Howling:Would it have been better to introduce the silence in series 5 instead of series 6

Would it have been better for the silence to be the villian of the 11th hour instead of prisoner zero and the atraxi and show them more about plotting to blow up the tardis?would this have been better? (unsigned)

In The Eleventh Hour? No. Later in Series 5, very possibly. The "Silence will fall!" warning in The Eleventh Hour was a fine start & I don't think anything more in that episode was needed. A gradual build-up over several episodes was also the right approach. What I think was wrong was that it was too gradual, over far too many episodes & (above all) too vague. There wasn't anywhere near enough to tie the whole thing together. I don't object to mysteries or to long-running story arcs but I think Moffat overdid it & failed to show (a) that it was actually an arc & (b) that it was progressing. Much of the time, in fact, it wasn't progressing, so far as telling the story was concerned. It was set aside completely. It's often good story-telling to show the characters taking their eyes off the ball, getting distracted & making no progress (or seeming to do so) -- while the villains' plans are advancing & becoming more dangerous. It's quite another thing to convince the audience that the writers are taking their eyes off the ball, getting distracted & making no progress. --89.243.204.145talk to me 23:49, January 24, 2014 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but don't the cracks become bigger throughout the season, with the Angels eventually falling through what began as just a crack? I agree the gradual approach was the way to go, especially since there were supposed to be several things going on which the Doctor didn't appear to notice. And frankly, I'm still not certain how it all was supposed to fit together. Who was Prisoner Zero in relation to The Silence? A member of the Church? Someone who had heard the saying, but didn't really understand its relevance to the Doctor, but knew of him by reputation? Was the proximity of the crack to his imprisonment coincidental, and if not, was he an actor or just a pawn? The fish vampires were said to have been fleeing The Silence. Could Zero have been part of that lot?Bringing the Silence in sooner might have allowed some of these questions to be answered, but part of what was building was the notion that the cracks were being noticed many others, in a lot of places. Culminating in The Pandorica Opens. And if you include them from the beginning you have spend a few additional seconds on them every episode. The crack was a good shorthand to remind us without interrupting the story too much.Phil Stone ☎  16:02, March 18, 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the cracks become bigger through, the series. The cracks manifest according to the purposes required for each story but the only detail that seems consistent is the shape. I'm also uncertain how it was meant to fit together. In fact, I'll go further then that; I'm fairly sure that when all the details are analysed that somewhere it doesn't fit together. In this case though, you're confusion is caused by the fact that the soft mystery behind this was a very slow burn. Prisoner Zero had nothing to do with The Silence, neither did the Saturnynians. But they understood The Cracks [in the time field] and Prisoner Zero probably understood the purpose of the Pandorica. But the silence in series five was, according to the context, meant to be understood in the inevitable consequence of total event collapse. In series five silence fell because the cracks erased all possible sources of sound in the destruction of the universe. It had nothing to do with the agency that became known as The Silence until the very end of the series when the Doctor used the term to identify an enemy he otherwise knew nothing about. It was then retconned into the story that the references to silence referred to the self-same agency when they introduced themselves in Day Of The Moon, even though that understanding makes no sense in the context and the beings in question should not be able to recall The Silence.DCT ☎  16:34, March 25, 2014 (UTC)

Episodes like The Black Spot were completely inconsequential to the Silence story arc. Louise Findlay Fantasy Author Twitter: @authorlouise See my website at louisefindlaybooks.wordpress.com See my eBooks at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/angel7090695001  ☎  19:04, July 9, 2014 (UTC)