Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Day of the Moon


 * At the end of the first episode Rory and River are clearly in trouble... yet no mention is made of how they got out of the pseudo-TARDIS?


 * Never-minding that two people probably couldn't lift a rock of dwarf star material, where did the US government get dwarf star material in the first place if they're just now getting to the moon?
 * Planet Earth has dealt with numerous of aliens and especially alien technology. Secret organisations such as Torchwood were up and running at the time. Earth is educated in many things alien. They only went to the moon because the Silence edged them too.
 * Since the prison was actually part of the Doctor's plan, he may have told them where to get it.
 * They are at Area 51. They probably have lots of alien technology there.


 * Why was the Doctor captured and Amy, Rory and River hunted down? If they were working for the President, surely nobody would capture them and lock them up?
 * This was most likely part of the Doctor's plan in order to gain intelligence on the Silence.
 * Alternatively, the Silence were influencing the FBI to pursue the group.


 * The Doctor put the device in Apollo 11 before he received the video of the Silent and before he even knew what it was going to say. Why would he set it up?
 * Canton was probably trying to make The Silent order their deaths. It was the plan.


 * How come The Doctor, Amy, Rory or River don't try to kill The Silence on sight? They must have seen the Lunar Landing.
 * The post-hypnotic command was never in the footage they saw in their own timeline.


 * Why didn't the Doctor sense that the Little Girl was a Time Lady?
 * The Doctor can't always sense a Time Lord or Lady if they are not synchronised with his time line, for example, The Master during Series 3.
 * The reason the Doctor couldn't sense the Master was because of the Archangel Network, not because there timelines weren't synced. Until we know the full nature of the little girl, we don't know for sure that the Doctor should have been able to sense her.
 * The space suit the Little Girl was in was composed of "at least 20 races of alien technology", so because of all that stuff (and the fact that space suits are supposed to be air tight), he probably couldn't smell her, since she was out of the suit before the Doctor got to it.
 * We don't know for a fact that the Little Girl is a Time Lady.
 * 'Smell' is probably a very literal way of looking at Time Lord's sensing each other (despite the odd emphasis on it in End of Time) as the Doctor expects to detect Time Lords on the other side of the universe doing this. But as above, we don't know the girl is a Time Lord.


 * What happens to all the bodies of the dead Silence that are (presumably) killed by the humans in the open?
 * Buried? Burn? Whatever the human race normally does with alien bodies.
 * Exactly. Wouldn't the discovery of dead aliens littering the planet cause disruptions in the timeline?
 * It wouldn't if no one could remember seeing them.


 * If the Silence have been guiding the human race's technological development, couldn't destroying the Silence cause a decline in humanity's technological growth?
 * It was stated by the doctor that the Silence don't create things by themselves, they act as a parasite and steal human technology. Humanity is still a naturally creative, and inventive race.
 * It can probably be assumed the Silence make specific nudges depending on what they need at the time, rather than spurring humans to motion in general.
 * If the earlier Doctor arrived in the Tardis from his timeline, wouldn't the older (dead) Doctor's Tardis be left in 1969?
 * No, it would be left in 2011.
 * Which still leaves two questions. Firstly: Where is that Doctor's TARDIS? Secondly: What happens to a Timelord's TARDIS when they die?
 * "There is a cemetery of dead Tardises at the end of time" Read on the website, if I'm not mistaking. It is probably going to commit "time-suicide" or something like that.
 * 200 year older Doctor dies, he arrived in the Tardis with Amy and Rory, 200 year younger Doctor arrives in 1969, wouldn't he be surprised that Amy and Rory were there already? Or would he assume River Song brought them? The younger Doctor leaves with Amy and Rory in his Tardis, but the future Doctor's Tardis would be left where Amy and Rory exited it. Would this create a paradox?
 * The younger Doctor meets them in the diner in 2011 after the older Doctor dies in 2011. THEN they travel to 1969.
 * Does the TARDIS have some kind of "perception filter" which causes people to not really notice it (like Prisoner Zero) or forget it (like the Silence)? In "The Parting of the Ways", the Doctor sends Rose back to Earth in the TARDIS when he thinks he is going to die. He tells her to just "let the TARDIS die", and to leave it where it lands, confident that "No one can open it, no one will even notice it."
 * 200 year older Doctor dies, he arrived in the Tardis with Amy and Rory, 200 year younger Doctor arrives in 1969, wouldn't he be surprised that Amy and Rory were there already? Or would he assume River Song brought them? The younger Doctor leaves with Amy and Rory in his Tardis, but the future Doctor's Tardis would be left where Amy and Rory exited it. Would this create a paradox?
 * The younger Doctor meets them in the diner in 2011 after the older Doctor dies in 2011. THEN they travel to 1969.
 * Does the TARDIS have some kind of "perception filter" which causes people to not really notice it (like Prisoner Zero) or forget it (like the Silence)? In "The Parting of the Ways", the Doctor sends Rose back to Earth in the TARDIS when he thinks he is going to die. He tells her to just "let the TARDIS die", and to leave it where it lands, confident that "No one can open it, no one will even notice it."
 * Does the TARDIS have some kind of "perception filter" which causes people to not really notice it (like Prisoner Zero) or forget it (like the Silence)? In "The Parting of the Ways", the Doctor sends Rose back to Earth in the TARDIS when he thinks he is going to die. He tells her to just "let the TARDIS die", and to leave it where it lands, confident that "No one can open it, no one will even notice it."


 * Canton states that no signal could get through the walls of the Doctor's prison, but he sends the recording of the Silence to the Doctor and to Apollo 11 from inside the prison.
 * He left the door open.
 * and even if he didn't leave the door open, he is probably using a "super-phone" which can get signal anywhere as seen in "World war three"
 * I was going to say - cell towers in '69?
 * Canton didn't send the video directly from Amy's phone, he pressed play and then clamped it onto some kind of transmitter which looked like the one the Doctor installed in the lunar module.
 * I was going to say - cell towers in '69?
 * Canton didn't send the video directly from Amy's phone, he pressed play and then clamped it onto some kind of transmitter which looked like the one the Doctor installed in the lunar module.


 * If Amy was with the silence and didn't remember the last few days she was locked up with them how did she remember calling Rory 'stupid face' and leaving him that message
 * We don't know how much Amy remembers, but if she didn't see the Silence while she was leaving the message, she may still remember it.


 * How did The Doctor and his companions leap from never remembering The Silence in episode 1 to actively keeping record of and going after The Silence in episode 2?
 * There was a three-month gap in-story between the episodes. My guess is that when the Silence attacked at the end of TIA, the group escaped, realized that had been attacked but couldn't remember anything about the attackers, and then went about trying to discover the attackers.
 * As much as I like your hypothesis, it still is just a hypothesis and is thus still a huge plot hole.
 * ...and that you for specifically pointing that out . My point is that the Doctor and his companions had to have developed some awareness of the Silence, and that awareness motivated them to seek the Silence.
 * Isn't this section for people pointing out plot holes and people correcting the plot holes by pointing to something that happened in the show that explained said plot hole... not people giving their own independent theories?
 * No. This is a place where we attempt to explain supposed plot holes. Theories are valid here, as long as they are not too far out there.
 * Remember that Amy took a photo of one in the White House, and that you are aware of the Silence when you are looking at one, in addition to recalling all your previous sightings and encounters. If Amy saw the photo on her phone, as long as someone was looking at it they would be aware of the Silence and that they had seen them in the warehouse. As soon as they looked away they would forget, but while looking at the photo they could have formulated the plan to "tally" the sightings.


 * In the episode 'Blink' the doctor and martha are stuck in 1969 and state they have watched the moon landing four times. Does this mean the doctor must have already seen the silence ordering everyone to kill them? Also does this mean there were two versions of the doctor in 1969?
 * The Doctor has traveled to many of the same years / dates as previous incarnations of himself, he just tries to make sure he doesn't run into those incarnations. That said, this is just an instance of the Doctor rewriting history. His previous selves haven't experienced this particular timeline, and the Doctor is known to rewrite history every now and again and since his living timeline isn't linear, being a time traveler, his previous selves would be unaffected by the change.
 * Also, in "Blink" when they said that the watched the moon landing, i think they meant that they watched it live from the moon not on TV. That's what made it special for them. Otherwise they could've watched in on TV in any other year not 1969. So if Martha and the Doctor were physically on the moon during the moon landing, then they didn't see the Silence since it was only on TV.
 * Your additional point is rendered moot as Martha (and any of the other new-who companions) would have seen recordings of the famous moon landing a few times in their lifetime. The previous point of the Doctor's timeline not being linear still stands.


 * River Song says that the child said that the Spaceman was going to eat her. The only way she could have heard this was through the phone of the President or recordings of these calls. However, it was the space suit which made the calls to the highest authority, so the girl would have to be already inside the suit when the calls were made.
 * I'm confused by what you're trying to point out as a plot hole here. One assumes once the President accepts the Doctors help, he is made privvy to the full extent of the phone calls and thus the Doctor tells his team what's on the tapes (River included.) Also, yes, the child is the space suit when the calls are made. So, what are you trying to say is the plot hole?
 * The only way that the message that the Spaceman is going to eat her could be sent, would be to be inside the suit itself. Therefore, the Spaceman has already ate her. So why would she say that the Spaceman is going to eat her?
 * The suit can connect to the president's phone line, no matter where he is. Starting a call from a phone in the same room would be fairly easy in comparison. Also keep in mind that the suit was there to protect the little girl. It mightn't be able to give her oxygen or stop her from needing food while she's outside of it, but surely it can make a phone call for her.


 * why didn't the soldiers question Nixon walking out of a large impregnable box that had been closed for days? surely they would have suspected some sort of trick?
 * Nixon is the President of the United States. They are not going to question him.


 * Amy was (presumably) captured by the Silents and the space suit after having marked tally counts on her arms and face. When she awakens in the pseudo-TARDIS control room, she has no marks. It's clear that the implanted recorder was taken from her hand; why do the Silents also wash her face and arms? Or do we catch up with a later version of her having missed a longer series of events?
 * The Silence could have washed the tally marks off so that Amy would not remember how many she saw at the orphanage.


 * How did River manage to shoot the last Silent without looking at it? Shouldn't she have been completely unaware of its presence?
 * She could have heard the Silence, or if she saw a dead Silence on the floor, she would still remember them.