Steven Moffat's Doctor Who 2011: The Critical Fan's Guide to Matt Smith's Second Series (Unauthorized)

At over 90,000 words, this is the most comprehensive guide yet published to the 2011 season of Doctor Who. This series of Doctor Who had the greatest ambition yet, as Steven Moffat created the most complex Doctor Who story arc ever. The apparent death of the Doctor in the very first episode set the groundwork for a series full of other shocks and revelations (such as River Song's identity), which ended with a return to the essential mystery that has always underpinned the programme. The format of this book is the same as the one that we laid out in our previous guide to Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor. Steven Cooper has written excellent detailed analyses of each episode, which he published online soon after each episode was broadcast, thus providing an invaluable record of how a long-standing fan reacted to each twist of the plot as it occurred. Kevin Mahoney follows Steven's analyses with his reviews, which he wrote from the perspective of having watched the entire series. This enabled Kevin to gauge exactly how Steven Moffat had put this season together, and to assess the success of his various hoodwinks and sleights of hand. There have been various controversies this series, such as Moffat's novel move to split the series in half. Then there were murmurings of discontent within fandom when the news that there might be fewer than 14 episodes in 2012 leaked out, along with the perennial erroneous tales from the newspapers about the loss of viewing figures. The cancellation of Doctor Who Confidential left some fans fearing for the future of such an expensive show in austere times. Others have gone further than this, to suggest that Doctor Who itself needs a break. However, despite some minor blips in the storytelling department in 2011, this book argues that there is still a great deal to be positive about in Doctor Who.