The location came first.
Steven Moffat was looking for something big to launch his second series in charge and thought that a story filmed overseas - the US in particular - would make an impact. He had in mind a story set in the USA during the 1960's, which would use a number of iconic landmarks, including New York City.
For the story itself, an incident would occur which would run through the entire season - more than just a word or phrase as a story arc.
The Big Bang had left plot threads dangling, so these would be picked up in this series.
The location was a deliberate move to please American fans, but Moffat wasn't aiming the story at that market. As he said at the time, US fans liked the Britishness of Doctor Who, and the programme was already doing well in the territory anyway.
With Cape Kennedy being a key location in the scripts, locations in Florida were considered (hence the setting for the children's home), and Mount Rushmore was also a possibility, but in the end Utah and Arizona were selected as affording some iconic landscapes which could not be replicated in South Wales.
The Silence came next. Moffat wanted a creature that could become as iconic as the Weeping Angels. He hit on the idea of something which, when you looked away from it, you forgot you'd seen it - feeling that this was suitably creepy and alarming.
"Silence will fall" had been a running phrase throughout Series 5, its relevance unexplained so far.
This led to the notion that an invasion had taken place a very long time ago, but the human race were unaware as they kept forgetting.
For the look of the creatures, he looked to Edvard Munch's The Scream (Skrik, 1893). This in turn led to the popular image of extra-terrestrials, known as "Greys", reported by UFO witnesses since the 1950's.
Putting them in conventional black suits tied in with the "Men in Black", also associated with UFO's and ET's.
Area 51 - the "non-existent" section of the USAF base at Groom Lake, Nevada - became another obvious location, seen in the second episode.
The fashion also fitted with the late 1960's setting.
Once America in the 1960's was decided upon, the obvious setting was the Moon landing in 1969. On checking who the POTUS was, he found it was the controversial Richard Milhous Nixon. He was to fall during the Watergate scandal a couple of years later - so Moffat included this in his script. The Doctor advises the President to record all of his conversations in the Oval Office because of the calls from the mysterious child.
A fan of The West Wing, Moffat wanted the Doctor to first meet Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House.
It was also decided that River Song would feature once again, and she would be integral to the full series arc - though it wouldn't be obvious just yet.
As a big shock factor, Moffat then decided to open the series with a death - and this time it would be the Doctor himself who was to be killed.
The audience were told that this was not a trick. He really would be shot dead, with no chance of a quick regeneration.
The image of an astronaut, face obscured, emerging from a lake in the middle of a desert, during a picnic, was just too surreal not to use.
Amy's pregnancy was also introduced - again with no clue for viewers as to the importance of this to the arc.
Working titles were "Year of the Moon" and "Look Behind You".
It was one of Moffat's sons who helped come up with the final titles as he thought these "too cheesy", and his dad could do better.
The custodian of the Gothic children's home was named Renfrew, as a nod to psychiatric inmate Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Moffat had trouble describing the tally marks in his scripts, and ended up having to download a new font for his word processor to cope with them.
The Silents' spaceship - an unused TARDIS design concept - was reused from The Lodger.
The opening section saw the Doctor in a variety of settings including appearing in a Laurel & Hardy movie (The Flying Deuces, 1939); encounter with King Charles II; and as a POW in a WWII German camp. He escapes from the Tower of London - from whence he and Susan had earlier fled in the reign of Henry VIII.
At one point the Doctor exclaims "Space - 1969!" - a reference to Gerry Anderson's series Space:1999.
Next time: Shiver me timbers and heave-ho, me hearties! It's a prequel to a late William Hartnell story (sort of...).
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