Who’s Seasons (thoughts on season names for Doctor Who)

The second part of this year’s season of Doctor Who started today.

Now few would argues that 2011 contains one season, split into two parts, rather than two discrete seasons. But what do we call the season?

Officially, the BBC calls it Series 2 – the second season following Matt’s Smith’s debut in 2010, which was Series 1.

As an aside here I do not like calling a season Series x – as I see it the series is the programme as a whole, split into seasons, which usually comprise of each year’s output (or production block if you like).

But to confuse things, when Doctor Who returned in 2005, the Christopher Eccleston months were also called Series 1. This numbering went on to David Tennant’s final Series 4 (this last series included the 13 programmes in 2008, and the five special episodes that concluded on January 1 2010).

The BBC decided to restart with Matt Smith’s debut with another Series 1 to mark the start of a new production team as well as new Doctor. Despite this listing magazines tend to exercise common sense and call the 2011 run Series 6.

Steven Moffat, the current showrunner for Doctor Who acknowledged the confusion, and tried to help by referring to the 2010 run as ‘Series Fnarg’. So today we watched Series Fnarg+1, or more accurately Fnarg+1B.

Myself being a long term fan cares not for all this. My solution is simple – We are currently watching Season 32 (or 32B in you will) – Season 1 having started in 1963 on the day after Kennedy was assassinated. Now there is another story.

© Writer4Business 2011