Doctor Who: 6 Things That Explain The Matt Smith Era

3. The Silence: Assassination Attempts II and III

So, the plan to explode the TARDIS failed, so plan B was to kill the Doctor. Where exactly the Silence became evil is still a bit hazy, but somewhere Kovarian misread the memo that the idea was to avoid a question, not kill people, interfere with a whole species and steal young children. They kidnapped Melody Pond, and brought her up to be a killer, but when she refused to kill the Doctor in Berlin, the Silence spent roughly 25 years placing the idea in humanity to go to the moon, so they'd have a spacesuit. They then planned to place River in the suit another 42 years later, where she'd kill the Doctor at Lake Silencio. As far as the Kovarian faction of the Silence are concerned though, it worked: they set out to kill him in his past, and they don't know that he survived. Whether or not it stays that way is left open though, but the deletion of the Doctor from all records certainly suggests that the Silence arc was over.