Doctor Who: 8 Story Arcs Of The Revived Series Explained

2. Silence And Pandoricas And Cracks, Oh My!

Unlike the arc in question, let's try and keep this explanation nice and simple. With the Grand Moff's inception as showrunner, seemingly gone were the subliminal messages and subtle references to the dark events that were to come. It was a narrative technique that Russell T Davies worked into his episodes so well, but who needs to hint at the series' overriding arc through the mere means of a poster when you can repeatedly shove it in the viewers' faces and have it still not make a single ounce of sense until the remaining loose ends are eventually tied up four years down the line? You've got to hand it to Steven Moffat, though. The overriding story of Matt Smith's Time Lord tenure was an expertly engineered piece of intricate and unique storytelling which catapulted the show into all kinds of new and previously uncharted waters. Retrospectively, at least. At the time, it was all just head-scratchingly annoying. Plots that defy the realms of time and space itself are pretty much Moffat's M.O., after all, and he didn't waste any time in ensuring that the Eleventh Doctor's era was the biggest rollercoaster of them all. And it all started with a crack. But what was the crack, and the multitude of ones that followed? Well, it's funny you should ask that really, because at one point it felt like the show itself didn't even know the answer. The cracks were a universal side effect of the TARDIS blowing up, though, which in turn was a side effect of the Silence who, in turn, were a side effect of Madame Kovarian in her mission to prevent the Siege of Trenzalore. That, in turn, was the gateway to Gallifrey's return which, in turn, would've reignited the Time War and ultimately resulted in the universe's untimely destruction. Nobody wanted that to happen, of course, and no one more so than Kovarian. She travelled back in time and raised River Song - who just so happened to be the daughter of the Doctor's then-companions Amy and Rory, just to add to the confusion - as a psychopathic killing machine who would one day grow up to kill the Doctor once and for all. See, it all makes perfect sense when you put it like that. And that's the Eleventh Doctor's tenure in a timey-wimey nutshell. The conclusion of his era in The Time of the Doctor was the climax of a story that had been four years in the making and it's a true testament to Steven's writing that he managed to keep the threads dangling for so long. It wasn't a narrative structure which went down particularly well with the viewers who missed the show's more 'standalone' story format, though, but luckily for them, Steven had another trick up his sleeve for the Twelfth Doctor's debut adventures...