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| Previous: The Tenth Doctor |
| The Eleventh Doctor (2010-) | |
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Season
Thirty-One: Fairytales First appearances of Amy Pond, Rory Williams and Dorium Maldavar. |
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2010-11
Specials: In The Deep Midwinter |
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Season
Thirty-Two: Death Comes To Time First appearances of the Silents and Madame Kovarian. |
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2011 Christmas
Special: Home For The Holidays First appearance of Madge Arwell. |
| Season Thirty-One: Fairytales |
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Matt Smith has played the Doctor since The End Of Time in January 2010. He also appeared in Death Of The Doctor, part of The Sarah Jane Adventures. |
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Amy Pond met the newly-regenerated Doctor when she was seven years old; he later returned to save the adult Amy from the insidious Prisoner Zero. Amy has been played by Karen Gillan since The Eleventh Hour in April 2010. |
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Rory Williams was Amy Pond's fiance and later husband. He helped the Doctor and Amy defeat Prisoner Zero and later accepted the Doctor's invitation to join them aboard the TARDIS. Arthur Darvill has played Rory regularly since The Eleventh Hour in April 2010. |
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| The Production Team |
| A new era for Doctor Who dawned as Russell T Davies, the man who had brought the programme back from oblivion, departed after six years. He was replaced as executive producer and showrunner by Steven Moffat. Executive producer Julie Gardner also chose to move on; her replacement as Head of Drama at BBC Wales, Piers Wenger, similarly took over her role on Doctor Who. In addition, Wenger brought Beth Willis aboard as the programme's third executive producer. Tracie Simpson remained as producer, alternating in those duties with former first assistant director Peter Bennett. In addition, Patrick Schweitzer -- normally the show's line producer -- shared Simpson's producer credit on The Vampires Of Venice and Vincent And The Doctor, which were filmed in Croatia. |
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The Eleventh Hour by Steven Moffat,
directed by Adam Smith
In the English village of Leadworth, a young Scottish girl named Amelia
Pond is frightened by a strange crack in her bedroom wall. When the
newly-regenerated Doctor crashlands in her back garden, he discovers
that the crack is actually a fracture in space and time, through which
an alien criminal has escaped. Before the Doctor can recapture Prisoner
Zero, he's forced to leave to stabilise the TARDIS, and accidentally
delays his return by twelve years. Now, with the help of the grown-up
Amy, the Doctor has to deal not only with Prisoner Zero, but with its
ruthless jailers as well.
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The Beast Below by Steven Moffat,
directed by Andrew Gunn
Hundreds of years in the future, the population of Britain has fled an
Earth ravaged by solar flares, aboard the mammoth Starship UK.
But the Doctor and Amy discover that something about the enormous vessel
is very wrong. The ship moves even though its engines aren't working,
whole sections are closed off under mysterious circumstances, and the
sinister robotic Smilers punish the disobedient. The Doctor finds
himself assisted by an enigmatic female vigilante, while Amy learns the
truth at the heart of Starship UK... but it's a truth that she
can't bear to remember.
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Victory Of The Daleks by Mark
Gatiss, directed by Andrew Gunn
Prime Minister Winston Churchill summons the Doctor and Amy to
Blitz-torn London. The British forces are at their lowest ebb, but a
scientist named Bracewell has come to Churchill with an amazing
invention: powerful miniature tanks he calls “Ironsides”.
The Doctor, however, recognises the Ironsides for what they really are:
the Daleks. With a Nazi bombing run closing in, and Churchill convinced
of the Ironsides' benevolence, the Doctor must learn Bracewell's secret
and uncover the Daleks' plans.
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The Time Of Angels / Flesh And
Stone by Steven Moffat, directed by Adam Smith
A message left on a museum artefact brings the Doctor to the rescue of
River Song, at a point in time before his first encounter with her, but
after her first meeting with him. River is helping the militant Father
Octavian investigate the Byzantium, a spaceship smuggling a
dormant Weeping Angel. By the time the Doctor, Amy and River catch up to
the vessel, however, it has crashlanded atop a ruined temple, and to
reach it, they must traverse a mortuary labyrinth filled with crumbling
statues. Too late, the Doctor realises that the Weeping Angel is not
alone -- and that he has walked into a trap.
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The Vampires Of Venice by Toby
Whithouse, directed by Jonny Campbell
The Doctor escorts Amy and Rory on a date to sixteenth-century Venice.
No sooner have they arrived, however, than they become embroiled in the
mystery surrounding an enigmatic school for young women run by the
powerful Rosanna Calvierri. Those accepted to the school become
mysteriously changed, shunning the daylight and professing not to know
their former acquaintances. The Doctor begins to suspect that there are
vampires on the loose in Venice -- but could the truth be even more
sinister?
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Amy's Choice by Simon Nye, directed
by Catherine Morshead
The Doctor, Amy and Rory are confronted by a cryptic figure who calls
himself the Dream Lord. The Dream Lord has caused the three time
travellers to flit back and forth between two different realities -- one
in which they're stranded aboard a crippled TARDIS, the other in which
Amy and Rory have settled down in Leadworth and are about to become
parents. In both cases, the trio face a mortal danger... but they first
have to deduce which is the true reality, or risk becoming trapped in
the dream for the rest of their lives.
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The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood by
Chris Chibnall, directed by Ashley Way
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the tiny Welsh village of
Cwmtaff in the year 2020. There, a drilling project seeks to burrow deep
beneath the surface of the Earth. Strange craters have begun opening up
near the drill site, however, dragging people into the ground -- and Amy
becomes the latest victim. Investigating, the Doctor realises that the
drill has awakened a tribe of Silurians from their aeons-long slumber.
Believing themselves to be under attack, the Silurians are now on a war
footing, preparing an offensive against the human race.
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Vincent And The Doctor by Richard
Curtis, directed by Jonny Campbell
At an exhibition of the works of Vincent Van Gogh, the Doctor and Amy
discover a disturbing image hidden in one of his paintings. Travelling
back to Provence in 1890, they discover that Van Gogh is plagued by a
ferocious monster called the Krafayis that only he can see. As the time
travellers struggle to deal with an invisible monster, they must also
navigate the tortured artist's swings of mood, knowing full well that,
within two months, he will have taken his own life.
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The Lodger by Gareth Roberts,
directed by Catherine Morshead
A strange force affects the TARDIS, stranding the Doctor on modern-day
Earth while Amy is trapped in the rapidly deteriorating time machine.
The Doctor traces the mysterious influence to a seemingly ordinary home
in Colchester, where Craig Owens, the tenant of the downstairs flat, is
advertising for a roommate. The Doctor answers Craig's ad -- and
proceeds to turn the young man's life upside-down, even as he
investigates the mysterious occupant of the upstairs apartment, who
lures people into the house who are then never seen again.
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The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang
by Steven Moffat, directed by Toby Haynes
A message transmitted down through history draws the Doctor and Amy to
England in AD 102. There they find River Song waiting for them, with a
warning that a legendary prison called the Pandorica, hidden beneath
Stonehenge, is about to open. But the Pandorica is actually a trap set
for the Doctor by a legion of his oldest enemies. And meanwhile, a
mysterious force has seized control of the TARDIS, setting in motion an
explosion which threatens to destroy the entire universe. With the
Doctor imprisoned in the Pandorica for eternity, will silence fall
across all time and space?
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| Making History |
| 2010 saw almost everything about Doctor Who change. A new production team was in place behind the cameras, a new regular cast appeared on television screens, and even elements such as the logo, the TARDIS console room and the police box shell itself were revamped. Nonetheless, Doctor Who retained much of its popularity, even as Moffat pushed the programme in new directions with a storyline stretching beyond the confines of a single season. |
| 2010-11 Specials: In The Deep Midwinter |
| The Production Team |
| Tracie Simpson and Peter Bennett left Doctor Who after Season Thirty-One, to be replaced with caretaker producer Sanne Wohlenberg. The Comic Relief special, meanwhile, was produced by Annabella Hurst-Brown. |
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A Christmas Carol by Steven Moffat,
directed by Toby Haynes
Amy and Rory's Christmas honeymoon is interrupted when the spaceship on
which they're vacationing suddenly plummets through a maelstrom of fog
to the planet below. Miserly Kazran Sardick possesses a machine that can
control the fog and save the vessel, but he refuses to comes to its aid.
Determined to rescue not only his friends but all four thousand people
aboard the ship, the Doctor travels back in time on a mission to change
Kazran's life for the better... but only if he can navigate the shoals
of bitterness and heartbreak which have made Kazran the man he is
today.
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Space / Time by Steven
Moffat, directed by Richard Senior
Amy distracts Rory while he's helping the Doctor repair the TARDIS,
causing the time machine to materialise inside itself. Time and space
start to behave in mysterious ways, and the three travellers realise
that they may be trapped within the ship for all eternity.
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| Making History |
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On March 18th, 2010, at the press screening to launch the new season, Piers Wenger confirmed that the tradition of the Doctor Who Christmas special would continue into the era of the Eleventh Doctor. Doctor Who also resumed its strong connection with the BBC's charity telethons. This time, a special two-part mini-adventure would air during the Comic Relief appeal on March 18th, 2011 -- offering the dual appeal of raising funds for a worthy cause and starting the countdown towards the new season... |
| Season Thirty-Two: Death Comes To Time |
| The Production Team |
| Sanne Wohlenberg remained with Doctor Who for just the first production block of Season Thirty-Two (consisting of The Doctor's Wife and Night Terrors). Marcus Wilson then took over the reins of the programme on an ongoing basis. |
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The Impossible Astronaut / Day Of
The Moon by Steven Moffat, directed by Toby Haynes
The Doctor summons Amy, Rory and River Song to the Utah desert... where
he is murdered by an astronaut who rises from a lake. It soon becomes
clear that this is a future Doctor, whose final message directs them to
travel back to 1969 with a younger version of the Doctor. There they
meet ex-FBI agent Canton Everett Delaware the Third and President
Richard Nixon, who is being haunted by phone calls from a mysterious
child, warning of an alien invasion. But the aliens are already on
Earth, unable to be captured by human memory -- and even the Doctor's
companions are not immune.
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The Curse Of The Black Spot by
Steve Thompson, directed by Jeremy Webb
The Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves aboard a pirate ship in the
17th century. The ship has been becalmed for days, marooned in waters
that seem to be haunted by a Siren -- a beautiful but demonic woman who
comes for those who are sick or injured. She sings a mournful, unearthly
melody, and her arrival is presaged by the appearance on the victim's
skin of a livid black spot. When Rory is cut, he is marked as the
Siren's next victim, and it's up to the Doctor and the reluctant Captain
Avery to unearth the creature's true nature.
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The Doctor's Wife by Neil Gaiman,
directed by Richard Clark
The Doctor receives a distress call from an old Time Lord friend,
summoning him to a place beyond the universe. Clinging to the hope that
there may still be Time Lord survivors, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS
through a rift, only to find the time machine suddenly lifeless. Landing
on a sentient planetoid called House, the Doctor discovers that he has
been lured into a trap. But as House tries to devour the TARDIS -- and
Amy and Rory along with it -- the Doctor finds an ally in Idris, a woman
with whom he shares a deep, personal and unexpected connection.
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The Rebel Flesh / The Almost
People by Matthew Graham, directed by Julian Simpson
A solar storm forces the TARDIS to land on a tiny island on 22nd century
Earth. There, a factory pumps out acid so corrosive that disposable,
artificial humans are created to do all the work, taking the form of the
real employees who control their doppelgangers remotely. These
“Gangers” have all the memories of the real humans, but
lose their sentience once the connection is broken... until the solar
storm causes the Gangers to stabilise. Now the Doctor finds himself
desperately trying to stop war from breaking out between the humans and
their Ganger selves.
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A Good Man Goes To War by Steven
Moffat, directed by Peter Hoar
Months ago, a newly-pregnant Amy was kidnapped by the Headless Monks and
their agent, the ruthless Madame Kovarian. Now she has given birth to
her daughter, Melody, who is to be taken away so that she can be used as
a weapon against the Doctor. But the Doctor and Rory have called in
favours and gathered a strike force to rescue Amy and Melody. Only River
Song refuses to heed the Doctor's summons. She knows that this is the
day of the Doctor's greatest victory, and his greatest defeat... and the
day that he will finally learn who she is.
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Let's Kill Hitler by Steven
Moffat, directed by Richard Senior
The Doctor returns to Leadworth to update Amy and Rory on his search for
their daughter, Melody, only to have the TARDIS hijacked to 1938 Berlin
by Amy's friend Mels. But Mels is really a future version of Melody,
regenerated and brainwashed by the Silence into making an attempt on the
Doctor's life. And even as the Doctor hovers on the brink of death, a
new threat appears: a shapeshifting Justice Vehicle, sent back in time
and tasked with prosecuting Melody Pond for her ultimate crime: the
murder of the Doctor.
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Night Terrors by Mark Gatiss,
directed by Richard Clark
The Doctor receives a plea via the psychic paper from a little boy on
Earth: “Please save me from the monsters.” He, Amy and Rory
follow the distress call and meet Alex, who explains that his son George
is seemingly afraid of everything -- especially the cupboard in his
bedroom. The Doctor tries to help, but quickly realises that there
really is something strange lurking in George's cupboard. And this
mysterious force has already trapped his companions in a macabre
dollhouse, stalked by sinister toys who seek to make Amy and Rory become
like them.
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The Girl Who Waited by Tom MacRae,
directed by Nick Hurran
The TARDIS lands on a planet ravaged by a plague which is fatal to
beings with two hearts. With the Doctor consigned to the Ship, his
companions become separated across two time streams. Rory's stream moves
at a fraction of the pace of Amy's, because it's intended to allow loved
ones to watch a plague victim's whole life pass by. And when the Doctor
synchronises the streams, Rory finds himself confronted by an Amy who
has waited thirty-six years for rescue. As the Doctor tries desperately
to put things right, Rory must deal with an embittered Amy who may no
longer want to be saved.
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The God Complex by Toby Whithouse,
directed by Nick Hurran
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Amy and Rory to what appears to be a hotel
on Earth in the 1980s. But the rooms and corridors in this hotel move
about, and the doors and windows open onto walls. Soon they encounter a
small band of human and alien survivors, and learn that somewhere in the
hotel is a room containing each person's darkest fear. Once they find
it, they will inevitably begin to worship a mysterious entity which
stalks the hotel, killing those who praise it. One by one, the hotel
claims its victims... and even Amy cannot resist its lure.
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Closing Time by Gareth Roberts,
directed by Steve Hughes
Having left Amy and Rory behind for their own safety as he prepares for
the end of his life, the Doctor pays a visit to Craig Owens. Craig is
now a father, struggling to bring up baby Alfie, and barely aware of the
strange events going on around him. People are going missing,
unexplained electrical surges plague the neighbourhood, and a mysterious
silver rat stalks the local shopping mall. Almost despite himself, Craig
helps the Doctor uncover the Cybermen and their Cybermats at work. But
is this an invasion, or something else?
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The Wedding Of River Song by Steven
Moffat, directed by Jeremy Webb
The Doctor is destined to die at Lake Silencio, Utah, at 5.02pm on the
22nd of April, 2011. However, River Song refuses to let history play out
as it was intended, and inadvertently fractures time in the process. The
Doctor now finds himself on an Earth where all history is happening
simultaneously, and only a special few -- including Amy and River --
remember time as it was meant to be. But even as the Silence spring
their final trap, the Doctor knows that to stop time from
disintegrating, he must still die on the shores of Lake Silencio...
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| Making History |
| Season Thirty-Two saw a wholesale change to the Doctor Who broadcast schedule, with transmission being split into two halves to avoid the summer months, when ratings traditionally dropped due to the sunny weather. This was not novel for Doctor Who: in the past, some seasons had taken an extended hiatus during the Christmas period. But the length of the break -- eleven weeks -- was unprecedented, as was the fact that the gap was integrated into the storyline, with A Good Man Goes To War ending on a major cliffhanger. |
| 2011 Christmas Special: Home For The Holidays |
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Madge Arwell once rescued a gravely-injured Doctor. Several years later, he attempted to return the favour by visiting Madge and her children during a time of great personal crisis. Madge was played by Claire Skinner in The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe in December 2011. |
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| The Production Team |
| Beth Willis left Doctor Who after two seasons, and was succeeded in the role of executive producer by Caroline Skinner. |
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The Doctor, The Widow And The
Wardrobe by Steven Moffat, directed by Farren Blackburn
Just days before Christmas during World War II, Madge Arwell's airman
husband is lost over the English Channel. Dreading to tell the truth to
her children, Lily and Cyril, Madge takes them out of London to a old
mansion house owned by a distant relative. The caretaker of the estate
turns out to be the Doctor, whom Madge rescued from a crisis years
earlier. His plan is to ease Madge's heartbreak by giving Lily and Cyril
the merriest Christmas ever. But when he opens a portal to a wintry
alien wonderland in the far future, the Doctor inadvertently places all
of them in terrible danger.
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| Making History |
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At the Edinburgh International Television Festival on August 28th, 2010, executive producer Steven Moffat confirmed that there would be a 2011 Christmas special. Production began circa mid-September 2011. The director will be Farren Blackburn, whose previous credits include Doctors, Holby City, The Fades and Survivors. On May 26th, Piers Wenger announced that he was departing the BBC and Doctor Who in September. He had already left his post as Head of Drama for BBC Wales in March, but had continued as executive producer of Doctor Who while he remained with the BBC to focus on creative development. Wenger will now be the senior commissining executive for Film4. It is not yet known if his successor as BBC Wales Head of Drama, Faith Penhale, will replace him on Doctor Who. On July 21st, Caroline Skinner was announced as the successor to Wenger and Willis. Skinner has produced Five Days and The Fades, and before that was a script editor on programmes such as The Last Detective, Bleak House, The Ruby In The Smoke and House Of Saddam. On June 7th, 2011, the BBC confirmed that there would be a thirty-third season of Doctor Who in 2012. This will consist of fourteen episodes, which Steven Moffat has indicated will be the usual arrangement of thirteen regular episodes and a Christmas special. Moffat has also confirmed that Matt Smith will return for a third year as the Doctor. However, the BBC has noted that although the fourteen episodes will begin airing in 2012, some will not be broadcast until 2013. It has also been suggested that this will form part of a “special run” leading into Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary in November 2013. On July 24th, Karen Gillan confirmed that she will be returning to play Amy Pond for Season Thirty-Three. |
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