Rate and Discuss: The Hungry Earth

[Stuart Wallis]

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. An old woman speaks.

Oy! give us a chance to open me gob!

Today's headline is: HORROR AT WALLIS ENJOYING SERIES 5 EPISODE!

I'll wait while some of you recover from the vapours...

What we got this week was something like an early Pertwee episode, compared to the usual faster-paced adventure we've been given since the programme came back under the old RTD government; but not so slow that one falls asleep through lack of plot or tension. Amy's removal allowed Rory the potential to get a little more to do, but he was as much utilised last week as this, and i agree with what Steve said -

Rory is superb when he's got stuff to do but so many times he's standing there with his gob open, or saying 'Um... oh.'. I loved the bit where he and the Doctor bundled the Silurian into the back of the van!

(He pays good money for me to be his yes man, who am I to argue?)

Our major spokes woman for the Silurians is, as peple have said, a woman in obvious mask, but as good a prosthetic as we've had in many years on the show. The chase in the graveyard was done effectively enough, and I had to laugh at "Don't diss the Sonic!" For some reason...

Perhaps the reason why the cliffhanger was edited the way it was, was to stop it being too frightening for the littlies. It certainly would have worked as a cliffhanger had the shot of the city been shown before the attack on Amy. It was a good shot of the city though, and the effects of the lightning and the darkening/fading of the shield were good too.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to watch this week, as I've not had this much Who-related fun since - well, the tale of the embarrassing photos of a former male companion called Mark Strickson who shall remain nameless, shall have to wait for another time. 8/10

[Awesome Wells]

Green-faced-Silurian-warrior-chick looks, I find on second viewing, like Noel Fielding.

Fit.

[egdcltd]

I wonder now, having seen it again, if these Silurians are part human.

[Wayne]

Underwhelmed. Especially after 'Amy's Choice', last week.
Could've been worse, but could've been SO much better.
Can't be arsed to say much about it, because my biggest reaction to it is one of indifference, rather than really enjoying it or passionately hating it.
Will see what Part 2 brings.
I still think Matt & Karen are great, but Chibnall was never gonna do them any favours.
5/10.

[Rob McCow]

I'm wondering if people would have liked this better if we hadn't known it was Silurians? As usual, the episode was set up in a way that assumes the audience has no prior knowledge of what's going on, but we've all seen the trailer the week before!

Yes, there probably are people who watch it and didn't know what was coming, but that's not the people on this forum.

[Si Hunt]

And even those people would have been out having barbecues and known it was the Silurians from their Who fan friends who nipped inside, watched it, then came back out and exclaimed "bugger it, the Silurians!" over a barbecued sausage.

EPIC FAIL!

Si.

[egdcltd]

These days, I try to avoid watching the next week trailers, as they have this annoying tendency to give away huge plot points. Like, for example, in the first episode with the new Cybermen. All the way through the program, we never saw the Cybermen, so the monster was kept mysterious all the way through to the end when they were finally revealed. Except they gave that away in the previous weeks trailer! Ruining the whole buildup.

Of course, you also have to avoid a number of other things too.

[Lissa]

For me, the title "Rise of the Cybermen" gave away the big surprise. It was Planet of the Daleks all over again.

[egdcltd]

For me, the title "Rise of the Cybermen" gave away the big surprise. It was Planet of the Daleks all over again.

Oddly, I'd managed to totally miss the title of the episode. But that's more of the same problem. What's the point in trying to build suspense by hiding the monster if it's then given away like that?

[Si Hunt]

Publicity?

The program getting another series is more important than creating a "shock" moment for the people who are already going to watch. The striking return of the new look Cybermen probably added five million people to the ratings, and quite frankly they'd have been barmy to have NOT used them to trail the episode.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Can I also add that as a kid, watching Destiny of the Daleks part 1 for the first time, a big part of the excitement was waiting for them to appear - yes, it's in the title and was (if memory serves) well advertised that the Daleks were coming back, but that doesn't mean they should just bung them on screen right from the off.

And I may be wrong, but isn't part of the fun knowing what the monster is but waiting for the moment where the Doctor finds out? It's abit akin to those knowing looks they get in soap operas, and the audience goes "Ah, I bet she's pregnant/gay/married/whatever" and has that sense of 'one-upmanship' on the characters who are (as yet) oblivious.

Of course that may just be me.

[Andrew Curnow]

Actually, did we see the Cybermen in the trailer for Rise of...? Stomping feet, blurred figures in the distance, yes, but not the actual, erm, full-frontal.

[SiHart]

I wonderif the siluarians/ eocenes/ homo repetila etc might have been better with a slightly modulated voice?

Si xx

[Lissa]

Publicising most of your big surprises helps build an audience and gives the programme makers scope to keep one or two things as genuine surprises. The Time Lords returning at the end of part one of "The End of Tennant" came as a complete shock to me. Moffat - and RTD before him - are pretty good judges of what should be promoted and what should be kept secret.

[Si Hunt]

I wonderif the siluarians/ eocenes/ homo repetila etc might have been better with a slightly modulated voice?

I said the same Si! I accept Lissa's point that there's no logical reason for it, but sometimes they should do things just because it would be cool.

Si.

[Jon Masters]

I said the same Si! I accept Lissa's point that there's no logical reason for it, but sometimes they should do things just because it would be cool.

Si.

Since they're based on reptiles, no reason why they couldn't be using technology to make their natural noises understandable by stupid apes.

I'm still more concerned by their very human looking noses

[Si Hunt]

Why can't they just happen to have gurgley voices? No reason needed.

Si.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

I didn't know it was going to be the Silurians and I did watch the Next Time trailer at the end of the previous weeks episode!!! Mind you, I have very successfully avoided (so far) pretty much all information about this series and I have to say that I'm enjoying knowing nothing about the episodes up front.
The first I even know of the episode title is when the banner on PS is updated each week!!!

I really liked this episode (apart from that rubbish cliff-hanger - I agree with Si Hunt about the way cliff-hangers should be done).
The things I enjoyed were the slower pace, the quiet setting, the whole 'Pertwee story' feel to it mixed with another brilliant performance by Matt Smith, whose persona carries so much weight and is so believable.

I admit that I think these Silurians look better with their masks on (I agree with Si Hunt - that's twice now - in that I don't know quite whether the masks are required - however I do buy the 'technology argument' regarding the 'POV scans').

Looking forward to next week and indeed the rest of the series - about which I know absolutely nothing - I've a feeling it will be great though!!!!

[Si Hunt]

Agreeing with Si Hunt should be mandatory. But feel free to disagree with me on that.

Si. :mobile

[Antony Cox]

I watched this for the first time yesterday and nodded off continually, though I was quite tired so I can't blame the story entirely!

I was hoping that it wouldn't be a rough re-hash of DW and the Silurians, but it's turning out to be just that, though I guess there's not a lot else you can do with these monsters as that's their whole raison detre.

Saying that, whilst this may dampen the enjoyment for us old-skool fans, it won't be a problem for the wider mainstream audience who are not aware of the original story.

As has already been pointed out, they do look facially very human this time so perhaps there is going to be a fundamental difference in the story from that POV.

Overall, not bad, but by default, not wholly original.

[Si Hunt]

I must say, one thing that I haven't commented on but which crossed my mind is that, more than a lot of other monster returns, this seems more like a 're-make' of the earlier story. Some lines seemed to reference DWATS exactly, I believe one went something like "We were here before man" and then there was the "stupid apes" business. It's tempting to think that stories like this give monster returns a bad name, because the writer is just regurgitating anothers work - bizarrely managing to miss the point entirely by 'adding' into the mix the fact that the Silurians just hate man full-stop. Of course the story isn't over yet, so maybe we will meet some less morally rigid Silurians in the second episode. But for now, the story is highlighting an apparent lack of ideas by remaking an old plot with new costumes, rather than updating an old monster with a fresh angle.

By way of proof, many people seem to like this story simply because it's slow and "Pertwee like" - basically because it's a re-write of a Classic Doctor Who story which is why lots of us old school fans find it curiously comfortable. But perhaps we should wonder if this dearth of ideas/unsavoury pilfering is a less than complete victory?

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

I wasn't sure what to make of that episode, to be honest. It had some good stuff in it, but then there was some plain silly stuff. Ten minutes to gather every surveillance device and then wire up the whole village? Only four or five people living there at all? The most absurd thing about the ten minute village wiring up was that it was all useless anyway, and eventually they captured the Silurian by leaping out of a van and bindling her in!

There was a lot of stuff that just went too far. The Doctor continually promising he would get people back got wearing after a time. The whole business with Amy being sucked underground was so overdone (I don't want to suffocate, don't you let go, NOOOOOOOO) it was just poor. It should have been sudden and shocking, not long and drawn out, especially since the other chap managed to escape despite not being so young and fit as Amy. The energy barrier was pointless, since they're in a remote isolated village it hardly seemed necessary to physically cut them off from the outside world, although apparently it was only there to make the scene dark and frightening.

The Silurian looks too Star Trek for my liking, and why does an alien from deep under a Welsh village have a Scots accent? I'll wait for the next episode before deciding how silly an entire underground civilisation that has apparently never tried to see what's on the surface before now is, but I've already decided that drilling 20 miles down because of some blue grass on the surface is silly. Whatever is turning the grass blue that piqued their interest isn't 20 miles down if the grass is affected by it!

There was some good stuff in there. Matt Smith continues to impress, and I did like the way he encouraged the young boy to help by drawing the map. 'I can't do the words, I'm dyslexic.' 'Well that's all right, I can't make a decent meringue.' Meera Syal was good, but with Amy and Rory a surrogate companion character seems unnecessary.

Let's see how part 2 develops.

[Dr Judson]

I enjoyed the episode but like many others, I thought that it was very slow-moving and stately. Even though it was the first of a two-parter, it could have still moved at a relatively quick pace. Look at The Time of Angels. Even though most of it was spent exploring the caves, it still moved at a quick pace and set up many important plot points before setting us up for a rollicking good cliffhanger. In this one, the Silurians don't turn up until the 35 minute mark. Speaking of the cliffhanger, it just seemed to come out of nowhere and wasn't given any thorough buildup. I didn't expect the cliffhanger to turn up during that scene. Even so, I will wait until Part 2 before I give my full verdict.

P.S: Does anyone think that the new-look Silurians would look much more traditional if their metal masks were actually part of their faces? I thought that the masks looked very similar to the Classic Silurians.

[Rob McCow]

P.S: Does anyone think that the new-look Silurians would look much more traditional if their metal masks were actually part of their faces?

I kind of agree, but the face-mask with it's large eyes and mouth would be difficult to animate. They could have ended up like the Sea Devils, who talk without their mouths moving.

I'm suspecting that they had two great (great!) designs for the Silurians and couldn't decide which one to use.

[SiHart]

I hope they don't reveal that all the Silurains we've met before were wearing masks.

Si xx