We’re halfway into the 35th series of Doctor Who and it has yet to deliver a howler. Perhaps more remarkably still, fandom seems to be in broad agreement about that. Peter Capaldi’s second series in the title role, Steven Moffat’s fifth as showrunner and Jenna Coleman’s last as Clara has certainly delivered bold moves and changes. So, with only six weeks of running round corridors left, here’s our midterm report card.



The hybrid

Is Me (Maisie Williams) going to be the new companion? That has been the biggest question on people’s lips this year. After Me’s final exchange with the Doctor last week, agreeing that “people like us go on too long, the last thing we need is each other”, probably not. But it has now been announced that she will feature in episode 10, so presumably her lookout for the people the Doctor leaves behind will be going on for some time.

It’s all me, me, me … Maisie Williams and Peter Capaldi. Photograph: Simon Ridgway/BBC

Quite how she figures in the head-scratcher of a series arc is altogether less obvious, with dark references to “hybrids” popping up regularly, and meditations on the pitfalls of playing God a recurring theme. More intriguingly, if we’re to believe Davros (slippery chap, but true to his malevolent word), this series looks like revealing the real reason the Doctor fled Gallifrey all those centuries ago, and it’s sounding like something a lot bigger than simple boredom, including a degree of responsibility for the creation of this monstrous Dalek-Timelord hybrid. With Gallifrey back in the show’s mythology, this is all building up to something explosive.

The rock’n’roll Doctor

The producers should probably take comfort, amid a series that has been comparatively well-received among angry fandom, that the biggest controversy this year has centred around a pair of Ray-Bans. Which, in terms of magnitude at least, is considerably smaller than a moon-shaped dragons’ egg.

More broadly, Peter Capaldi’s performance has been immensely more enjoyable, thanks to a healthy reinjection of daftness to the character after last year’s adventures in emo. After a period of reflection, the Doctor is in once again. The shades and the guitar could scarcely be more different from the portrayal last year, and while some viewers have found it all a bit midlife-crisis, it has, on the whole, been a welcome progression.

Enter the guitardis?

The friend inside the enemy and the enemy inside the friend

While hardly a surprise, after the longest stint as companion in the new series, Jenna Coleman’s confirmation of her exit the day before the series began has set speculation to overdrive. And the show isn’t shy of it, with barely a week going by without the Doctor fretting over his duty of care to the teacher, or her behaving in increasingly reckless ways. It maybe feels too obvious that Clara will face certain death. And yet, unlike other companions, she has the best of both worlds, maintaining her home life and career alongside the gallivanting. Why would anyone really give that up? Meanwhile, Missy’s warning at the end of The Witch’s Familiar still hangs heavy, despite a contributor last week commenting how I was obsessing over it.

The ratings

As we’ve written before, the series premiere was met with the usual panicked news reports about a ratings decline, even on the BBC news website itself. People still obsess about overnight figures; there’s even been talk of “ratings deniers” below the line here. While it’s true that UK ratings are down, they’re not really down by very much, and the consolidated figure was pushing seven million for The Girl Who Died. A full breakdown of the numbers can be found here, for people who are interested in that kind of thing.

The cliffhangers

If there’s a drawback to these two-part stories, it’s that it feels as if we’re rattling through the series awfully quickly. A nice problem to have, since reverting largely to two-part stories has been the most successful innovation. Having to wait a week to overcome an impossible obstacle brings a tension that just wasn’t really there with a 45-minute movie-of-the-week. Toby Whithouse’s chilling hook for Under the Lake was the one that did it for me.

Monster energy … Before the Lake. Photograph: Simon Ridgway/BBC

The monsters

And on that same story, the realisation of the “ghosts” in Whithouse’s story was also the scariest they have managed in a long time. If there’s been a weakness recently, it’s that the show hasn’t served up a truly memorable monster for a long time now (I’d wager probably since the Silence). These ghosts went some way to rectifying that (although they will prove tricky to turn into action figures). This year’s other newcomer, mechanical mercenaries the Mire, were fun, but we’ll probably not say too much about Leandro the lion-man.

The future

While a 10th series has apparently been confirmed, rumours about when we’ll see it tell a few different stories. Private Eye has reported that 2016 will be another “gap year” with just a series of specials, or a split series. They have been on the money about this sort of thing in the past, although the BBC is, of course, confirming nothing. But that doesn’t sound out of the question; this is pure speculation, but you would imagine Capaldi to be on a similar deal to Tennant and Smith, to deliver three full series over four years. In that case, splitting a third run over 2016-17 would make sense.

Have you been enjoying the series so far? Are you furious about the sonic sunglasses? Let us know in the comments below.

