The Silence and The Gentlemen

I have been very excited for the new series, aka season, of Doctor Who to start and I missed the first two episodes due to my trip to Ireland.  Of course, I was able to watch the episodes on TV there as well, but there was so much to do that one hates to rush back for something that can be seen back home.  I have officially caught up with the series and can't wait for the next episode on Saturday.  I do have to say that I am very glad I didn't have to wait an entire week to watch the second part of the season opener.  "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon" are probably two of the best episodes we've seen from Steven Moffat and quite ballsy, too, I might add.  I won't spoil anything for those that haven't seen it and plan to at some point, but I do have to discuss the villain.  So if you don't want to have anything spoiled, please cease reading now.

Okay, now that I have your attention, I have to say that there was something very familiar about these creatures.  And no, it's not because I've seen them before and have forgotten them while I was looking away.  These villains are quite unsettling as one forgets all about them as soon as they are out of sight.  We are treated with scenes where River Song panics at the sight of a dozen of them hiding in a sewer only to return to her friends and announce that there wasn't anything there and she's going back to further investigate.  The most horrifying to the viewer is the scene where Amy Pond comes across one in the ladies room.  While she's stuck staring at the creature an innocent women comes out of a stall and shrieks at the sight of it.  The innocent then promptly forgets it's even standing there when she turns her head to respond to Amy's warning to back away from the creature and then repeats the same initial reaction three times before it kills her.  How does one defend themselves from a villain one can't even remember?

But back to my point about these villains being eerily familiar somehow.  Do you remember, haha, the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Season 4 episode, "Hush?"  I thought you might.  One of the creepiest villains in the Buffyverse and one of the scariest episodes because of the silence.  Visually, they are slightly different but have a lot in common; notice the suits and pale flesh.  There is, of course, a lack of creepy smile on the Doctor Who villain as they don't really have a mouth.  The Silence don't float, they seem to just appear in the corner of your eye.   The Gentlemen don't talk at all.  Both, however, play on our basic human fears.

The Gentlemen take away your voice and then kill you when you can't scream for help.  The vulnerability in that is what shakes the audience down to its core.  The Silence can influence you to do whatever they want and you won't even remember why you are doing it.  It's a sort of mind control through subconscious suggestion and they've apparently been on earth for a number of years; shaping and changing the destiny of the human race for who knows how long.   The Doctor clearly says that human beings decided to go to the moon because the Silence, "needed a space suit."  We just haven't learned the why yet.  As a writer, it's a brilliant plot device as it's possible we've seen them in previous adventures but can't remember them.

I will have to visit this again once the new season is over and I know how the Silence end.  Then I can fully compare them to the Gentlemen and see what is what. 

**Side Note: I also have drafts of entries for the days I was on vacation that I need to finish up and post.  Otherwise, I will have a huge gap in my year and my Buffy entries.**