1. The Wedding of River Song
Who to Blame? Steven Moffat I've not got as much to say on this one as I did on 'Journey's End' but it annoys me more than the poorly thought out episode. This is mainly because of the attitude of its writer. Now, guys I ain't no Moffat-hater I don't think he's being intentionally sexist and I don't think he's destroyed the show but his finale to Series 6 almost ruined the entire series for me in a way that 'Journey's End' didn't. The events of 'Journey's End' had been hinted at in previous episodes but when it came to 'The Wedding of River Song' we were seeing the climax of the story that had been woven into most episodes of the entire previous series. Multiple episodes had featured characters being motivated by the Doctor's death. From Amy shooting the girl River in the space suit to The Doctor deciding to visit Craig one last time. We had seen multiple concepts for creatures to take the place of the dying Doctor. Those being the flesh and the tesselecta and we were smart enough to assume that they would be the solution to the Doctor's little problem but since Canton Everett Delaware III stated right at the beginning of the series that 'that most certainly is the Doctor, and he is most certainly dead' we has been lead to assume that we had something much more surprising and clever in store. Throughout the series we had been told time and time again that the Doctor had to die, it was a fixed event that could not be changed. This, it transpires was a lie. I barefaced, shameless lie. The real scripting sin here isn't that the Doctor survives, its that his survival, because of its build up is a direct contradiction of all that had come before. If the fixed event had been that the Doctor had to be shot at on the beach then it would have been fine. If Canton had only said 'that definitely is the Doctor' it would have been fine - we, the audience would be expected to assume that the Doctor had died due to what we had seen. Ultimately, however we would all be happy and surprised or at least impressed that we had been misguided by some well chosen words, that was the Doctor (he was inside the Tessalecta) and he had been on the beach fulfilling his destiny. However, we are told that he dies so we are lead to believe that we are in for a really clever twist. How can the dead Doctor, burned on his boat come back to life? The hopeful among us wanted to believe that we would be in for the twist of our lives but as it was we got sold a non-existent problem under the pretense that we could trust the Doctor. 'The Doctor lies,' seems to be the excuse-all line for Moffat's era but when he lies a problem into existence - that he has and always has to die - then what is the point of even watching the story? This is the biggest anti-climax of modern Doctor Who because it not only ruins most of the episodes in its series but it also shows that there isn't much point in following a Doctor who fabricates drama for the sake of his companions and the viewers at home. What a disappointment.