The first seven episodes were broadcast from April to June 2011, beginning with "The Impossible Astronaut" and ending with mid-series finale "A Good Man Goes to War".

This series was the first to include a mid-season broadcast break since Season 18, with twelve weeks between the transmissions of "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler".

[1] Two three-minute mini-episodes titled "Space" and "Time", directed by Richard Senior, were released on 18 March 2011, filmed under the sixth series' production cycle as part of BBC One's Red Nose Day telethon for the charity Comic Relief.

The episodes form a two-part story, set entirely within the TARDIS, starring Matt Smith as the Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, and were written by the programme's head writer Steven Moffat.

[6] Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill continued their roles as the Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams.

[12] A young version of Amy was played by Gillan's eleven-year-old cousin, Caitlin Blackwood, in the episodes "Let's Kill Hitler" and "The God Complex".

[15] Guest stars of the main series included Michael Sheen (voice) as "House" in "The Doctor's Wife",[16] Imelda Staunton (voice) as "Interface" in "The Girl Who Waited", Suranne Jones as Idris in "The Doctor's Wife",[17] David Walliams as Gibbis in "The God Complex",[18] Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole as Henry Avery and the "Siren" respectively in "The Curse of the Black Spot",[19] Mark Sheppard as Canton in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon",[20] and Daniel Mays as Alex in "Night Terrors".

[21] Other guest stars included William Morgan Sheppard, Chukwudi Iwuji, Stuart Milligan, Kerry Shale, Lee Ross, Mark Bonnar, Sarah Smart, Marshall Lancaster, Raquel Cassidy, Christina Chong, Danny Sapani, Simon Fisher-Becker, Richard Dillane, Nina Toussaint-White, Amara Karan, Dimitri Leonidas, Sian Williams, Bill Turnbull, Meredith Vieira, and show writer Mark Gatiss.

[23] Neither Peter Bennett nor Tracie Simpson returned as producers, with Sanne Wohlenberg covering the role for "A Christmas Carol" and the first two episodes filmed for the main series ("The Doctor's Wife" and "Night Terrors").

[24] Lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat stated that the purpose of the previous series was to "reassure" the audience that the show was the same, despite the many production changes.

[32] Neil Gaiman had written "The Doctor's Wife" for the previous series, but due to budget constraints it was replaced with "The Lodger".

[34] Graham's two-parter was intended to lead into "A Good Man Goes to War", the mid-series finale, but have a main plot about "avatars that rebel".

[32][42] Then, in addition to revealing who River Song is, "A Good Man Goes to War" presented the situation of the Doctor, who was typically a pacifist, being provoked enough to assemble an army.

[50] Writer Gareth Roberts also wanted to bring back the Cybermen, as there were no other returning monsters in the series and he thought "there should be a sense of history about the Doctor's final battle to save Earth before he heads off to meet his death".

[71] Smith and Gillan, alongside executive producers Piers Wenger and Beth Willis and "The God Complex" writer Toby Whithouse, attended the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con in late June to promote the second half of the series.

[77] Prequels were subsequently released to promote "The Curse of the Black Spot",[78] "A Good Man Goes to War",[79] "Let's Kill Hitler",[80] and "The Wedding of River Song".

[85] However, "The Almost People" and "A Good Man Goes to War" were delayed by one week due to expected low numbers of TV viewers during the Memorial Day weekend.

[92] Some international broadcasts, including BBC America, contained a special introductory narration by Amy explaining the concept of the series before the opening credits.

Moffat was asked to write the sequence; he called it a "bloody good idea" because it would make it accessible to new audiences, despite noting that diehard fans would not like it.

[94][95] Doctor Who: Series Six, Part 2, covering episodes from "Let's Kill Hitler" to "The Wedding of River Song", was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 10 October 2011.

[100] A limited edition box set was also released in the UK with a lifted image of a Silent on the cover and including five 3-D art cards.

[118] "The Impossible Astronaut" premiered with a consolidated figure of 8.86 million viewers in the UK,[4] and was reportedly the most recorded television event of all time.

[147] Reviewing the first half, Dave Golder of SFX praised the change in direction Moffat had taken with the show, calling it "more visually impressive and more narratively rewarding than anything we've had before".

[148] The Guardian's Dan Martin was positive towards the first six episodes, despite calling "The Curse of the Black Spot" a "wasted opportunity" and noting that it would be a risk to serialise the story too much.

Anders commented in a review of the DVD release that the "inventiveness and cleverness" was an integral part of the sixth series, and the episodes such as "The Doctor's Wife" and "The God Complex" would be considered classics.

Despite finding the solution "witty, unpredictable ... and very satisfying", he stated that the subplots were "a bit convoluted" and potentially confusing, and they "seem to drop the mystery of the person in the space suit for a large part of the season and [focus] on other odd events".

[155] Digital Spy named Doctor Who the eighth best show of 2011, feeling that the series was "something of a mixed bag" with episodes of varying quality but generally praised the acting of the cast: "Matt Smith was firing on all cylinders – there's a confidence that comes with knowing you're a hit with viewers – while Arthur Darvill's Rory excelled in his first year as a series regular".

[160] Arnold T. Blumburg of IGN stated that the sixth series "inspired seriously divided reactions in fandom" and, in his opinion, "the show has never been more unevenly written or emotionally distant".

[161] Selected pieces of score from this series (from "The Impossible Astronaut" to "The Wedding of River Song"), as composed by Murray Gold, was released on 19 December 2011 by Silva Screen Records.