“Doctor Who” is fun science fiction, pure and simple. This past season of “Doctor Who” has taken a different approach than previous seasons have. It became apparent that Steven Moffat, the show runner, is telling a multi-season spanning epic instead of focusing on one season at a time like the previous seasons under Russel Davies. For me this makes the overall story feel more awesome but also frustrating as I am use to getting the answers for the season at the end of the season. If the story wasn’t interesting this would be a hindrance to the show. Fortunately, by focusing on perhaps the longest running mystery in television the storyline has me on the edge of my seat week in and week out. That mystery is of course the name of the Doctor. It’s something I thought would never be revealed, but with all the focus on it over the past few seasons, they will have to reveal it or we will feel cheated.
The season itself was full of fun and lots of head scratching moments. It introduced a new villain in the Silence. It was a little confusing distinguishing between the alien species and the religion, but it worked out. The Impossible Astronaut was a great way to start the season and really showed how ferocious the Doctor had become by turning the entire human race into murderers. The standalone episodes worked well, particularly the pirate adventure and the future Amy story. The episode featuring the flesh was suitably trippy and kept some fun with having two doctors. But the season had its biggest moments in the midseason finale and opener and then the season finale. These episodes not only answered a ton of questions but also had a lot of fun moments. Centurion Rory confronting the Cybermen, stuffing Hitler in a closet and Amy realizing that she is the Doctor’s Mother in Law.
The season wasn’t without a few flaws however. The River timeline has become a little confusing. I believe and hope that the River backward in time thing is over or won’t be used to often. It’s hard to follow now with seeing multiple versions of River. The episode featuring the dollhouse was a bit of a let down as well. Small kids being scared usually deliver a great payoff, but this just felt meh. Also, it felt like everyone was separated a bit too often. I love seeing the Doctor and Amy together and it felt like they separated them a lot this year. Still all of this doesn’t matter because this season gave us Stormbringer – Bringer of Doom. Such a brilliant name.
Another great season and next year should bring something really special. It is the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who” and it looks like Moffat is getting ready to bring his grand epic to a close. As long as we have some more bow tie wearing fun I’m sure I’ll be happy. This season gets 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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