ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
It’s great to see the Silurians given the New Who treatment.
They were always one of the most nuanced of monsters, and here they’re given an
even more detailed society than we have previously seen. Away from that, this
is a pretty good story that wobbles a bit in the second part but is generally
quite spooky and enjoyable. Oh, and Rory dies again.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in Cwmtaff, South Wales
where a drilling operation headed by Doctor Nasreen Chaudhry (Meera Syal) seems
to be causing unusual problems. Something seems to be kidnapping the locals.
Naturally enough, the Doctor investigates and during an earthquake Amy is
pulled beneath the surface of the Earth.
There is then a signal of three life forms coming up from
below the Earth. These turn out to be Silurians and when they attack they
injure one of the humans but one of their party, Alaya (Neve McIntosh) is taken
prisoner. The Doctor and Nasreen travel in the TARDIS to the Silurian base
where the Doctor intends to try to make peace between the reptiles and the
humans.
The Doctor promises the safe return of Alaya as part of his
deal with the Silurians who agree to a peace treaty. Unfortunately, Alaya has
already been killed, and so the deal fails. The elderly Silurian leader who
hoped for peace seals the Silurians back into hibernation and Nasreen and one
of her party stay below the surface.
As they leave the Doctor finds a crack in a wall, identical
to the cracks they’ve seen elsewhere and believes it to be a time fissure,
reaching inside he picks out a piece of the TARDIS exterior and he realises
that the time fissure was caused by the TARDIS exploding. Before they leave a
lone Silurian tries to shoot the Doctor, but Rory jumps in and protects him and
is then absorbed by the time leakage from the crack causing Amy to forget he
ever existed.
There’s a lot of really good stuff in this story; especially
in the first episode. The scary ‘corner of the eye’ glimpses of something
stalking the valleys are effective and the slow build up to the reveal of the
Silurians is handled really well. Also done well is the scene of Amy being
sucked into the ground.
Neve McIntosh is superb as evil Silurian Alaya (and her
military sister, Restak), really inhabiting the role of lizard woman and it’s
little wonder she was brought back later on to play the magnificent Madame
Vastra in later stories.
In Episode two (Cold Blood) things do slightly start to go
awry; there’s a very odd reaction from Amy when she’s being threatened by the
Silurian scientists – she doesn’t actually seem scared just sort of a bit annoyed
which doesn’t feel natural at all. Then we get another retread of the Doctor
trying to make peace between reptiles and man (which we’ve seen at least three
times before) which we know from the very start is going to be doomed to
failure, so really you find yourself just waiting for that to happen. Poor old
Doctor, the Silurians really do seem to be his Achilles heel.
The whole crack in time story finally starts to move up a
gear and the revelation that it was caused by the TARDIS exploding means we’re
keen to see what happens next.
All in all, not a bad story, I remembered it less fondly
than I found watching it this time around, the first episode remains very
effective and it is one of the better stories of this season.
NEXT UP: VINCENT AND THE DOCTOR
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2022
