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There was a time when the idea of owning even a single episode of Doctor Who on DVD would have been laughable. For me the series was a bit of fun but nothing worth dwelling on, certainly not worth revisiting or spending money to own. This all changed the day Steven Moffat took over the reins and brought in Matt Smith as The Doctor. Suddenly the series had an extra level of quality and complexity to it. Finally I understood what people had been going on about and finally I had found my Doctor.

While series 5 was the best the show had ever been with a finale that made every episode worth a re-watch as new information came to light, series 6 was slightly less awe-inspiring but remains a funny, scary and downright brilliant piece of TV.

The box set starts off on a strong footing with last year’s Christmas special A Christmas Carol which will be hard to beat this year and which I raved about last December. The rest of the series never quite matched the joy of this special and covers The Doctor’s potential demise, the battle against The Silence, one mysterious pregnancy and a classic sci-fi plot twist involving the identity of River Song.

Without a doubt this is the best Doctor Who cast and crew there has ever been. Steven Moffat is the best writer, Matt Smith is the best Doctor, Karen Gillan is the best companion and Arthur Darvill is the best husband of a companion. I love them all to pieces.

The DVDs certainly don’t skimp when it comes to the extras. Some episodes come with either short teaser prequels or commentaries but these are not what get me excited. Exclusive (possibly) to the DVD are five extra Night And The Doctor scenes which show what goes on in the TARDIS in between episodes. It was lovely to see Amy and The Doctor share a quiet moment and The Doctor struggle to juggle three different versions of River Song as they each turn up unannounced. These are complemented by the Comic Relief sketches in which the TARDIS lands within itself, caused by a short skirt and a glass floor and resulting in Amy flirting with herself.

The only place these DVDs let themselves down is with the inclusion of Doctor Who Confidential. Confidential is the complimentary TV series looking in-depth at the filming of each episode, a series I love and which was tragically cancelled at the end of this series. What the DVD does wrong is to cut these down to 10 minutes from their original 40, so much footage has been left out. Some of this footage is included in four Monster Files but it isn’t really a decent substitute.

If you are stuck for ideas for the nerd in your life, Doctor Who would be a great gift and is on sale now on DVD and Blu-ray. Doctor Who no longer needs to be a guilty pleasure.

Doctor Who Series 6 DVD provided by BBCShop.com

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In brief, following up on previous posts, news; Stephen Moffat posted an interesting tweet this morning:

To clarify: any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and certainly NOT be a Hollywood reboot.

Friday, 2nd December 2011 7:43 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@steven_moffat

Steven Moffat

This certainly helps to lessen some of our concerns about the Doctor Who movie David Yates revealed he was working on last month. Moffat went on to say that Yates was “speaking off the cuff, on a red carpet.”

So in a few years there will probably be a Doctor Who film directed by David Yates, it will be made by the BBC and will star whoever is the singular official actor playing Doctor Who at the time.

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So, David Yates is to direct a Doctor Who film, huh? How do we feel about that?

On the plus side, he was the man at the helm of the good films of the UK’s other giant franchise. He’s no stranger to entering a world that’s already well-established and populated with rabid fans.

However, this is Doctor Who, a series that’s almost 50 years old and has built a massive mythology. So massive, it seems weak to describe it as just a series. Harry Potter‘s canon was made up of seven novels; Doctor Who‘s spans 783 episodes of television and several spin-off shows, let alone all the radio plays and books. With the continuing debate about whether TV these days is actually better than film, is it perhaps a backwards step to take The Doctor into an enclosed two hour format?

Yates has said, “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.” This is definitely true. Beyond an enduring affection for Tom Baker’s scarves, we at Mild Concern had little familiarity with Doctor Who before 2005 but even with only six years of watching under our belts, trying to explain the intricacies of the relationship between River Song and The Doctor to a total newcomer is at least two pints in the pub material.

This leads to the question of whether David Yates and Jane Tranter, (she with the impressive title of executive vice-president of programming and production of BBC Worldwide), are looking at a total reboot. Kick out the existing 11 incarnations of The Doctor and start all over again? An origins story, going back to The Doctor’s start in Gallifrey? Maybe that’s a good thing. It wasn’t until four years after the relaunch, when Steven Moffat took over from Russell T. Davies, that we felt that the programme really fulfilled its potential and part of the reason why Doctor Who has endured has been down to the opportunity to remake itself on a regular basis embedded into its format. A clean slate might help avoid the dreaded flop that is almost any TV series: The Movie.

It would be safe to say the jury’s out at Mild Concern on this one. But for The Face of Boe’s sake, can we please put a ban on Daleks and Cybermen? No matter how much kids in the seventies were forced to hide behind sofas whenever those clunking bits of plasticky metal appeared, neither is the faintest bit scary any more. We’re too busy trying to stare down stone statues.

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Monday night saw Mild Concern sitting amongst children and stars at the premiere of this years Doctor Who Christmas special A Christmas Carol.

I’ll try not to give anything away in reviewing this brilliant episode of Who, though I’d say it is a slightly more low key affair than in previous years. I don’t think a single thing exploded and after last years epic mess a quieter, better crafted story was a welcome relief.

The first half of the episode was pure comedy as Matt Smith expertly delivered Stephen Moffat’s witty dialogue so naturally it was like he was an actor or something. Karen Gillan was sadly in a smaller role than usual but during her brief appearances was in her police uniform keeping the grown up men plenty happy.

Supporting Smith were guest actors Michael Gambon and Kathryn Jenkins who brough different qualities to the show. Gambon was a total powerhouse, playing both the good and evil of the episode and clearly revelling in the fun of being in Doctor Who. Jenkins however shows much lighter acting talent, mostly just looking pretty and doing the occasional song, thereby demonstrating what really got her the job.

What really came across watching Who on the big screen is just how cinematic the show has become. Toby Haynes did a wonderful job of directing, as the TV budget was well and truly stretched to create some stunning shots. The CGI is at its peak here too making for a perfect storm of good TV.

So the writing was great, the acting was (mostly) great and the directing too was… great, but what of the story? I’m glad you asked, the story is really Christmassy and imaginative as we get a truly Who version of a classic tale complete with snow, carols, sharks and time travel.

After the screening Caitlin Moran, everyone’s favourite TV critic, chaired a Q&A with Smith, Moffat and Jenkins which brought no real insights beyond Jenkins being nervous and Gambon having plenty of anecdotes. The main highlight came when “superfan” Karen Gillan asked the panel about their favourite types of fish before shouting out “I like blowfish” for no good reason.

You had to be there really… and you weren’t. Ha!

Tune in on Christmas Day and enjoy a family friendly Christmas treat.

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It seems we and the rest of the internet got a bit ahead of ourselves when declaring Josh Hutcherson as the new Spiderman, because he isn’t. Phew.

Instead we have the 27 year old Andrew Garfield who can actually act. Hurray! You may remember him from two bad episodes of Doctor Who set in New York and in Red Riding where everyone was a proper good actor.

I have regained my confidence in Marc Webb and am a bit excited about the film. It’s amazing how different the casting of two people I don’t really remember can have on me but I’m pretty sure this is a better choice.

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