife" also occurred in September, with some in October. The two-part opening story was partially filmed in the United States, a first for the programme. This production was done in Utah in November 2010. The story was co-produced by BBC America, who provided extra money for filming in the States. "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People" was filmed in late November 2010 to January 2011, with much location shooting at Caerphilly Castle. "The Curse of the Black Spot" was filmed in Cornwall as well as the Upper Boat Studios, while some of "A Good Man Goes to War" was filmed in a hangar in Cardiff and began shooting mid-January 2011. "The God Complex" was mostly filmed on constructed hotel sets, and the low-budget "The Girl Who Waited" was intentionally set in "big white boxes". "Closing Time" was filmed at night in a department store, as well as a private home in Cardiff, with some filming reports in March 2011. "Let's Kill Hitler" featured Swansea and Cardiff's Temple of Peace as locations in Berlin. Filming concluded on 29 April 2011 with "The Wedding of River Song", though a scene from "Let's Kill Hitler" was delayed and filmed on 11 July 2011.
Production blocks were arranged as follows:

Block	Episode	Director	Writer	Producer	Code
X	Christmas special: "A Christmas Carol"	Toby Haynes	Steven Moffat	Sanne Wohlenberg	2X
1	Episode 9: "Night Terrors"	Richard Clark	Mark Gatiss	Sanne Wohlenberg	2.4
1	Episode 4: "The Doctor's Wife"	Richard Clark	Neil Gaiman	Sanne Wohlenberg	2.3
2	Episode 1: "The Impossible Astronaut"	Toby Haynes	Steven Moffat	Marcus Wilson	2.1
2	Episode 2: "Day of the Moon"	Toby Haynes	Steven Moffat	Marcus Wilson	2.2
3	Episode 5: "The Rebel Flesh"	Julian Simpson	Matthew Graham	Marcus Wilson	2.5
3	Episode 6: "The Almost People"	Julian Simpson	Matthew Graham	Marcus Wilson	2.6
4	Episode 7: "A Good Man Goes to War"	Peter Hoar	Steven Moffat	Marcus Wilson	2.7
4	Episode 3: "The Curse of the Black Spot"	Jeremy Webb	Stephen Thompson	Marcus Wilson	2.9
5	Episode 11: "The God Complex"	Nick Hurran	Toby Whithouse	Marcus Wilson	2.11
5	Episode 10: "The Girl Who Waited"	Nick Hurran	Tom MacRae	Marcus Wilson	2.10
6	Episode 12: "Closing Time"	Steve Hughes	Gareth Roberts	Denise Paul	2.12
7	Episode 13: "The Wedding of River Song"	Jeremy Webb	Steven Moffat	Marcus Wilson	2.13
7	Episode 8: "Let's Kill Hitler"	Richard Senior	Steven Moffat	Marcus Wilson	2.8