Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Doctor Who, Series 5 - Episode 8: The Hungry Earth

SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUTS


THE PLOT

Accidentally traveling to 10 years in the future (2020), The Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves in a Welsh village. The Doctor and Amy wind up investigating a nearby mining site after The Doctor feels something strange in the Earth below. Meanwhile, Rory - who returned to the TARDIS to drop off Amy's engagement ring for safe-keeping - is mistaken for a plain-clothes policeman and is recruited to investigate an apparent grave robbery on his own,

It turns out the mine is home to the most ambitious digging project ever. Naturally, like the dwarves of Moria, they dug too deep and uncovered something best left buried. But unlike the dwarves, they uncovered not a giant made of shadow and fire, but a group of Silurians.

Silurians, for those of you who haven't seen the Original Series, are a race of lizard men who took refuge within the Earth before the mammals took over. They don't much like humans in general, trespassers in specific and are - not surprisingly - responsible for both the grave robbery and the disappearance of several other living people... including Amy.

Taking refuge in a church, The Doctor and Rory manage to trap one of the Silurians in the basement. The Doctor and one of the head miners then descend into The Earth to find Amy and the other missing people as Rory and the rest of the miners are pushed by their hostage to kill her, thus starting an official war between their races. And under the Earth, The Doctor is horrified to find that what he thought was a small hole with a dozen Silurians is actually a great cavern, stretching for miles, housing an entire civilization.





THE GOOD PARTS

* Rory continues to impress here, honestly trying to muddle through helping the people who mistake him for an cop.

* The reveal of the Silurians as the culprits is a good one and not immediately obvious, even to long-time fans of the show. They are explained well enough even if The Doctor's history with them is somewhat glossed over.





THE PROBLEMS

* Not enough Amy.

* The Doctor/Rory alpha-male posturing was old after two episodes. Three is more than enough.

* The Doctor's "I'm not scared of monsters. They're scared of me" speech is painfully stilted and a sad echo of a similar speech David Tenant once gave.

* The supporting cast don't stand out at all. I can't remember any of their names or any personality traits apart from old male scientist, old female scientist, mother and the kid.





THE DOCTOR'S DICK MOVE OF THE WEEK

This line says it all.

Old Male Scientist: You're not making any sense, man.
The Doctor: Excuse me! I'm making perfect sense! You're just not keeping up!



The Final Verdict: A fairly weak opening for what will hopefully be a stronger Part Two. Karen Gillian's charisma becomes apparent the minute she disappears from the show and we are left with a weak supporting cast, The Doctor and Rory fighting for supremacy (albeit briefly) and the return of a Classic Series villain whose return is, frankly, a surprise for once.

2 comments:

  1. Oh and I haven't watched the second episode yet at this point. SO its not a spoiler just an educated guess based on how these things go.

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  2. Honestly I quite liked the female scientist. I thought oh I like her so much, she's going to die. Because I loved how eager she was to see it all.

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