Geekscape

Exec. Producer and head writer Steven Moffat made an appearance at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland over the weekend and made a surprise announcement that the next series of Doctor Who will be split into 2 parts.

Going so far as to refer to them as series 6 and 7, Moffat said that the decision came about because of a new story arc that he wanted to write for next year. As a result, 7 episodes of new Who will air in the spring of 2011 ending in a "game changing" cliffhanger. They will be followed by 6 episodes in the fall and the traditional episode at Christmas.

I am personally hoping that this tactic saves us from the usual mid-season slump that we tend see around the airing of the usual second two-part episode. I got a little bored with series 5 around the time of "The Vampires of Venice." I think the same thing happened after series 4's Sontaran two-parter. 2 premiers and 2 finales sounds kind of exciting to me, but we shall see.

Source: www.youtube.com