47 Days of Doctor Who–Day #39: Best Season

Welcome to Day 39 of my 47-day series about the revival version of Doctor Who (2005-present). I’ve come up with 47 topics / questions to answer, all of them basically positive and upbeat about the program. Each day (or as often as I can actually write these–so far so good!) I’ll pick one of them at random (using this convenient random number generator) and then write up an answer.

Why 47? It’s my favorite number.
Why Doctor Who? It’s my favorite show.
Why the modern day Doctor Who only? Simply because I remember it better.
Why only positive stuff? Because really, I write enough snark.

So, today, we spin the Random Number Generator, and it lands on 5, which means today’s topic is

“Best Season”

I was anticipating this one, and I thought it’d be a tough one.  But actually, when its number came up and it was time to write it up, it was pretty easy.  And tonight, time is short, so let’s get right onto it.

Of course, I like a lot of Doctor Who, and every season has good episodes.  And as I’ve already said, I like Season Five’s overall arc better.  But as I think about it, I’m not a huge fan of any of the episodes except the major “arc” ones (plus The Lodger).  If I was going to do a really considered grading rubric for each season, assigning numbers and values to each one, and then averaging them out, then possibly the most recent year, Season 9, might have come out on top.  But I’m not doing that. I’m going with the one that brings the biggest smile to my memory:

Season Six

So this is the season that opened with one of the most gripping two parters:  The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon.  It introduced the Silence, one of the best and most frightening threats that we’ve had on the show.  It included The Doctor’s Wife, which is a top-notch episode.  It included that brilliant cliffhanger twist at the end of The Almost People when we found out that Amy was a flesh-duplicate, followed by the heartbreaking realization that Melody Song had also been duplicated.  Let’s Kill Hitler was great, The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex were both solid, and both A Good Man Goes to War and The Wedding of River Song were a bit overstuffed but still lots of fun. The Headless Monks were frightening, Madame Vastra was not too annoying yet, and the lead cast–Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, and (sort of) Alex Kingston worked really well together.  It also featured an intriguing mystery and the non-linear revelation of River Song’s origins and the Doctor’s death.

There are weak spots, of course, and they are called The Curse of the Black Spot, Night Terrors, and Closing Time.  But even of those three, only the last was actually boring.  The other two were dumb but still had some redeeming qualities.  And not every element of River’s story was successful (eg. the actual revelation that she was Melody is a bit of a dud), but the rest of it balances it out (eg. the revelation that she is Mels).

Overall, yes, it’s my favorite season.

Click here for a master list for this series.