The Wordy Shipmate

Even More Series Six Perspective, Because I Can’t Get This Show Out of My Head

As you know I’ve been singing Series Six of Doctor Who a lot of praises lately but that doesn’t mean it’s without its flaws.

Series Six as it is, unlike any other Series of Doctor Who, does not stand on its own. You have to come into the series with prior knowledge of the show and at least Series Five as a point of context. And if you did, there’s even more of a dilemma.

You won’t be able to really appreciate Series Six if you’ve only seen Series Five. If you compare it to Series Five, Series Six is a bit of a downgrade. Series Five was this great fun, adventurous, magical show about a kid who gets reunited with her imaginary friend. Series Six is a dark, broody, complex series about a man coming to terms with what he’s become. They just don’t go well together.

Another thing that series six wasn’t able to do was to balance its larger story arc with the show’s inherent episodic format. That’s why a lot of fans were complaining all year, they’ve come to know the show as a sort of monster of the week anthology which for the purposes of Series Six, was just not going to work. Series Six had an important role to fill for the over-all story of the show in order for it to truly evolve. Its story was not something that could be subtly sprinkled throughout the series, it had to be addressed head on. It doesn’t help that Moffat’s big 8-part story was sprinkled all throughout the run, with the regular episodes intertwined within and causing even more confusion.

At the beginning of the second half of the series, I posted a suggestion to split the series between its big story arc episodes and its stand-alone episodes. Had the series started with the more traditional serial “adventures” before being hit with a block of the big River Song/Death of the Doctor story, it would have worked better. It would have eased us into the bigger storyline that was waiting. The Doctor’s death was too big a story that it cast a shadow on the entirety of the series rendering it nigh unrecognizable to the light fairy tale story we got last year.

For a show that got such a following after Series Five, Series Six is a bit of a step backwards but it definitely has its reasons for doing so. It wraps up all the important underdeveloped elements of Series 1-4 and brought them firmly into the fold of Series 5’s mythology even though it sacrificed its own potential to build up from all the promise and excitement of Series Five.

Now that Series Six has been told, the real test comes in for Series Seven. That is the series that we really will have to compare to Series Five. Like series Five, it’s a fresh start for the Doctor and more than ever, it can really be whatever it wants to be. That’s why we were left with the big question. The show is now free to define itself. Doctor Who?

More Series 6 Thoughts! Or A Tsunami of Realization of How Amazing Series Six Really Is

One thing I’m surprised that I love about Series 5 and 6 is that it made sure that you don’t ignore Series 1-4. I gotta hand it to Moffat, any other show runner would have easily just started from scratch and ignored the initial 4 series but Moffat actually acknowledges them, goes so far as to thematically follow in their footsteps in Series Five before actually tying up all their lose ends for them in Series Six. We wouldn’t have the Doctor dealing with everything he did this series if Series 1-4 never happened and it’s kind of brilliant how things went down.

I was one of those people who keep telling potential fans to skip the first four series and start with series five, after the events of Series Six, I may start singing a different tune.

Folks who started with Series Five (without watching the first four) actually won’t be able to fully appreciate the scope of the development of Series Six and actually deem it an unworthy follow-up. They won’t understand the god complex that the Doctor has been dealing with, nor will they understand just how much of the universe is coming together to destroy the Doctor, they’re still stuck on the honeymoon phase with the Doctor (their first companion is still the companion) not knowing all the heartache and regret he’s had to go through with his previous companions. Now, with the main plot threads introduced in Series 5 and 6 carrying over to further series, it only solidifies the fact that ever since the beginning, it’s all one show, one story and that’s incredible.