Howling:Silence in Series 5

The Howling → Silence in Series 5

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

So characters have been warning the Doctor that “silence will fall” since the eleventh hour. Now that we know that the Silence edit themselves out of memory it is possible that the silence have been around since the beginning of Moffat’s writing. I am in the process of re-watching the previous episodes to see if Moffat left us clues and came across the final scene of the eleventh hour. During that scene Amy’s face grows grim several times in the scene and she turns away only to look normal again. In addition she fiddles with the Tardis controls several times in the scene. I originally thought it odd, but ignored it since nothing came of it in that series. However, watching it now she appears to search for a particular control and flips it and then turns around quickly to mask the fact that she just did something to the Tardis as if the silence told her to do something. Perhaps a Silent has been in the Tardis all this time. This would also explain why we hear the voice in the Tardis in The Pandorica Opens.

Now on a side note, I also rewatched The Edge of Destruction recently and can see a lot of illusions to something getting into the Tardis. Barbara, Ian, Susan and the Doctor all start acting differently and also seem to be fighting these new traits (which feels like subliminal messages). Something affects the Tardis and causes it to malfunction (much like Pandorica Opens). And to top it all off Susan even mentions Silence. I am not saying that this is connected, just that I found it really funny. However, if Moffat links all the way back to the third story of Doctor Who, then I think Moffat is an even more amazing writer than I ever thought.

Anyways, I would like others to post here other instances where characters might see Silence so that we can discuss their legitimacy. MasterIII 21:47, May 3, 2011 (UTC)

It is incredibly unlikely that the writers of the 3rd episode of the show were setting up a plot arc that wouldn't be resolved for almost half a century. In Edge of Destruction, everything that happened had to do with the TARDIS being alive and telepathic, and trying to warn them that the fast-return-switch was broken.(Although it would have been simpler to ring the cloister bells or something.)Icecreamdif 22:29, May 3, 2011 (UTC)

No I think you misunderstood me. I am sure that the writers of Edge of destruction had intended for the episode to be concluded after the two episodes. What I was trying to say is that Stephen Moffat may be a clever enough writer to have seen possibility in that episode and to write elements of that into this season's story arc so as to link back to it. Again that was just a side note in this thread and highly unlikely, mostly I am interested in scenes in Moffat written stories and in series 5 as a whole that may be interperated as a charachter seeing silence.MasterIII 03:14, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Someone just pointed out to me a few things to add to this, all in the soundtrack:

• The background music that's used as the Silence theme in the series 6 opener also appears in various places in series 5.

• The "electronic lion purr" sound that follows the Silence around also appeaed in various places.

• The high pitched noise right after the Doctor interrupts the companions having their huddled conversation underneath the TARDIS control panel appeared multiple times, often near lines about Silence, but also in A Christmas Carol and other places that don't seem relevant.

At this point, I'm just forwarding someone else's idea; I haven't gone back and watched series 5 yet to see if there's anything to it... not that I'm complaining about having another good excuse to do so. :) --99.33.24.89 11:13, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

Also, on the Edge of Destruction bit, it's not impossible that the Moff thought about that. He's talked about rewatching the early episodes recently, and he's retroactively added "unintended premonitions" into past episodes before, albeit mostly his own RTD-era episodes. (In fact, this episode may have another one: What happened when the Doctor and Martha were stranded in 1969 in Blink, and did it have anything to do with the fact that for some reason they ended up watching the moon landing 4 times?) Edge also seems to have some premonitions of The Doctor's Wife. (And the classic story that episode referenced most directly, War Games, was the 1969 story where Zoe's and Rory's memories were wiped, and the Doctor went off on his "Season 6B" adventures that nobody remembered until the Virgin novels decades later... a lot more happened than most people remember indeed....) --99.33.24.89 11:29, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

The bit about Amy fiddling with the Tardis console and then acting like she had no idea what she'd just done, was extremely alarming to me the first time I saw it. It reminded me of Turlough, albeit that Turlough knew what he was doing at the time. I'd be very interested in a list of "electronic lion purr" noises and musical cues, such as 99.33 mentions.

Also, some things are a bit odd to me about the warning Prisoner Zero gives the Doctor: 1- PZ is the Doctor's enemy, so it doesn't make sense for PZ to give helpful clues. It seems more like a taunt. 2- Why would the fall of the Silence's dominion over earth, be a taunt? Was demonizing the Silence a mistake? 3- Same question if it's a warning... why warn the Doctor that evil domineering aliens will fall?

Some of these elements surrounding the Silence are starting to seem like an arsepull... let's hope not. Agonaga 04:18, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the fall of the Silence is somehow connected to what ultimately led to the army of Clerics. Or maybe the Silence are a lot less local than we thought, and Silence Will Fall (in the opposite sense) over the rest of the galaxy, even though the Silence have fallen on Earth. Or...

Anyway, I think it's intentional that "Silence Will Fall" can have two opposite meanings (much as "Miranda Cleaves" can, "cleaves" being the English word most famous for having two opposite meanings...), but I don't think the Moff worked out to do with those two opposite meanings until this season, so it'll be hard to work out too much of the plot by watching season 5. --99.8.228.227 04:00, June 5, 2011 (UTC)

I think it makes sense that the Silence were in the TARDIS during Series 5 at least because they were most likely the ones who cause the TARDIS to blow up. Putting that together with Amy fiddling with the TARDIS controls suddenly makes sens: I haven't watched "Pandorica" in a while, but does it seem possible that the Silence told River to land outside Amy's house on June 26, 2010? River, unlike Amy, has experience flying the TARDIS, and knows what controls are what even better than the Doctor. Also, I've heard a lot about instances in "The Lodger" where Amy may see a Silent while in the TARDIS and then acts confused as if she's forgotten something. I also think that the ship using the perception filter in "The Lodger" was owned by the Silence; it returns in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon". Craig is coming back this fall, so maybe that's when this will be solved. Glimmer721 23:58, July 5, 2011 (UTC)

P.S. For scenes in "The Lodger", see this video Glimmer721 00:25, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

In The Pandorica Opens just before the TARDIS explode theres a voice that say it again “Silence will fall“ and is not the voice of the Silence. Why would Silence say that anyway? Bmaria 15:10, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

I'm starting to wonder: if Prisoner Zero came through that crack in the wall, did anything else come through?Boblipton 16:50, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

Probably not. The Doctor only opened the crack for a couple of seconds, and we saw the crack the whole time it was open. A Silence could have come through, and we just forgot about it, but why would it. The Silence have been on Earth since the wheel and the fire, so why would they have to come to 90s Earth through a time crack?Icecreamdif 05:50, July 7, 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed in this picture [1] if you look at the middle left there are some cowled figures that look a lot like the Silence. Also there have been several images of Silence wearing monks robes, this fits with my theory that the Headless Monks are somehow connected with the Silence. 200.199.23.121 14:07, September 12, 2011 (UTC)

Those are Roboforms, nothing to do with the Silence. Also on whether the Silence could've had a hand in Edge of Destruction I would say: highly probable at the moment. I believe Steven Moffat or someone else connected to the series said something about the Silence influencing for much longer than anyone expected and mentioned the lack of memory of as prelude to the possibility they have been influencing things around the Doctor his entire life. The Light6 01:07, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

Well, that could explain every discontinuity in the history of the show: the Doctor's age, the 2nd Doctor thinking Time Lords are immortal, everyone on Gallifrey forgetting about the Eye of Harmony, the Daleks not recognizing the Doctor in two stories where they should have, the Doctor and the Master forgetting they were loomed, Time Lords using the Looms in the first place (because they forgot that the Curse of Pythia never actually worked), the Delgado Master being both his 1st and 13th incarnations, the 1st Doctor's single pulse and the conflicting explanations that have been given, when the UNIT stories happened, the first four Doctors frequently mixing up the words "galaxy" and "universe", the TARDIS sometimes being able to translate written (even smell-based) language and sometimes not, whether TARDISes are built or grown, most of War of the Daleks, the multiple first times the Doctor met Shakespeare (and which incarnation helped him write which play), … :) --50.0.128.155 02:51, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

So can lack of infinite amounts of time to do the research on older works. Boblipton 03:26, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

One day, Gary Russell will end up as show-runner on Doctor Who, and there will never be a single continuity error in the 13 episodes he oversees before he gets the show canceled. :) --50.0.128.155 04:18, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

Why would the Silence have been involved in Edge of Destruction. The events of that episode were all explained by the TARDIS trying to warn the Doctor and friends that the spring on the fast return switch was broken (maybe that's why they recalled all the type 40s). If any recent episode makes that story make more sense than it's The Doctor's Wife. Even if the Silence were somehow involved in that episode, what could they possibly have hoped to gain? As for the Silence being behind every continuity error in the series, that seems more than a little unlikely. What, for example, would the Silence gain by making the Second Doctor think that Time Lords are immortal (and though not strictly immortal they are incredibly long lived barring accidents. Didn't it take the First Doctor 500 years to die of old age, and if you go all 13 lives without accidents, a layman might call that immortal) Same with confusing the Master about which incarnation he's in, or making everyone forget what year it is. The Silence wouldn't seem to have anything to gain from this.Icecreamdif 04:20, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

The notion of the Silence being involved in The Edge of Destruction is at least slightly daft. The possibility that it could have contributed to Moffat's ideas, however, is not -- it's just unprovable. If it did contribute, even Moffat himself might not have been concsious of the fact. As I recall, The Edge of Destruction was, in effect, the TARDIS playing a game of charades to try to get across the notion "out of time" because the stuck switch was continuing to tell her to travel backwards in time, when there was no earlier time she could travel to. She had, quite literally, run out of time. A voice interface would have been useful on that occasion.

It's much more plausible that so-far unexplained, seemingly minor events in The Eleventh Hour and later episodes might be down to the Silence -- not retrospectively "explained away" by their influence but always intended to be part of their story -- because Moffat was in a position to put such things into the show by then. It's not merely possible that the Silence have been around since the start of Series 5. They were. Moffat might not have had all the details worked out, but he certainly had enough to make Prisoner Zero say, "Silence will fall, Doctor." Any further back than The Eleventh Hour is a shade unlikely, however. --89.242.76.105 08:34, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

People keep taking my comment about the Edge of Destruction seriously. Don't take my comments about EoD literaly. All I was trying to say was that I could see elements in EoD that might suggest a silent in the Tardis as far back as that episode. I had watched The Day of the Moon as well as a video looking at the clips of series 5 that might have been slients on Youtube just prior to rewatching EOD. It was an amusement to me to think that Moffat might be trying to tie things back to the third story of Doctor Who. Do I think that is really the case, no of course not. I agree that it is highly unlikely that that is the case. I guess I was trying to suggest that those reading this post should watch the episode over with the idea that a silent had gotten into the Tardis, just once. They should have a laugh with this notion and then go back to the original intent behind the episode (which I agree is much more closely tied to the Doctor’s Wife).

Completely separate from the EOD discussion:

What I do believe (until this theory is proved wrong) is that there are silents in series 5 that will be revealed as series 6 concludes (including one wandering around inside the Tardis). Again the scene with Amy in the console room for the first time still doesn’t sit right with me. MasterIII 23:57, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

That really doesn't look like its anything more than Amy just playing with the buttons and being surprised when it makes a noise. I doubt the Silence have anything to do with it. The only time in season 5 whereit reeally seems likely that a Silence is present is during The Pandorica Opens when River was in the TARDIS and it blew up.Icecreamdif 00:25, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

"As for the Silence being behind every continuity error in the series, that seems more than a little unlikely." Well, yes, it was supposed to be blatantly facetious. The Silence can't possibly have made the Time Lords forget about the Eye of Harmony for thousands of years. Even if they could, how could the Master have learned the truth without learning about the Silence? It makes no sense. Obviously, the truth is that the Silence made Graham Williams forget most of Robert Holmes' script a year earlier (and so on all the way up to Philip Segal 18 years after that). The Silence were running the Earth since the wheel and the fire, and the BBC is part of the Earth. Why? Because they wanted to discredit the show, so that nobody would notice that the Question is hidden right there in plain sight, of course. Nobody remembers any of the details of the classic series except the kind of fans who are too busy debating minutiae to notice anything larger. (Gary Russell is, of course, the one man who is immune to the Silence. RTD wrote about Gary's 1782-page Great Big Encyclopedia of Everything in Doctor Who Ever Anywhere in The Writers' Tale, and yet, as soon as you turn the page, you forget, and you're sure that all he wrote was the 192-page Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia covering just the new series.)

Anyway, more seriously, I think it's going to turn out that the larger Silence religious order, not specifically the alien things on Earth, were behind most of the loose plot threads from last season. Prisoner Zero was talking about their core prophecy, not about the aliens falling upon the Earth, or about them falling from power after 1969. And so on. But Icecreamdif may be right that the Panodorica Opens scene is an exception to that. --70.36.140.19 04:58, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

MasterIII & Icecreamdif: "the scene with Amy in the console room for the first time" & "That really doesn't look like its anything more than Amy just playing with the buttons..." It wouldn't, even if SM intended to reveal later that it was the Silence (Munch Scream aliens). Even the cast and the other members of the crew might not have known what SM was up to, if he just said he wanted Amy to do what she did and didn't say why he wanted it. Alex Kingston has said (I think in one of the DW Confidentials) that, when she was working on Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, the stuff she had to read from River's diary -- the crash of the Byzantium was the main example she gave -- seemed like nothing more than dialogue to establish the idea of River's previous encounters with the Doctor and it wasn't until she worked on The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone that she discovered there really was a story about the crash. After that but only after that, she started wondering what the stories were behind the other incidents referred to in River's diary. Secrecy isn't the only reason SM fails to explain to the cast what's behind some of the stuff he gets them to do. He also wants to avoid distracting the actors by giving them too much to think about.

On the other hand, the scene with Amy in the console room might be nothing more than it appears to be on the surface. Some scenes are, in spite of SM's involvement.

The TARDIS explosion is different. We're meant to know it's not yet been explained, and the same goes for the full meaning of PZ's "Silence will fall, Doctor!" We're also quite obviously meant to connect them. The script had PZ say, "The Pandorica will open and Silence will fall!" so that we would connect them. --89.241.76.198 06:42, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

Moffat has said that he hadn't actually planned to write an episode about the crash of the Byzantium at the time he wrote that line. He loved the sound of that so much that it stayed with him, and by the time he decided to do another River episode, it had to be about the crash.

Kind of the same thing as the water names. Originally, it was just a coincidence. (Remember that originally the coincidence was River Song, Jackson Lake, and Adelaide Brooke, invented by three different writers, but everyone thought it would be significant in the 2009 finale.) But after first RTD and then Moffat were asked about it a few million times apiece, suddenly Moffat thought of an interesting way to make use of it, and now it's actually meaningful.

The case with "silence will fall" isn't quite like that. He's said that from the moment he wrote that line in the first episode of series 5, he knew that the Silence was going to carry over and be important in series 6—but he didn't actually decide what the Silence was until he started plotting out series 6 (which means, toward the end of filming series 5, which means he could have snuck them into The Pandorica Opens). --70.36.140.19 07:46, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

"Moffat has said...": Rule 1, Moffat lies. He's said so himself (and it's logically impossible for that particular statement to be untrue). He certainly lied shamelessly about River. However, even if he's telling the truth, this time, I'd not put it past him to insert the Silence retrospectively into events from episodes made before he'd worked out what he wanted the Silence to be, if only by using dialogue to "explain" things.

What he said about the crash of the Byzantium might be another lie or it might (very strictly interpreted) be the truth but we know Moffat thinks ahead and leaves "hooks" on which he can hang future stories, if he wants to. The clearest example is Jenny in The Doctor's Daughter, who was originally intended to die. Moffat asked that she be kept alive, so that future stories about her would be possible. As far as I know, no such story is yet planned and there's no obligation on him to come up with one, but the "hook" is there if he ever wants to hang something on it. Entries in River's diary are very likely to be in the same category: "hooks" that can be used in future but don't have to be. For him, it's a win/win situation. If he writes a story about (say) Jim the Fish, it ties in with what's gone before. If he never does, the references to Jim the Fish serve to give depth to the characters and remind us we don't see everything the Doctor (or River) gets up to, thus providing cover whenever a story needs the Doctor (or River) to know something we don't know he (or she) knows.

Personally, I have no complaints about Moffat thinking ahead in this way, especially as it makes him careful to avoid doing things that limit his (or other writers') future story options. Had Moffat been around to influence things at the time, I doubt if the "12 regeneration limit" would have been scripted to be as hard and fast as it was, facing writers now, or in the next few years, with the problem of how to get around it without obviously "cheating". The limit might still have been there to explain why the Master was doing what he was but an "out" would have been built in to the story in a way that left the Master in that fix without putting all Time Lords, including the Doctor, in the fix with him. --2.101.55.215 20:03, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I doubt the writers at the time of that fourth Doctor episode really imagined that the show would be running for long enough for it to be an issue. If they had wanted to, they could have just had the Master come back being played by a different actor, but they dcided not to for whatever reason. The regeneration limit is actually a good thing if you think abuot it though. It makes the Doctor more human by showing that his life span is not infinite, and he will eventually die no matter what. without the regeneration limit, we also wouldn't have had that great scene in Let's Kill Hitler where River sacrifices her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor's life. Has Moffat actually said that the reason he asked for Jenny to remain alive so that she could be brought back if someone ever wanted to, or did he just think that that would be a better ending for The Doctor's Daughter? The Prisoner Zero thing was probably jut referring to the end of the universe in The Pandorica Opens, sinced the Pandorica was opened in that episode and Silence did fall, or owuld have had it not been for Big Bang 2. Was there anything in that episode that might qualify as the question that would cause silence to fall?Icecreamdif 20:18, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

I don't suppose the writers at the time did imagine the show would run long enough for the limit to create problems. My point was that I think Moffat is better at thinking ahead than they were. Even if he'd not have expected such a long run, his preference for leaving options open would (I suspect) have led him to say, "Don't do it that way, do it this other way, so nobody trips over it later."

As far as Jenny is concerned, my understanding is that Moffat liked the character and wanted the option of bringing her back. It's certainly true, though, that (even if she never does return) it was a better ending. In very, very many continuing shows, when a guest character becomes emotionally important to a regular character, any but the most naïve viewer knows that that guest character is going to be killed off. It's a cliché. It may be (I don't know) that Moffat got his way over Jenny's survival because RTD and/or others recognised that it did improve the ending. --2.101.55.215 21:54, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

Moffat doesn't always think ahead. He didn't object to Davies line about Time Lords' having 507 regenerations, and think how much trouble that will cause the writeres in a few centuries.Icecreamdif 00:06, September 15, 2011 (UTC)

Well, his alternative at that point was sticking with 12. The alternative to 12 when it was first put in a script was no troublesome limit. --89.240.248.104 03:24, September 15, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but then they'd still have the problem of making the Time Lords immortal. There have been quite a few good episodedss that revolved around the regeneration limit.Icecreamdif 03:34, September 15, 2011 (UTC)

Re-planning 30-year-old stories would be a bit futile but they'd not have had that problem if they'd simply left things as they were (ie, unspecified) for Time Lords in general and scripted it so only the Master had a problem. However, you've raised something that affects all long-running shows: individual ideas that are good, or even excellent, in themselves but leave behind persisting problems for the show as a whole. (Star Trek, for example, had the problem that, once they'd introduced the transporter as a fast way of getting the characters into the action, it also gave the characters far too easy a way of getting out of jeopardy. Landing party in danger? Beam it up and, if necessary, beam it back down somewhere safer. That's why they kept having to find ways to disable the thing.) Sometimes, even a superb story comes with a long-term cost that's too great. Moffat's reboot of the universe was intended to correct a problem of exactly this kind. The stories in Aliens of London/World War Three, The Christmas Invasion, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, etc. were all great stories (which I still very much enjoy) but they made the "ordinary" world of early 21st-century Earth inside the show a very different place from the real early 21st-century Earth and, short of drastic action, the divergence between them could only grow. Eventually, it would have got to the stage where new viewers wouldn't have been able to identify with the show's version of Earth -- familiarity with aliens and (logically inevitable) defences against hostile aliens. Before too long, it would have been difficult to use the real world as a shooting location without having to use a lot of expensive CGI to create the differences that there logically ought to have been. The show's version of contemporary Earth would have become an alien world itself -- or, rather, as much a parallel world as the London of "Pete's World", and as difficult to present on screen. The nature of the show, unlike many others, allows such a problem to be corrected -- time can be rewritten and, if needs be, the entire universe can be re-run to remove the troublesome events. Series 5 did that. --89.242.76.175 15:53, September 15, 2011 (UTC)