Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series [Blu-ray]

This is the *Complete* Sixth Series featuring everything from where the Complete Fifth Series leaves off. It's not just Part 1:Doctor Who: Series Six, Part One [Blu-ray] & Part 2: Doctor Who: The Sixth Series - Part 2 [Blu-ray], but also the Christmas Special Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol [Blu-ray] which preceded it. The 14 episodes are as follows:
A Christmas Carol
The Impossible Astronaut
The Day of the Moon
The Curse of the Black Spot
The Doctor's Wife (not who you think)
The Rebel Flesh
The Almost People
A Good Man Goes to War
Let's Kill Hitler
Night Terrors
The Girl Who Waited
The God Complex
Closing Time
The Wedding of River Song

Slightly more than the sum of the parts, but to quote River Song, "it's early days" and the price should go down from competition. I have mine on order so I can capture any price drops. :-)

Also included are the following extras (for the first time available):

Extras:
Meanwhile in the Tardis feature - Newly filmed scenes telling what happens between the episodes:
Bad Night (Runtime: 3m 37s)
Good Night (Runtime: 4m 50s)
First Night (Runtime: 2m 13s)
Last Night (Runtime: 3m 32s)
Up All Night (Runtime: 1m 55s)
Comic Relief 2011 mini episodes - Space and Time (Approx. 8m; These are worth watching multiple times!)
Prequels:
The Impossible Astronaut (Runtime: 1m 48s)
Curse of the Black Spot (Runtime: 1m 23s)
A Good Man Goes to War (Runtime: 1m 36s)
Let's Kill Hitler (Runtime: 1m 55s)
The Wedding of River Song (Runtime: 1m 11s)
Doctor Who Confidential featurettes - An inside look at each episode (Note: These are shortened versions of "Doctor Who Confidential", lasting about 10 minutes each, not the original 45 minute versions shown only in the UK. I've always been disappointed in this.)
Monster Files featurettes - Get under the skin and inside the minds of the new Doctor's most challenging opponents
Audio commentaries
Trailers and Trails feature
UPDATE (Oct 9th): What it does NOT contain is the "Doctor Who at the Proms 2010" Special that was included with the Christmas Carol single. While disappointing, it is still nice to have the bevy of previously unreleased material.

Honestly, when you really get down to it, this is the better deal. I originally was going to do just the Part 1 and Part 2 DVDs as I already had the Xmas special, but those DVDs have just the episodes and maybe one or two special features each....compared to THIS set which has these features attached:

A Christmas Carol, The Impossible Astronaut, Day Of The Moon, The Curse Of The Black Spot, The Doctor's Wife, The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People, A Good Man Goes To War, Let's Kill Hitler, Night Terrors, The Girl Who Waited, The God Complex, Closing Time, The Wedding of River Song. SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

5 X `Night And The Doctor' Additional Scenes
2 X `Comic Relief' Sketches
Commentaries
4 X `The Monster Files'
4 X Prequels
Trailers
14 X `Doctor Who Confidential' Cut-Downs
`Doctor Who Confidential: A Nights' Tale'

THAT is a much better deal if not for the Confidential stuff but also for the prequels, comedy relief sketches and additional scenes you will NEVER see otherwise. SO its like 20 more bucks....big freaking deal. You get so much more cool stuff along with it. THIS is the 6th Series you want to buy!

It is so hard for me to believe that "Dr. Who" is considered a children's program in England. Maybe the new Who's, especially with Tennant and Smith, are changing that. They have pretty "big" themes, interesting and exciting to sci-fi loving adults. I am a true-blue fan, collecting the DVD sets of the original Dr. Who's (which I originally recorded onto VHS from the TV!) as well as the new Dr. Who's.

Series 6 of Dr. Who was produced and aired in two sections, with a short hiatus inbetween. The first seven episodes were broadcast in spring 2011. The last six episodes are still being aired in Sept. 2011. That is why Series 6 was broken into two separate DVD releases, known as Part 1 and Part 2.

Before Series 6 Part 1 started, there was the 2010 Christmas Special, "A Christmas Carol". I watched that on TV and the ending was pretty emotional, a thoughtful well-done Christmas-y Dickens-like show. "A Christmas Carol" was NOT included in the DVD Series 6 - Part 1. However, it IS included in this "Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series".

Following is a list of all the episodes for Series 6 which are included in this Complete Sixth Series. A couple of them are just plain good old adventure stories, such as "The Curse of the Black Spot", with a great twist on the myth of the siren and her ability to call sailors to their doom. "The Doctor's Wife" is also a favorite of mine. The Doctor answers a Time Lord distress call and is trapped with the gruesome Auntie and Uncle and the downright weird Idris. But Idris isn't who or what she seems and her interaction with the Doctor is fabulous.

Other episodes have themes which carry forward into following episodes, and, to tell the truth, I sometimes had a little trouble keeping track of everything. But that's one good reason for me to buy them on DVD, I get to watch this great sci-fi storytelling all over again, and catch the nuances and details I might have missed the first time.

1. "A Christmas Carol" - Awesome story of forgiveness and life-altering love.

2. "The Impossible Astronaut" - Finally we find out just what "The Silence" is. It was The Silence that caused the TARDIS to explode at the end of Series 5. Worth watching just to see a puzzled but game Richard Nixon (played excellently by Stuart Milligan).

3. "Day of the Moon" - A continuation and completion of the Doctor's dealings with The Silence. The circumstances reminded me some of the movie, "Memento". What would you do if you could not remember something as soon as you turned away from it?

4. "The Curse of the Black Spot"

5. "The Doctor's Wife"

6. "The Rebel Flesh" - Part 1 of a two-part story. A solar tsunami throws the TARDIS onto 22nd century Earth. We know of robots used in conditions where a human could not work. What if you could create dopplegangers of yourself to do the hazardous work? [Sidebar: Recommended sci-fi reading, "Kiln People", by David Brin.]

7. "The Almost People" - Part 2 continuation. What if those dopplegangers decided to rebel?

8. "A Good Man Goes to War" - This is where the background story gets very convoluted. An Almost People is involved, and Amy and Rory's baby, Melody, is kidnapped. River refuses to help the doctor because it is during this war that he will learn her identity. THAT is worth waiting for. I didn't see it coming.

9. "Let's Kill Hitler" - A human crew from the future wants to kill Hitler and change the future. A dilemma. Who wouldn't think the world would be a better place if Hitler could be stopped before he reached full power? Convoluted back story.

10. "Night Terrors" - Eight-year old George is terrified of monsters in his bedroom. But, naturally, it's not that simple, nothing with the Doctor ever is.

11. "The Girl Who Waited" - The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to Apalapucia for a well-deserved vacation. Unfortunately, they land before they find out that the whole planet is suffering from a plague that kills creatures with two hearts. Amy gets separated, and waits 36 years for the doctor to find her, and she's not happy about it.

12. "The God Complex" - The Doctor and friends are trapped in an alien "hotel", where opening the wrong door leads to possession and death.

13. "Closing Time" - Remember Craig Owens? The Docter moved in and became his roommate in the Series 5 episode, "The Lodger". The Doctor decides to visit him. And Cybermen show up somehow. This episode hasn't been aired as the time I write this review.

14. "The Wedding of River Song" - There are some spoilers out there about what is in the last episode, but the actual plot is a closely guarded secret until it airs on October 1, 2011. Time on Earth is set at April 22, 2011, 5:02 pm. Not exactly frozen, what's actually happened is that ALL of time occurs at the same time. This may be due to a woman named River Song.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 82 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars