Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series

Doctor Who: Series Six, Part 1 offers fans concrete assurance that the venerable series remains in good hands with Steven Moffat as head writer and executive producer, as well as a tantalizing direction for the program in the episodes to come. Extras on the Blu-ray set are limited to a pair of Monster Files featurettes, which explore the creation and execution of the Silence and the Gangers in considerable detail, including interviews with the cast and crew (save Smith) and behind-the-scenes footage. --Paul Gaita The second half of Doctor Who's sixth series, which stars Matt Smith as the United Kingdom's venerable time-traveling hero, answers the question that left fans breathless for most of 2011--how will the Doctor die?--while offering a few other intriguing adventures along the way. The series' central concern is finally addressed in the final episode on the set, "The Wedding of River Song," which finds the world in a state of time confusion, with all history happening at once. To reveal the fate of the Doctor would be tantamount to high treason among Who fans, but suffice it to say that the conclusion does pull together all the threads of the sixth series in a way that may work for some fans but not at all for others. The most notable polarizing element is undoubtedly the Teselecta, a shape-shifting humanoid robot operated by miniaturized humans (not unlike the disastrous Eddie Murphy vehicle Meet Dave) that also appears in the part-two opener, "Let's Kill Hitler," where it is dispatched to eliminate the Führer by a shadowy "Justice Department." One's appreciation for such a complete game-changing character will largely define how Series Six, Part Two is viewed, since the outcome of the Doctor's death is the key story line of the entire series. However, there are also a handful of solid secondary episodes buttressing the main story arc, most notably "The Girl Who Waited," which finds the Doctor's companion, Amy (Karen Gillan), split into older and younger versions of herself on a plague-ridden planet, and "Closing Time," which brings back not only James Corden's Craig Owens (from the fifth series' "The Lodger") but also vintage villains the Cybermen. Series Six, Part Two is an ambitious conclusion for an entirely ambitious series, no matter how one feels about the denouement, and another impressive addition to the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor. Extras on the set are limited to a pair of Monster Files, one devoted to the robotic antibodies patrolling the Teselecta, while the other concerns the revamped Cybermats, the vermin-like tools of the Cybermen. --Paul Gaita