Whovians everywhere are bopping up and down over the highly anticipated Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe!” Here to help them get through the wait is BBC America and the equally highly-anticipated Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series on DVD and Blu-ray, available today! You may have a little over a month to wait for new Who, but you needn’t suffer through it alone.
Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series has all the usual, fabulous extras that Whovians come to expect from their Doctor Who boxed sets: the season’s Christmas special (in this case, “A Christmas Carol”), commentaries, all of the sixth series Doctor Who Confidential episodes, trailers, etc.
However, there is one very important feature that makes The Complete Sixth Series a must-have, even if owning all the episodes and having all the stuff I mention above doesn’t do it for you.
Steven Moffat has created some really cool content that hasn’t yet been released online, nor aired on the BBC or BBC America. It’s Doctor Who footage that is EXCLUSIVELY available on the Complete Sixth Series DVD/Blu-Ray boxed set.
“Night and The Doctor” is a series of five mini-episodes, much like the “Space” and “Time” mini-sodes that aired as part of Red Nose Day, set in between the episodes we know and love, and all focused on what The Doctor does at night when Amy and Rory are asleep. But more than that, they’re a glimpse into the conversations The Doctor has with his friends when they’re not in the middle of some crazed, terrifying mission. They’re a beautiful addition to Doctor Who canon.
“Bad Night,” the funniest of the mini-episodes, finds The Doctor in a bit of trouble after he somehow managed to turn the Queen of England into a goldfish at a party. Meanwhile, Amy accidentally kills someone very important when she thinks she’s swatted a fly, and we learn about the system that The Doctor and Rory have with regard to Amy.
“Good Night,” the best of the mini-episodes, has The Doctor return from a party to a troubled companion. Amy finally gets to talk to him about what’s been bothering her most. She has the chance to acknowledge how completely unsettling it is to have memories from two different lives in her head, and why that shouldn’t be okay. The Doctor then takes her to the saddest day of her life, which also ended up being her happiest.
“First Night” and “Last Night” are two halves of a River Song story, wherein we see some of the in-between dates River and The Doctor had, and we also see the beginning of her diary-keeping. And just as “Space” and “Time” gave us multiple Amys…
And “Up All Night” doesn’t have The Doctor in it at all. It’s a cute glimpse into the life of Craig the night before “Closing Time.”
The best thing about all of these episodes, aside from giving us additional tidbits of information with which to round out the Doctor Who universe, is that it’s Steven Moffat getting to the heart of what Doctor Who really is. When you strip away the puzzle-box stories, and the monsters, and the adventure, Doctor Who is still a beautiful show about people and ideas. It’s a show about friendship, love, and making difficult choices. These mini-episodes get down to the substance of the show as they examine the quiet conversations that must happen amidst the chaos, the idea that memories are always happy and sad simultaneously, and how The Doctor has managed to balance those emotions for so long. “Night and The Doctor” alone is worth the price of the boxed set.
Also available today are Part 1 and Part 2 of the Sixth Series, which are being released in individual sets. However, those sets, while they might allow you to save money by only buying the episodes you want, don’t come with very many features, and they don’t have the “Night and The Doctor” episodes.
So check out the official website and get your copy of Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series on DVD or Blu-ray! Or, if you want to try your luck for a freebie, check out the Tor.com Doctor Who Series 6 sweepstakes and enter to win!
Teresa Jusino‘s Christmas came early as she enjoyed her new Doctor Who DVDs. She can be heard on the popular Doctor Who podcast, 2 Minute Time Lord, participating in a roundtable on Series 6.1. Her “feminist brown person” take on pop culture has been featured on websites like ChinaShopMag.com, PinkRaygun.com, Newsarama, and PopMatters.com. Her fiction has appeared in the sci-fi literary magazine, Crossed Genres; she is the editor of Beginning of Line, the Caprica fan fiction site; and her essay “Why Joss is More Important Than His ‘Verse” is included in Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon By the Women Who Love Them, which is on sale now wherever books are sold! 2012 will see Teresa’s work in an upcoming non-fiction sci-fi anthology. Get Twitterpated with Teresa,“like” her on Facebook, or visit her at The Teresa Jusino Experience.
