"Bringing things to order, the first meeting of the representatives of the human race and homo reptilia is now in session. Never said that before. That's fab."
Episode #216: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood.
Companions: The 11th Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams.
Air Date: 22nd to 29th May 2010.
It’s 2020, and the most ambitious drilling project in history has reached deeper beneath the Earth's crust than man has ever gone before — but now the ground itself is fighting back. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in a tiny mining village, and find themselves plunged into a battle against a deadly danger from a bygone age.
Yay! At last we have the long awaited return of the Silurians and they have had a 21st century make over. The episode explains it as a different species of Silurian (or Homo Reptilia as the Doctor annoyingly keeps referring to them). The re-imagining has them much more human looking and without the strange third eye in the foreheads. No reference to the Sea Devils unfortunately. Still, it is good to see them back.
The story itself is a little too similar to the original Silurian story from the time of the 3rd Doctor for my tastes. I'd have liked something more original but I guess this is a good way to introduce the Silurians to a new audience without having to do a lot of backwards explaining. The problem is that the story deals with human drilling awakening the Silurians and then a group being aggressive towards mankind for being intruding apes. A peace is started only to fall apart because of that self same aggression. All in all it is too much like the original story.
The Silurians for their anti-human stance are portrayed as highly civilized and yet mankind is once again shown to be uncompromising and aggressive in return. We humans have our issues but I don't think we are quite as bad as we are shown to be in the Doctor's eyes. Recent incarnations seem to see us in a negative light and it is a bit much.
This episode features the first proper death of Rory Williams. A running joke throughout the show now is how many times can Rory die? In this instance Rory is killed by a Silurian and his body and history erased by the mysterious crack in the skin of the universe. As part of that incident the Doctor discovers a shard of the TARDIS inside the crack indicating that at some point the TARDIS will be destroyed. All together it plays nicely into the overarching story for this season.
The Hungry Earth and the Cold Blood together make a good Doctor Who adventure if a little long and drawn out even for a two parter. The return of the Silurians is really good to see as is some expansion on their culture that we didn't have before. More classic monsters are definitely needed. Well worth a watch as a refresher or as an introduction to the Silurians.
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