Wedge

So, why go to the trouble of putting River in the lake?

A sense of drama, plus the fact that the Silents/Silence love the whole notion of being hidden, and a lake would be a pretty good way to hide someone. Plus it's also a pretty direct reference to the whole Silence Will Fall idea since what River emerges out of the lake - Lake Silence.

It is a bit odd but less ridiculous than the plans that James Bond regularly has to deal with.

Speaking of the incident at Lake Silencio, did it really take the Doctor 200 years to come up with that escape plan?

As mentioned, he went out and about, sightseeing, staring back at Amy and Rory through history. The other thing is, the Doctor is of the understanding that it's a fixed point in time and space, and he's seen first hand what happens if he manipulates fixed points, it goes horribly awry. It isn't, then, quite so obvious that he can get out of it.

What was going on with those photos of a happy Amy and baby Melody?

Given that it's the Ganger Amy seeing those, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's hopeful images of the future as indicated in the article. Only natural that you should visualise such things subconsciously.

How does drawing tally marks on your face help? Surely that’s an awkward place to mark yourself? You’d need to carry a mirror around with you at all times.

If you run out of places on your arms, face is the nearest bit of exposed skin. Mind you, it also has the benefit of looking dramatic, and will remind your friends that something is wrong.

What’s going on with Madame Kovarian?

Well, the article points out that the aborted timeline has her dead (but the entire timeline is aborted, so that's pretty much irrelevant anyway, though a better question would be how she's at that 'time' and 'place' in the aborted timeline, but I guess if the entirety of time and space is happening at once, it's possible)

But yeah, she's probably living it up thinking that she's killed the Doctor, though something like that we're going to see again, I'm sure.

What was that Season 6B teaser all about?

It looked good, no? I think it was reflecting on the notion that the Doctor is going to die soon, and the fading of the sonic screwdriver's light was reflective of hope fading.

How are Dorium and those skulls still alive?

How are the Headless Monks still alive? It's the 51st Century, it's not inconceivable that they imbue the skulls with some sense of life after they'd died. Voodoo curse, maybe. It's no more ridiculous than animated skeletons or zombies...

Are the Doctor and River married now?

Well... the main issue seems to be that the Teselecta was the one that married River - but the Doctor was inside the Teselecta so I think we'd stretch a point on that one personally, but the marriage wouldn't be recognised in any court of law :P That said, in any way that makes meaningful sense for the two of them, they're married now.

Whatever happened to the Evil League of Evil?

With the risk to the Universe gone, they could suitably disband and not worry about things, so they return to their usual sense of domination.

Speaking of monsters, what’s up with the Cybermen?

The lack of Cybus logo indicates that they're not from the parallel universe but from the current one, and it's likely that the Cyberconverter at Canary Wharf (which got moved to the Hub) wasn't the only one. While the rest may not have been too functional, the designs would still be kicking about and likely worth some cash to the right person... there's a bunch of ways to explain this one.

What’s going on with the other timeship from “The Lodger”?

Yeah, I never really understood this. I get the impression that the ship crashed and was forever after a pilot, but that the one in 1969 was a separate ship, probably one the Silents had stolen, perhaps even the ship they used to get to Earth in the first place, and since partly repaired/rebuilt? I don't know.

So who blew up the TARDIS in “The Big Bang”?

The only way I can reconcile that is it being the previous attempt to rid the universe of the Doctor by the Silents: trap the mad man in a box that he can't escape and destroy his time machine. Except it had a consequence they didn't realise and he ended up saving the day. Hence the need to drag in Madame Kovarian.

Now we come to mention it, what exactly is The Silence?

Ahhh, yes. This one's tricky. There are three of them. There's the Silents, the religious order, and there's the whole notion of 'Silence will fall'. This later one is actually two: Silence will fall when the question is asked, presumably meaning a whole sense of universal apocalypse where nothing is left, and the Doctor's silence prior to that because he knows the answer and must not say it in order to avert the disaster at Trenzalor.

What is the question?

Well, I initially fell into the trap of thinking it was literal, but it won't be. The answer is we don't know the question, in a leap of Douglas Adamsian propositions, and the rest of the wording sets up for the best installment of the title gag yet.

And finally, and most crucially… why was there a duck pond with no ducks in “The Eleventh Hour”?

If there's no ducks, how do you know it's a duck pond? The idea here is that things have been removed from reality and you can't explain it but you know it's missing because the surrounding context is there. As in... it's a duck pond sans ducks but you know it's a duck pond.

Then of course we have the greatest play on words with it - Amy *Pond*. The duck pond is a simile of her life. She knows who she is, she remembers for example her childhood but she can't remember her parents. She knows she must have had them, but they're not there and they should be.