Doctor Who S6e13 "The Wedding Of River Song" [spoilers]

[NecronLord]

5. Why use the impossible astronaut to kill the Doctor? Why even make up such a plan? In fact why do you need River to kill him? According to the "timey whimey physics" of the show, they just need to find a place which is a "still point" then they make into a fixed point. They seem to have the know how to identify these "still points", so why use River especially when the suit is controlling her? They could have just gotten any old tool.

Why not just use the silent standing on the hilltop with a sniper rifle...

I have just come up with a fanfic; the Gunman on the Grassy Knoll was a Silent.

[NecronLord]

Let's also not forget that River has made it abundantly clear that the only reason she's in prison is because she's willingly staying there.

She's still taking the blame for something she didn't do. Granted, their are big advantages to her doing so in terms of fooling the Silence, but it kind of sucks for her.

We're presuming she lives most of her life there and not in the TARDIS why?

It's April 18th, the Doctor turns up.
For her, two weeks pass.
It's morning of April 19th, she drops off in her cell again. Taunts some guards a bit.
It's evening April 19th, the Doctor turns up.

Repeat until Silence in the Library.

[Vaporous]

I knew any pathos the episode might have would be undone by whatever the cop-out ending would be (thought it was going to be a doctor Flesh Clone, but Time Traveling Robot Shape Shifter works, I guess) so i tried to just enjoy it for being oddball. even then it was kind of mediocre.

[Ahriman238]

It had its strong and weak points. I was strongly reminded of the Big Bang, with the TARDIS/Doctor causing the universe to end and an earth where time is all screwy. And I was remind of 'A Good Man Goes to War' with everyone calling up to say 'how can we help?'

Man. Rory is a badass even while he's being electrocuted to death.

I thought the whole thing with the Tesselector was a pretty good twist to an impossible situation. If River had understood what was happening from the start, they'd have spared us this whole episode, but that's good.

Amy and Rory's reactions to figuring they're now the Doctor's in-laws was priceless.

So the Silence's evil plan is to prevent the Doctor from destroying the universe (or himself, or them, or something. This 'silence will fall' bit is getting complicated) by going to a particular place and time and unlocking the secrets of his identity. Ok. So... didn't the SIlence sabotage the TARDIS and destroy the universe that way last season? Seems counterproductive to me.

Just out of curiosity, exactly how many messages have they sent to every point in space and time since the new series began? First Bad Wolf, the phone call from Journey's End, the 'DNA of the universe' from the Big Bang, and now 'the Doctor is dying, help.' The universe is probably getting a little crowded with all of these messages to anyone and everyone. To say nothing of how none of these but Bad Wolf are found by the Doctor before they're supposed to be.

[xerex]

5. Why use the impossible astronaut to kill the Doctor? Why even make up such a plan? In fact why do you need River to kill him? According to the "timey whimey physics" of the show, they just need to find a place which is a "still point" then they make into a fixed point. They seem to have the know how to identify these "still points", so why use River especially when the suit is controlling her? They could have just gotten any old tool.

the only explanation I can think of is that they needed her with her Time Lord abilities to use as a battery to power the suit's weapons to kill the Doctor and prevent him from regenerating.

of course they said nothing of the kind in the series.

[2000AD]

5. Why use the impossible astronaut to kill the Doctor? Why even make up such a plan? In fact why do you need River to kill him? According to the "timey whimey physics" of the show, they just need to find a place which is a "still point" then they make into a fixed point. They seem to have the know how to identify these "still points", so why use River especially when the suit is controlling her? They could have just gotten any old tool.

the only explanation I can think of is that they needed her with her Time Lord abilities to use as a battery to power the suit's weapons to kill the Doctor and prevent him from regenerating.

of course they said nothing of the kind in the series.

They also didn't mention any suit re-enforcing they did to explain why if she could break out of the suit as a child why couldn't she as an adult?

[Darth Nostril]

Man I called the ending as soon as the crew of the Teselecta asked "Is there anything else we can do?"
Loved it though, five from me.

[Fiji_Fury]

So the Silence's evil plan is to prevent the Doctor from destroying the universe (or himself, or them, or something. This 'silence will fall' bit is getting complicated) by going to a particular place and time and unlocking the secrets of his identity. Ok. So... didn't the SIlence sabotage the TARDIS and destroy the universe that way last season? Seems counterproductive to me.

This right here is the bit that is requiring ridiculous mental acrobatics in an attempt to make any sense. I appreciate the Silence aliens as menacing, creepy villains... but their vast conspiracy/plan keeps running afoul of the fact that they are self-contradictory and apparently so incompetent that Dr. Evil seems to be part of the brain trust.

1) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... let's lock him in the Pandorica and cause his ship to explode and end the universe. No wait...?
2) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... let's confront Amy who knows he is killed and tell her to tell him to reveal the Doctor's fate to the Doctor before he experiences it... how could something like that (which failed anyway) go horribly wrong against a man with a time machine! Creepy looking alien plot FTW!
3) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... we'll kill him with River... crap she defected. Okay, we'll have to... uhm, suit... River in it anyway because we're bastards... no, wait, we're saving the universe so we're justified yet we stole a baby... and forced her to kill a man she's in love with. Yeah, that sounds about right. EVIL. Was that an easily escapable fate for a man with a time machine? Oops. Let's just assume it all went according to plan.
4) The Doctor is a universe ending threat because... his name has power? Better make sure he doesn't make it to the event we know about where the universe can be shattered by him answering the question "Doctor Who"? --- Except to know that he can't answer the question there means it's already happened or we wouldn't know the outcome of that moment - aaaghghaiockljczoip - there we go, I've gone cross-eyed

Don't get me wrong - I would expect that when you have two time-travelling forces duking it out things will become complicated. It's just that there's so little explanation of any of this in two seasons that my suspension of disbelief is wearing thin.

[Iroscato]

So the Silence's evil plan is to prevent the Doctor from destroying the universe (or himself, or them, or something. This 'silence will fall' bit is getting complicated) by going to a particular place and time and unlocking the secrets of his identity. Ok. So... didn't the SIlence sabotage the TARDIS and destroy the universe that way last season? Seems counterproductive to me.

This right here is the bit that is requiring ridiculous mental acrobatics in an attempt to make any sense. I appreciate the Silence aliens as menacing, creepy villains... but their vast conspiracy/plan keeps running afoul of the fact that they are self-contradictory and apparently so incompetent that Dr. Evil seems to be part of the brain trust.

1) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... let's lock him in the Pandorica and cause his ship to explode and end the universe. No wait...?
2) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... let's confront Amy who knows he is killed and tell her to tell him to reveal the Doctor's fate to the Doctor before he experiences it... how could something like that (which failed anyway) go horribly wrong against a man with a time machine! Creepy looking alien plot FTW!
3) The Doctor is a universe ending threat so... we'll kill him with River... crap she defected. Okay, we'll have to... uhm, suit... River in it anyway because we're bastards... no, wait, we're saving the universe so we're justified yet we stole a baby... and forced her to kill a man she's in love with. Yeah, that sounds about right. EVIL. Was that an easily escapable fate for a man with a time machine? Oops. Let's just assume it all went according to plan.
4) The Doctor is a universe ending threat because... his name has power? Better make sure he doesn't make it to the event we know about where the universe can be shattered by him answering the question "Doctor Who"? --- Except to know that he can't answer the question there means it's already happened or we wouldn't know the outcome of that moment - aaaghghaiockljczoip - there we go, I've gone cross-eyed

Don't get me wrong - I would expect that when you have two time-travelling forces duking it out things will become complicated. It's just that there's so little explanation of any of this in two seasons that my suspension of disbelief is wearing thin.

It's ok, Fiji, just take a few aspirin and maybe some eye correction surgery...
See, I don't ever bother thinking too much into the masses and masses of paradoxes and mind bending timey-wimey crap that goes on in Doctor Who, which has happened since day 1. I just let the episodes (the good ones anyway) take me on a ride and give me a thumping good 45 minutes of television. The confusion's usually one of the best parts for me, as long as it's done right.

Oh and for the record...
'She thinks you're a Mr Hottie...ness, and she'd like to go out with you for...texting and scones.'
'You really haven't done this before have you?'
'No I haven't'...
PERFECTLY sums up the 11th Doctor for me. Eccentric, awkward but good-natured, as well as bloody funny

[Revy]

*snip*

Thank goodness, I was starting to think I was the only one who thought it was one big ball of nonsensical mess. It's as if the episode was cut with subliminal messages from the Silence telling everyone "You will enjoy this episode".

We still have no explanation for the Silence blowing up the universe. Two seasons on and nothing, not even a hint. At this point I'm ready to believe that there was no reason behind it, and it will never be explained.

I still fail to see why time ground to a halt just because River refused to shoot a robot double of the Doctor. I mean what, are we supposed to believe that the Doctor was able to trick time or reality or whatever into thinking he died? How does that even work? I thought that if you messed with fate then the Reapers showed up and went all Langoliers on your ass.

And the Silence themselves. We still have no explanation as to how they can be so low tech as to force humans to invent a space suit for them, yet high tech enough to remote pilot and self destruct the TARDIS of all things. We still don't have an explanation for their own TARDIS'esque ships, or an explanation as to what happened to the supposedly hundreds of those said ships after the moon landing mayhem. And despite what the time cops would have us believe, it seems that the Silence IS an alien race, not a religious order, because the memory proof suit wearing aliens are calling the shots and the human Silence are just patsies being used by those aliens.

I have to ask myself how it is anyone can fight those guys. We saw that Churchill and the Doctor were defending themselves from the Silence at one point, but kept losing sight of them and forgetting. Yet the Silence have the ability to control people with commands once you lose sight of them. Why didn't they just tell them to shoot themselves, or lay down their weapons, or have a heart attack, or ... anything? Heck, we know a holographic or video image of them is enough to control people, so they could simply use projectors to pop up before people, tell them to top themselves or go to sleep or something, then deactivate and watch it happen. It's a wonder they don't just send the Doctor a holomessage instructing him to fly the TARDIS into a supernova or somesuch.

We still have no explanation for Rory referring to people in the past tense. We still have no explanation as to where the Doctor went after Demon's Run. I'm getting really sick of waiting for a pay off that doesn't come.

And good god, River. So first we had RTD with his self-insert Rose, who fell in love with the Doctor (and vice versa) and probably wound up marrying his hand clone in an alternate universe. Then we have Moffat with his self-insert pet sue character who ... falls in love with the Doctor (and vice versa) who ends up marrying him and waxes every chance about how much she super awesomely loves him.

... when someone takes over running the show from Moffat, I shudder to think who we'll get next. Can we please stop with the fanboy producers creating female inserts that have awesome adventures with the Doctor, becomes his true love and come off like a puke-worthy fanfiction? Please?

Someone joked a few episodes back that we're heading for the days of River herself as the Doctor's next companion. I laughed the idea off. I'm not laughing anymore, I'm dreading it, because it wouldn't surprise me at all. If it actually happens, I'm not watching anymore.

When Season 6 started, I thought it would all be tied up in the finale and come together like some awesome jigsaw. Now I'm convinced the writers don't have a damn clue what they're doing anymore, and are just making it all up as they go along. It's a shame, because Eleven is my favourite Doctor so far, and I know I'd enjoy the show a hell of a lot more if only we had some decent non fanboyish writers running things. Do we even need to have a season long recurring arc with an overblown finale each year? If they did away with it, then we could have more self-contained polished stories not crammed with overreaching memes and melodrama. My favourite episodes this season were all stand alone stories with no connection to the season arc.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've been watching Season 4 again of late, and I realised something. We've already had this spiel about the Doctor's name then.

We had Davros naming him the Destroyer of Worlds in the Medusa Cascade for one, and we had charachters alluding to it during the season, like the prophetess in the Pompeii episode, "your true name is written in the stars in the acascade of Medusa herself" and so on.

[Captain Seafort]

I've been watching Season 4 again of late, and I realised something. We've already had this spiel about the Doctor's name then.

We had Davros naming him the Destroyer of Worlds in the Medusa Cascade for one, and we had charachters alluding to it during the season, like the prophetess in the Pompeii episode, "your true name is written in the stars in the cascade of Medusa herself" and so on.

We've had it raised repeatedly, on and off, for almost half a century.

[Ahriman238]

I've been watching Season 4 again of late, and I realised something. We've already had this spiel about the Doctor's name then.

We had Davros naming him the Destroyer of Worlds in the Medusa Cascade for one, and we had charachters alluding to it during the season, like the prophetess in the Pompeii episode, "your true name is written in the stars in the cascade of Medusa herself" and so on.

We've had it raised repeatedly, on and off, for almost half a century.

I figure that's the plot hook/arc for next year. Myabe they'll even reveal it, we're getting close to the 50th anniversary of the show.

If you want to be meta/pedantic, it is the first question asked by the show (and thus, the show's universe) and is hidden in plain sight.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Having thought about it, if, during this alternate timeline bollocks, all of history happenned at once, shouldn't there have been a whole bunch of wars, not to mention the Daleks from "Dalek Invasion of Earth/Day of the Daleks/Dalek/Resurrection of the Daleks/Remembrance of the Daleks/Parting of the Ways/Doomsday/Daleks in Manhattan/Journey's End" and a bunch fo Cybermen from "The Invasion/Attack of the Cybermen" etc. And the Master and so on and so forth.

In short, we supposedly have all of history at once. Where the smeg are all the alien invasions that have done on in the show's past?

[Alkaloid]

We still have no explanation for Rory referring to people in the past tense. We still have no explanation as to where the Doctor went after Demon's Run. I'm getting really sick of waiting for a pay off that doesn't come.

I think people might be reading too much into that. It was probably realising that the Doctor was going to leave them, given that he probably understands him as much as anyone can.

I mean what, are we supposed to believe that the Doctor was able to trick time or reality or whatever into thinking he died?

It depends what the fixed point is. If it is only "River Song shoots the Doctor on the shores of lake blah blah at this time on this date," then that's what happened. It also explains why the Silence went to so much trouble to kidnap Melody specifically, because they could brainwash her to make sure she would shoot him fatally, which wasn't necessary to the fixed point bit. But that sounds a bit too much like me justifying it to myself for my liking.

Oddly enough, this episode makes me hate River less. Yeah, the Doctor panders to her every whim, up to and including marriage, but it now seems to be mostly out of guilt, and because she is an unstable lunatic willing to destroy time itself to get what she wants, and he doesn't want to kill her, but doesn't want to let her run around unsupervised either.

The Silence still baffle me though. They seem to be going out of their way to make the Doctor take risks that endanger the Universe etc to stop them, specifically for the purpose of justifying their attempts to kill him, which drive him to take the risks that endanger the universe to stop them and so on. I would assume its the result of someone fucking around with causality in some future time war type thing, but I'm not sure that anyone's thinking that far ahead.

[B5B7]

You can fool sapient beings, but how do you fool time?
Either the Doctor wasn't really meant to die - in which case there is no reason for time to "stop" as it did due to him not actually dying, or he was meant to die and time therefore would continue the course towards dissolution.
It seems that the new 'Doctor Who' has turned time into some sort of faux sapient being, not the thing beyond that makes up spacetime.

[Serafina]

Actually, that's not much of an issue. The fixed point in time was simply "River Song shoots the Doctor-like robot" right from the beginning. Everyone was just thinking that it actually was "River Song shoots the Doctor".

The Doctor didn't actually change what happened during that fixed point. That would imply that that fixed point happened twice - once in one way, and again in another way. But it only happened once, the Doctor simply had knowledge of what people thought happened during that fixed point.

Basically, this is what happened:
- The Silence create the conditions for a fixed point in time. Basically they pile on a lot of conditions that make that point in time harder to alter via timetravel, in order to make sure that the Doctor STAYS dead. By the way, this is probably the reason why they involved River Song in it - she has a different timestream than the Doctor and probably a lot of temporal significance (being a Timelady and being involved in a lot of important events).
- The world after 2011 has accounts of the events during that fixed point: Everyone saw River Song shooting the Doctor, and they can presumably somehow determine that this was a fixed point with some timey-wimey device.
- The Doctor learns of those accounts.
- The Doctor realizes that those accounts do not actually say that he himself was dead, just that someone who looks exactly like him was shot in a manner that would prevent regeneration.
- The Doctor springs the trap set by the Silence.
- River Song, now knowing that she will not actually kill the Doctor, defies the Silence and doesn't shoot the Doctor-robot.
- This means that the fixed point did not happen, therefore leading to this episode and a disruption in time.
- The Doctor fixes that and the fixed point occurs again.

Yeah, it's pretty convoluted, but it makes sense. The implication that you can somehow create fixed points in time is what's really interesting about this.

[Broomstick]

Or, as the Doctor says when he returns Dorium the Head to the creepy skull place - Time said the Doctor had to be there, but the real Doctor in a "Doctor suit" was acceptable to Time, and the sentient universe need never know of the deception.

The "fixed point" was as Serafina said - that everyone sees River shoot the Doctor and kill him before he could regenerate. Whether that was the real Doctor or a duplicate didn't matter as long as the result of events was the same: everyone thinks the Doctor died on that beach.

We saw another attempt at altering a fixed point in "The Waters of Mars" when the Doctor rescued some of Bowie Base One. The result was still the same: the destruction of the outpost and its destruction and the death of the commander serving as inspiration for her granddaughter to keep mankind pushing outward to the stars. It's just that the commander put a bullet in her brain instead of perishing in an explosion.

Even earlier, we saw it in Pompeii - the eruption had to occur and the city had to be destroyed, but it was possible to save one family without the universe coming to an end.

So, while you can't undo or eliminate a "fixed point in time" you can change some of the details.... like the precise cause of death of someone, or having the Doctor present in a DoctorSuit rather than just as himself.

[Serafina]

You also have to take into account that different people follow different timestreams. We have at least three different ones involved here - River, the Doctor and the Silence (discounting Amy&Rory because they are not actively involved).

From the point of view of their own timestream, the Silence did see the Doctor-robot being shot by River Song. Since they set up the condition to make what occurred at that specific point in their timestream a fixed point, it became a fixed point for all other timestreams as well (otherwise it would hardly be fixed).

From the point of view of her timestream, River thought that she would kill the Doctor at this point, and thus discharged her weapon before she would. Of course she was wrong - she would have shot the Doctor-robot, and since she did not do that, the fixed point did not occur (it had already been set by the Silence) and apparently the space-time continuum unraveled.

From the point of view of the Doctor, he had accounts that he was shot during the fixed point. He realized that the accounts were not entirely accurate and that it only looked like he was shot, so he sent the robot in his place. It might be that he had to be present as well, either in order to make the fixed point occur or because the Silence could otherwise determine that he was not there and therefore realize that they failed.


If this is correct, it gives us an interesting glimpse into temporal warfare: If you are in a different timestream than your opponent, you can make something involving him happen AND make it so that he can not alter it before it even happens in his timeline. At most he can alter some details, and if you do it right that wont save him.
That would explain why the Silence wanted to kill the Doctor in such an elaborate way (rather than just shooting him) - basically they tried to set up a trap he could not escape.

[El Moose Monstero]

Finally got around to catching up with this and the rest of the tail end of the last season.

I didn't have a strong reaction against it the way I did with 'A good man goes to war', but I did have a hard time caring about any of it when the robot solution was apparent from the first 5 minutes.

The problem with time travel plots (rather than where time travel is just the thing which gets them to where they're going) for me, btw, is that they are very much like Star Trek transporter episodes. They're usually resolved by technobabble (indirectly or directly) and they get boring if you have too many of them. Defeating an enemy or a monster is something we can all go with - you either outgun them, outthink them or outrun them. Those are concepts which people can grasp and deal with, even if the details are different. Time travel plots essentially boil down to 'today, we say time works like this', or 'this point is a fixed point in time because we want it to be' and so therefore, we can solve the problem however we say. It would be fine if they set some rules down and stuck with them, and maybe they are more or less consistent, but I bet that that's usually because there'll be a throwaway line somewhere to get them off on a technicality. It doesn't preclude a decent episode, I just don't think it's very creative or good for actually giving a rats ass about what happens.

The quarantine episode (which I also caught up on), was another 'because this week, time works like this' moment with the key bit being that old Amy changes what she saw to happen in the past because... she's stubborn? It would also have been nice if there were some more direct consequences to Rory's decision - it might have been more interesting if Amy had somehow had family in the future, so that the non-existance of individuals who had lived was not just confined to a future version of Amy. Like that DS9 episode where they crash on the planet and Odo changes the past for Kira, meaning that an entire colony of people living happy lives never happened. That would have given a lot more weight to Rory's bitching about 'you've turned me into you', which just sounded hollow in the existing scenario. Mind you, not every episode needs to have some deep meaning and be thought provoking, but it seems like if you want to just have a mindless episode, don't write ones which seem to be posing actual thought provoking questions.

I feel, but may be wrong, that the problem is that many of the episodes are based on some key statement or contrivance which is casually dropped in to the background (i.e. time works like this), and if you took it away, the rest of the episode would collapse. It just gets hidden behind the stuff where the characters are actually interacting so it's less obnoxious.

YMMV, of course.

[Ahriman238]

As for the artificial creation of fixed points, isn't that more or less what Rassilon did for all of Gallifrey's history when he chained the Eye of Harmony?

There may be another angle to consider as well. Back in season 1 of the new show, the Doctor told Rose that the TARDIS is a 'temporal anchor' and protects the hostiry of everyone who travels in it. Thus, you cannot unmake any of the Doctor's companions or make major alterations to their history (Father's Day notwithstanding) because once they have set foot in the TARDIS, that they live to enter the TARDIS more-or-less as they were becomes immutable.

Similarly, events they participate in are protected from alteration, the Doctor cannot erase the Daleks from history, because he has met the Daleks, he cannot go back over his adventures and save everyone, because the TARDIS will not let him alter his own history.

Of course, how various aspects of time and time travel work vary from episode to episode, and it doesn't really account for episodes like Father's Day, where the paradox was hopefully not the result of the TARDIS, or the cracks in time.

Still, I wonder if the SIlence, having demonstrated an unprecedented degree of knowledge and control over the TARDIS, could have used it to create the fixed point in time.

[Parallax]

As for the artificial creation of fixed points, isn't that more or less what Rassilon did for all of Gallifrey's history when he chained the Eye of Harmony?

Yep. The Time Lords generally refer to it as 'The web of time' which is anchored in innumerable fixed points.

[Stark]

When did anyone say that in S1? I think you're confusing statements about time travel from before the amazingly stupid 'time lock' period with magic TARDIS powers.

In S1 they sensibly broke the traditional EU filthy bullshit around time travel gimmicks (expressly so, to avoid every goddamn episode being about fucking time travel gimmicks), but as the show declined they just went right back to that well of bad ideas. In this way we go from the obvious inability to change your own past without creating a paradox to magical physical time locks of asinine gimmickry reset buttons. Moving from logical simplicity to in-joke technobabble complexity creates the effect mentioned above, where entire plots or seasons hinge on a specific (extremely stupid) piece of plot hand waving. - just like in the awful novels.

[B5B7]

Back in old Doctor Who one had stories where the place and people at that place were the central point of the plot, and the Doctor and his companions arrived to help out. But with nuWho everything revolves around the Doctor.

Here's my theory - it's wacky, so it must be true.
Initially, when the Silence appeared it seemed to be these Oodlike critters. But the Silence is actually a religious order, so these critters are just some of its agents. Their resemblance to Ood is unmistakable, so I'd say that someone created modified Ood. Who does this? Davros and the Cult of Skaro have both done such bio-alteration; and no doubt many other groups also. BUT, there is a faction WHO no one sees, even though they are in plain sight.

They have a secret master, you know WHO, who from his Fortress of Cybertude directs their actions. Everyone thinks there are two big factions - the Daleks and the Timelords, but this other group have been secretly pretending to be weak. The Daleks and Timelords have both been doing things to destroy the universe, but the third faction is acting secretly against them and all other groups. The Time War is still ongoing, though everyone thinks it ended. The question is - (what are you) Doctor WHO?

[Big Orange]

I prefer episodes with a lot of ideas and variety, that go for the more far-out sci-fi concepts, even when the result is confusing or messy. Self-contained fantasy/horror episodes with token sci-fi elements are just less interesting, because so many other shows do the same thing and frequently better.

But what about "Blink" and "Midnight"? They both did very well as self-contained horror episodes.

It's a shame, because Eleven is my favourite Doctor so far, and I know I'd enjoy the show a hell of a lot more if only we had some decent non fanboyish writers running things. Do we even need to have a season long recurring arc with an overblown finale each year?

Yeah, Matt Smith appeals even to people who have been sorely disappointed by Steven Moffat as a show runner (running an entire show is more testing than polishing an individual story) but despite the mountains out of molehills nerd raging displayed here we don't live in a democracy, with finale stories that are epic in scale and paying fan service being part 'n parcel of NuWho's huge success since S1. The real question is how much longer will the RTD formula last?

The David Tennant era, despite not pleasing everyone, did well in the general scheme of things and it was a legtimately hard act to follow and I personally think the Matt Smith era has properly found its stride in its second season, with only one or two episodes I found mediocre this year (I don't think "Let's Kill Hitler" was any worse than the Slitheen two parter, since despite their silliness they still contributed to the overall story/character arcs).

I enjoyed "The Wedding of River Song" more than I expected and it tied enough story threads up for this year, but the main danger is that Steven Moffat is being too clever for his own good with his multi-series story threads and it may not be too kind on the casual viewer, unlike in the RTD era where you could arguably enjoy more episodes individually and could afford to ignore the season finales (the viewer ratings are still high, but less potent than in the Tennant years).

To me the Silence seem to be something resembling DS9's Dominion, a dense web of species serving the same cause, that is still mostly unknown: the lowest rung of the Silence are the regular humanoid beings recruited by the Silence and issued the eye patches, above them are the Silence drones themselves who may possibly be evolved/uplifted Ood and may be equivalent to the Vorta, but who do the "Slender Man" Silents ultimately serve? And they may not be the culprits who destroyed the TARDIS back in S5 after all.

And what of the Neo-Dalek Empire which since "The Stolen Earth" is essentially the victor of the Time War? One of Amy's sketches of the Dalek looked odd - it had the same colour scheme to the newish, widely loathed Paradigm Daleks and the proportions of the better loved Time War era Daleks.