They could have been circling the solar system in a wide parking orbit, out in clear space, and waiting for the time to head home.
My totally irrelevant fanwank that just occured to me.
This is Rory’s dad when he was Rory’s age.
Same actor, plus he’s a stay-at-home family guy married to a far more adventurous woman. Rory didn’t fall far from the tree 
So was this a Silurian ship or the Silurian ship? I’m curious because back in season 5, when the Doctor met the Silurians on earth for the first time, he told those still on the ground that the Silurians were wiped out by humans.
But, he met the earth Silurians before he came across Solomon and that ship.
Also, interesting timeline note…
When he’s talking to his dad about the trowel, Rory mentions he’s 30-something - can’t remember just what he said, just that he was not as much younger than me as he would have been in the last two seasons, given that we know from what we’ve seen of their history that he’s pretty close to the same age as Amy, who was born in '89, and that we know from references in her first episode that their home time period is the present (edit - well, was the present when they started adventuring - the last episode was obviously a couple years from now), so they should be either 23 or 24 at this point.
The Doctor is really, really increasing the time between his visits.
Presumably it was a relativistic orbit.
Unless this is him. In which case he’s had a more adventurous past than he’s letting on.
The Doctor first met the Silurians back in 1970, when they were blown up by UNIT.
Obviously that wasn’t all the Silurians (others turned up later) but that’s what he was referring to.
That wasn’t the first time the Doctor had encountered the Silurians. The 3rd Doctor met them in 1970 and they popped up several times more during the original series.
Humans were primitive ape-like creatures when the Silurians ruled the earth. They didn’t wipe out the Silurian civilization. The Silurians put themselves in hibernation to ride out a massive asteroid impact. However, while they slept the primitive apes took over the Earth. So most Silurian stories revolve around them wanting to reclaim a planet they feel has been stolen from them. This usually ends with the modern humans killing them off or sealing them back into their caves, hence the Doctor’s comment.
Thanks for the history lesson. I’ve only seen all of the 11th Doctor, the 9th, and I am slowly making my way through the 10th.
There’s been a quite a few times where Amy said in the show that it’s been a year, or ten months, or “all summer” whatever since the Doctor’s last visit. Also, there’s the time spent traveling during the episodes, and possibly there could be more that occur off-screen and weren’t mentioned in an episode.
I’m no DW expert, but based on the Amy Pond page on the TARDIS wiki, I’ve tried to make a timeline of her life from wherever Earth dates/years are listed for their “home period”. It seems like there was a large amount of time between The Doctor, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the Doctor visits them for Christmas in 2013, and Dinosaurs on a Spaceship in 2020). So in that episode Amy would have been 34 years old based on Earth dates. However, I would think that given all her time spent traveling, from her point of view she’d be older than 34 (e.g. there were quite a few episodes between when she left with the Doctor on the night before her wedding, and when she returned the “next day”).
[ul][li]Amy was born in 1989[/li][li]She met the Eleventh Doctor in 1996[/li][li]She waited for him for 12 years; he returned in 2008[/li][li]The Doctor took two years to take the TARDIS to the moon to break in the new engines. Amy was engaged to be wed to Rory on 26 June 2010.[/li][li]They did a whole bunch of traveling in Series 5, ending with The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang which re-set the universe with their wedding (no date given), would that have been in 2010?[/li][li]At the beginning of Series 6 in The Impossible Astronaut, Amy was pregnant and was kidnapped and replaced by a ganger. The picnic at Lake Silencio was on 22 April 2011.[/li][li]She was full-term pregnant in The Almost People, so that must have occurred eight or nine months after The Impossible Astronaut from Amy’s traveling point of view.[/li][li]Amy and Rory waited “all summer” between A Good Man Goes to War and Let’s Kill Hitler[/li][li]In the episode Night Terrors, they landed on Earth in 2011[/li][li]In The God Complex, the Doctor left them on Earth at a new house[/li][li]Amy became a model and worked long enough to become famous enough to sign autographs while out shopping[/li][li]In 2013, the Doctor joins them for Christmas dinner (in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe). [Added by me: Was there a reference to 2013 in the episode? I don’t remember this][/li][li]In the Pond Life mini-episodes, the Doctor continued traveling alone for several months, but checked in Amy and Rory periodically. During this time they got an Ood for a butler, had some marital troubles, Rory moved out.[/li][li]In Asylum of the Daleks, Amy and Rory have been having marital difficulties for long enough that Rory has just signed the divorce papers at the beginning of the episode. At the end of the episode they reconcile, and return to their house together.[/li][*]In Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, when the TARDIs materializes around Amy, Rory and Rory’s dad in their living room, it’s 2020, ten months after their last adventure. [**Added by me:**I’m not sure where the writers of the wiki got 2020 from - was there a reference in the episode that I missed? In the episode Amy does mention that it’s been longer and longer between visits from the Doctor, and it seems like he’s weaning them off of him].[/ul]
I’d guess they got 2020 from Rory saying that he’s 31 – that’s the only reference I can recall, and it does fit.
A thought: Perhaps The Doctor is “weaning” the Ponds off him to avoid the feeling of abandonment the Sarah Jane felt. I get the feeling the we’ll see Amy and Rory grow older this season until they finally say to The Doctor, “No thanks,” then it’s off to the new companion.
I also Enjoyed Doctor Who’s Seventh Season a lot. I Watch this Season Again & Again on Internet. Really it was so Entertaining.
Fun episode in the old west. I wonder where they found a desert and old west set? Did they film in the U.S. again?
Some speculation about flickering light bulbs. So far they’ve had close ups in every episode this season.
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/22674/is-this-the-recurring-theme-of-doctor-who-series-7
That’s why it looked familiar. 
I liked this episode.
I liked it even better when it was called “Knights of Cydonia” and it had a guitar solo at the end.
Seriously, though, pretty solid episode and I liked the Doctor’s internal struggle as he tries to come to grips with how to deal with a man who’s so much like himself.
Wow! Is that the same set and everything? That’s such a close similarity.
That was a pretty good MOTW episode. So now the Doctor is 1,200+ years old… does that mean he’s aged 300 years since Eccleston’s debut?
He went from 907 to 1104 between when he left Amy and Rory near the end of series 6, and when he met up with them again at the finale. Presumably he picked up another 100 years between then and now - which would possibly make Eleven the longest-lived incarnation of the Doctor after One.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Wow! Is that the same set and everything? That’s such a close similarity.
[/QUOTE]
Wikipedia informs me that KoC was filmed in Romania, whereas this episode was filmed in Spain. The resemblance is eerie, though, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Moffat had been inspired by the video.