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I wanted a new series to watch, and ended up watching Doctor Who S05E01 as my starting point (as suggested on the Internet, though). In this episode, the Doctor and the alien are speaking about the Attraxi, but I'm not sure whether they are the villains of the season/story.

Compared to other series, such as Arrow and The Flash, or heck, let's take Dragon Ball Z, each season has its own bad guy. And the season is finished when the bad guy is finished, or the goal has been reached. This is unlike Pokémon or Spongebob, for example, where each episode is just a new story around a certain topic with the first episode being equally special and interesting as the last one, and there is no goal or bad guy (well except for the Pokémon League).

Unlike Game of Thrones, though, which does not have a real ending to each ending of a season, but there is a clear continuing storyline going throughout.

My question is: does the final episode of Doctor Who season 5 give an answer to the whole season, does the season contain a story that will be ended/completed at the end of the season?

I'm asking this question because I'm doubtful whether each episode is really connected or just 'random' stories put together.

*feel free to add a TL;DR at the start of this topic if you've got one. *

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    Doctor Who is both "Monster of the week" and Serialized (overall plot). There are staple villains that will always make an appearance, but there are also seasonal narratives and end-villains, yes, for instance "Bad Wolf" in the the first couple of seasons of the modern Doctor Who (that you're watching). Don't forget to watch the Christmas specials
    – Ghoti and Chips
    Nov 7, 2016 at 21:03

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The episodes do indeed connect, although this may not be immediately clear. Unlike other shows, the "big bad" is not usually a particular person or people, but an event.

Although the individual episodes may not appear to have much connecting them, in each one there are clues - sometimes small, sometimes large - which build up to a big revelation in the final episode.

Season 5 (new series) is linked via:

the crack in Amy's wall

I won't spoil the why or how of it here. Watch the season, and enjoy it. See if you can figure it out before the end.

Each season of Doctor Who is like this. I'll list the revelations below, spoiler style:

Season 1: Rose Tyler is the Bad Wolf
Season 2: Effectively a backstory for Torchwood
Season 3: Mister Saxon is The Master
Season 4: Planets are going missing, leading to the Doctor Donna
Season 5: The crack in the wall is caused by the TARDIS exploding
Season 6: River Song
Season 7: Rory & Amy are lost to history/Clara defeats the Great Intelligence
Season 8: The Master (now Missy) has been building an army of the dead
Season 9: Who/what is the Hybrid? Clara and Me for eternity (and a whole lot of shipping)

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  • Season five was a great season, but it's finale answered some questions only with further questions. It took several more seasons to find the answers to those, and the answers were extremely weak.
    – curiousdannii
    Nov 7, 2016 at 3:34
  • I think 7 and 9 have much bigger revelations that you've skipped over...
    – OrangeDog
    Nov 7, 2016 at 9:50
  • I think you have to take into consideration that what you list as the season 5 link plays out more as the Smith's Doctor's entire arc story over his entire run.
    – Andrei Freeman
    Nov 7, 2016 at 12:50
  • In regards to the above - I've tried to summarise a whole lot of plot down to one line. It's not easy, what with all the timey wimey stuff going on. Also, trying to provide an answer without spoilers is kinda hard. :-)
    – Tim
    Nov 7, 2016 at 19:55
  • @randal'thor Spoilers, sweetie. But yes, agree with your thinking.
    – Tim
    Nov 7, 2016 at 20:46

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