The Silence have been widely recognized as the Doctor's most terrifying opponents in recent memory. The terrifying power of The Silence is not simply their menacing appearance and power to instantly obliterate life. What makes The Silence so horrible is that the second you aren't looking at them, you forget they exist. The team takes to marking their bodies with tally marks every time they see one so they don't forget. The Doctor also implants recording devices in their hands so that when they come across The Silence, they record a message of what they look like and can later replay it when they have forgotten. It becomes apparent that The Silence have basically been controlling the entire planet for years. Canton manages to record a video on Amy's phone of one of The Silence gloating and saying that humans should kill The Silence on sight because they are so dangerous but they can't even remember seeing them. Meanwhile, Amy is captured by The Silence and the other three have to search for her. The Doctor locates her using the chip in her hand and they find themselves in The Silence control room. At this time, Apollo 11 is preparing to lift off with the whole world glued to their televisions. The Doctor threads the video Canton took into the news broadcasts and humanity finally remembers that The Silence are everywhere and take to defeating them. As the episode wraps up, we're left with some dangling questions regarding overarching plot lines. First, The Doctor takes River Song back where she came from - the future, where she is in prison for killing someone (we still don't know who). The conflict of their relationship is that River's past is The Doctor's future - their stories are running in the opposite directions. Before The Doctor leaves, River kisses him, as she believes is normal behavior for them. However, The Doctor is stunned because on his timeline, they have never kissed before. This saddens River because she realizes that was, for her, the last time they would kiss and it means they are reaching the point where they will meet and he won't recognize her. Knowing that their end is coming, there are still several questions about River that need answers - How did her and The Doctor meet? What exactly is their relationship? Who did she kill?
Next, is the question of Amy's pregnancy. When The Doctor gets back on the TARDIS (his time and space travel machine) Amy tells him that although she told him earlier she was pregnant, she really isn't and doesn't know why she said it. The Doctor asks why she never told Rory and she says that she didn't tell him because she is worried that if she had been pregnant, all the time and space travelling would have affected their child. Later, when Amy is talking to Rory, The Doctor has the TARDIS do a body scan of Amy and the screen keeps flashing between pregnant/not pregnant. When Amy was alone in the room where she was found by The Silence, it was a girl's bedroom that had pictures on the dresser. One of the pictures was Amy holding the little girl, giving the impression that she was her mother. The next scene after the TARDIS is dated six months later. We see the same young girl apparently dying on a street in New York City when all of a sudden, she begins to regenerate - something that only Time Lords like The Doctor are able to do. Is this Amy's daughter? Is she a Time Lord? Why is she in New York City? There are plenty of questions about this plot line to be answered.
The whole battle against The Silence began because The Doctor led Amy, Rory, and River to witness him being killed by a girl in a spacesuit who was controlled by The Silence (the same girl in the pictures with Amy who we later see regenerate...coincidence?). While they are mourning his death, they encounter The Doctor from the past, who doesn't know he is going to die and this is The Doctor they have been with in these episodes. They know they cannot tell him what happened but he knows there is something they are not telling him. Amy always struggles with keeping the secret and she is sure that he showed them his death so they can eventually save him in his future. Will Amy spill the beans? Will they be able to save him? Why was he killed?
The last unanswered question in this episode is that of the eye patch lady.
While Amy is in the bedroom, a hatch opens to reveal a lady with an eye patch who appears to be talking to someone in the room with her. The hatch quickly shuts and she is never discussed or seen in the rest of the episode. I'm sure she will appear again and play a large role in a future conflict. I can foresee her appearing all season and being critical in the season finale story line.
These unanswered questions are what keep me watching Doctor Who. This show does a great job of connecting story lines throughout episodes while still making every episode an exciting, new adventure. With all the monsters and strange planets, the role of the companion serves to connect the audience with the story. Because the companions are modern humans, they represent the audience with their reactions to what The Doctor shows them. The core of the plot lines of Amy and Rory's marriage, her pregnancy, and The Doctor and River's relationship are very human in nature and provide something that doesn't require much fantasy to understand. Even though they involve fantastical elements, as an audience, we're able to empathize with the emotions of the characters. As crazy as it sounds, Doctor Who is very believable, even realistic. Time/space travel and monsters aside, the driving force of the show is the characters. Even The Doctor, who is an alien from another planet, has the appearance of a human and though there are moments he struggles to understand why humans do the things they do, he feels the same things humans do, making him a very relatable character.
Season 6, I should say Series 6 as the British do, is off to quite an exciting start. I always think it will be impossible to top the previous series but so far, it's looking like they are on the right track!
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