Doctor Who Season 6: 5 Questions About The New Trailer

 

With the midseason debut of Doctor Who now set for late August on BBC America, it’s time to look at the new trailer and try and see if there are any clues about what’s to come. If nothing else, we’ve definitely got five questions to ask based on what we can see…

Firstly, in case you haven’t seen the new trailer:

And with that out the way…

Has The Doctor Known Everything All Along?
There are two moments in the trailer that suggest that the Doctor knows much more about what’s been going on during season 6 than he’s been letting on. Not just the panicked-sounding yell of “I’m going to die!” but also the smug “Haven’t we figured that one out yet…?” Admittedly, there’s every possibility that this is all editing from different, unrelated episodes, but overall the implication is that the Doctor knows exactly what is going on… which means that he’s probably planned ahead for his death, explaining away his reaction just before it happened in the first episode. I’m still pulling for it being the Ganger Doctor that was killed.

What’s With The Eyepatches?
The glimpse of River looking just like Madame Kovarian is intriguing. A hint that there’s more to their connection than we might have initially suspected, a clue that something has gone/will go wrong in time (Hitler’s “You have saved my life” may also be pointing in that direction), or just a sign that River has, at some point, belonged to the same group as Kovarian? Is Madame Song in our future?

Is Madame Kovarian Working For The Silence?
We get Kovarian’s voiceover talking about the Impossible Astronaut, which implies that she’s part of the people behind it – which would make sense, as she’s the one who kidnapped Baby Melody, and there’s at the very least a strong hint that it’s Melody Pond who was inside the astronaut suit in 1969 America with the Silence – but, so far, the Astronaut had seemed to be the work of the Silence (There’s even one watching the Doctor get killed, remember). So… is the army gathering to kill the Doctor the work of the Silence? And if so, is it revenge for what happened in “Day of The Moon,” or something else entirely?

(Remember, the Silence may also be behind the destruction of the Tardis in Season Five, which would mean that they’re working very hard to make as many people as possible try to kill the Doctor for them…)

How Long Is Season Six?
The idea that we’ll see “our” Doctor become the Doctor who was killed at the beginning of the season is an odd one, because wasn’t he a couple of hundred years older than “ours”? This either means that S6 is going to stretch a long, long time for the Doctor – Time he’s spent looking for baby Melody, perhaps? – or that he was lying about his age/identity before getting killed. Or, of course, that I’m misremembering the age discrepancy in “The Impossible Astronaut,” which is always possible.

When Does It Start?!?
Okay, that one I can answer. Expect the return of the Doctor in less than a month: August 27th is the date for the first new episode, “Let’s Kill Hitler.” I cannot wait.