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At the end of the 2011 Doctor Who episode Day of the moon (S.6 E.02)

The moon landing video is revealed to contain a subliminal message instructing everyone who has seen it (or maybe just any humans who see it) to kill the 'Silence' aliens on sight.

But why doesn't that apply to Amy and Rory in earlier encounters in the story?

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  • 1
    you may want to pad the beginning of your question a little as the spoiler bit is visible on the Questions page.
    – Xantec
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 22:38
  • I don't think the message only affected humans since the Doctor was also affected by the Silence.
    – Origami Robot
    Commented Jun 10, 2011 at 2:49
  • Subset of Why don't the Doctor, Amy, Rory, or River kill the Silents on sight?
    – Zommuter
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 11:50
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    @Zommuter I think they're rather different, since my question is referring to when Amy or Rory would have presumably seen the moon landing video earlier in their lives rather than when they saw it in the episode.
    – Random832
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 12:27
  • @Random832 Good point - they are quite related though
    – Zommuter
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 17:59

3 Answers 3

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Because it is timey-wimey. The moon landing footage hadn't included the subliminal message until Amy, Rory, The Doctor and River Song went back to 1969 and did what they did. Any time after the subliminal message was added if Amy or Rory were to re-watch the moon landing then they would have got the instruction.

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    This would lend itself more to Amy and Rory's timelines being linear progressions. Or different universes. If the message was inserted in 1969, it would mean the message had been there their entire lives. So unless they didn't see the moon landing, they would have tried to kill the Silence when they got to 1969. While I love timey-wimey things, Occam's Razor seems more appropriate here.
    – Origami Robot
    Commented Jun 10, 2011 at 2:48
  • 2
    @OrigamiRobot Well, except that if Occam's Razor were applicable here then Amy and Rory would have immediately attempted to kill The Silence.
    – Xantec
    Commented Jun 10, 2011 at 3:53
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    The problem is "Why didn't Amy kill the Silence on sight?" and the simplest solution is that they had never seen the moon landing. Improbable, but simple. I can think of so many crazy complicated ways to answer this question. That is why I love Doctor Who!
    – Origami Robot
    Commented Jun 10, 2011 at 4:10
  • 3
    Similar to why the Doctor never thought of going to that defaced cliff from the beginning of The Pandorica Opens.
    – dkuntz2
    Commented Jun 11, 2011 at 22:54
  • @Xantec: Occam's Razor demands that an explanation fits all available facts; since Amy and Rory didn't immediately kill the silence, the less-complicated answer is that time is wibbly-wobbly, not that the writers made an error.
    – DougM
    Commented Jun 12, 2015 at 14:08
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Yannow, I'm going to post this as an answer instead of a comment, because it's by far the simplest explanation: They just never saw the moon landing.

And it's not that far-fetched. I'm 24, grew up in the US, and have never seen the entire thing, just an occasional snippet. (Although it is the "One small step..." line, so it would have affected me)

The moon landing just isn't very relevant to our generation, so I have no difficulty believing that someone (Who, according to the Tardis Index File, is a year younger than me) has only read about it, but not seen the video.

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    +1 as I am 36 and have never seen it either. I have seen a coulpe of reconstructions and photos etc but never actually watched the entire thing.
    – Stefan
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 12:41
  • 6
    Same here, I've only seen the fake one they filmed on that sound stage at NASA.
    – KutuluMike
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 22:47
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Myself, I'm going to go with the 'timey-wimey' explanation. They're time travelers. They're at the 'eye of the storm'. It didn't happen before they made it happen, and nothing major was changed in the timeline afterward from their destruction.

If that explanation is insufficient to anyone, then there's strong precedence for them having never seen the moon landing. They are, after all, from a small village called Leadworth. Who knows if they even had a television before meeting the Doctor! Maybe someone always changed the channel before the first small step for man...

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  • They had internet connections, who needs television?
    – Phoshi
    Commented Sep 17, 2012 at 16:41
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    @Phoshi - The moon landing was originally broadcast on television in 1969. The internet as we know it didn't exist back then. Also, neither Amy nor Rory were born then. And, neither of them seem like the sort of people to look up an old video replay of the moon landing on the internet during their childhood.
    – Algernon_Asimov
    Commented Sep 17, 2012 at 23:30
  • ...of course they didn't watch it on the internet in 1969, but it hardly seems absurd they might have watched it online at some point. Regardless, if they have an internet connection, what are the chances that they don't get television signals? I'm not sure how familiar you are with the UK, but we aren't very big, it's not rare for remote locations to get TV ;)
    – Phoshi
    Commented Sep 18, 2012 at 10:59
  • Lead worth had tvs and cell phones and everything a typical 2000 city would had.
    – user16696
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 11:47

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