Rate and Discuss: The Hungry Earth

[SiHart]

The Earth is Hungry!

Is it another Frontios? What do you think?

Si xx

[Martin Penny]

A thoroughly 'meh' episode for me, I'm afraid. It took forty minutes to accomplish what could have been done in 15. A lot of the surprises had also been spoilt by last week's trailer. The make up for 'The Silurians' was nice, but the CGI looked awful, particularly the tongue.

Worst of the series so far, for me.

[shada pavlova]

My thoughts on the new Silurian design: "Listen to that! It's the sound of the fanbase screaming out its rage!"

Apart from that, quite good. I bet you anything, though, that the "Future Amy & Rory" will be revisited in the finale.

[Alex]

Hmm, that wasn't the disaster I thought it was going to be (I'm not a fan of Chris Chibnall in the slightest), but it passed the time in an amiable enough manner and had the odd nice sequence and a few fun lines of dialogue.

But as Martin said, it did all feel a bit dragged out and could have been packed in to 15 minutes - I just hope next week's makes up for it with a riproaring conclusion.

I rated it 6.5/10, but rounded it to a very charitable 7/10.

[Dino]

On the plus side it was tense and kept me watching but the things wrong with it is all anybody wants to read from me so...

Yes, I see what you mean about David Tennant scripts being left over for Matt Smith's Doctor! In his opening scenes he was speaking words that could have been written for David, but near the end of the episode it looked like the producers must had got in contact with Chris to explain the new Doctor more carefully? He even started gurning when Amy was getting sucked! But not in the way you'd want to see...
So not a shark jumper then but the motorcyles have revved up and the sharks swin hungry...
And then we get to a scene that seems impossible to get wrong in Doctor Who but he got there! A Silurian female hostage they keep chained up... and they make her out to be a fundamentalist! Now I'm aware of the original 1970 story, but wheren't those Silurians more science based than faith?
Ah right, "a different species of Silurian". No, doesn't wash with me and that's a record breaking shark jump at around 30 minutes into the episode!
And more substantial, there wasn't the fun of "Vampires In Venice", three clifhangers... and I'm more annoyed they've stopped the story there than what is going to happen?
And it also contained some of the worst guest acting I've seen in years!
So it was fun to make and I probably won't mind watching it again as a BBC Three double bill at the holidays. Still better than Victory of the Daleks but a step down from the previous three weeks.
So 5.

[Larry]

My thoughts on the new Silurian design: "Listen to that! It's the sound of the fanbase screaming out its rage!"

.

i've seen a few of the negative comments about the new look silurians and t's the usual they look nothing like the originals chang hating rubbish you expect from some sections of fandom. The whole point was these versions were not supposed to look like the originals and just like with the Sea Devils, the Doctor said they were a different branch of the Silurian family. Unfortunatly it seems aome people over on G.B and doctor who on line are unable to grasp that simple fact personaly i love the new look.

As forthe epsisode probely the poorest of the series so far that's not to say i didn't enjoy it but it was pretty clear it's sole purpose t was just there to build things up and set the stage for part 2.

[duncan]

I found myself looking at my watch wondering how much longer the episode had to go. I was a bit bored I have to say.

Also, the cliffhanger was rubbish. It should have ended with Amy about to be cut open by the silurian. That would have been a bit exciting at least.

[Dave Tudor]

I really liked it.

It had Amy in hotpants, for pity's sake!

[Si Hunt]

On the downside, the setting looked too similar to last weeks - no Cardiff City at all this year, but it seems to have been replaced by a quiet Welsh village every week. On the upside, it was a very traditional episode and there was a good, if not especially pacy, build-up - the scene where the Silurian stalked the boy in the graveyard was tense and very exciting, as was Amy being sucked through the Earth and everything up to the monster reveal. I'm not sure about the new Silurian - the figure in the surgeons mask was very sinister, but the Female Warrior was very "Deep Space Nine" - why no voice modulation? It just seemed a bit "actor in make-up", albeit very good make-up. And why on Earth did they wear a mask which looked like a slightly better Doctor Who monster?

Of the guest cast, I quite liked them - a step up from "42". Meera Syal was great, and I loved her keen-ness to see the TARDIS and her touching moment with the bloke, who was also quite good. The fact there were only three people anywhere near this huge drilling project was a bit suspicious. Budget cuts strike again!

The biggest downside (again) was the crap editing. The pre-credits sequence meandered and the cliffhanger was ruined, especially galling when it's only the second proper one this year (and the first was rubbish too). In the Science of Making Doctor Who this is fundamental stuff, and they've 47 years worth of history to see how to get it right and wrong. Tension should be built up to a peak, the music in tandem with it, before the music crashes in. The wrong way to do it was here, with the Doctor wandering into some caves, saying something, and then the music fading in as if in no particular hurry.

So a bit of good and bad. It wasn't a disaster, certainly not a clunker of 42-eseque proportions, but it wasn't QUITE as exciting as it could have been.

Si.

[egdcltd]

Possibly a related problem to one with "Victory of the Daleks"? The story didn't quite fit in one episode, so this time they stretched it into two rather than cramming it into one. And really, putting all the stuff up in 10 minutes? Haven't the writers ever fitted a security light? Bit like equipping the Spitfires with leftover Dalek tech in a similar timespan.

Hard to properly judge a two-parter on one episode though.

[Darren]

10 out of 10

The great thing about Doctor Who is that it's different for everyone.

I loved this episode. It had a very traditional, classic feel. I thought the pacing was good and it had a tense claustrophobic air about it. The smaller cast help to convey a sense of isolation. Hiding the reveal of the Silurians for as long as possible was a good move.
I was very impressed with Meera Syal's character, she would make a good companion. The scene with the Doctor and the boy was wonderful.

There were a couple of bad points which others have picked up on. The pre- titles bit was too long, I also detected a remnant of the Tenth Doctor's dialogue and the cliff hanger ending was limp. But I was enthraled for the whole episode and that deserves a 10.

[Andrew Curnow]

Far be it from me to buck the trend (I'm been called a bucker*** before though, so...) - I loved it. Agreed, yes, it could have all happened quicker, but that's the age old "building suspense Versus padding" argument (see also Earthshock part 3, just as one of probably hundreds of examples). For me, it didn't feel drawn out waiting for something to happen, it felt suspenseful as the characters & the countdown anticipated and wondered WHAT would happen.

I liked the (I assume deliberate) nods to other Pertwee stories, apart from the obvious one! So clear echoes of Inferno (although disappointingly nobody mentioned penetration) and The Daemons, made my inner fanboy glow.

What really made it for me, though, was the combination of great opportunities for the Doctor, and the fact that Matt Smith was so damn good with them. The 'interrogation' scene with the Silurian, the moment where he all but begs Rory to trust him, the scene where he urges the humans to be humanity at its best (I hope that somewhat psychological plot strand, with the potential for the humans left in the Church to ignore the Doctor and take some kind of revenge on the Silurian, is pursued next week), the moment where for all his previous bravado he suddenly realises that he was the last one to see the little boy (Matt's face was haunting), the taking of Amy, even where he tells Meera's character that the blue grass was a warning not an invitation.

On the design side, I'm not fussed about the new design of Silurian - it looks more realistic, yes, but arguably is now almost too human. I'm more intrigued at the shift in their 'backstory' - this lot seem to be not so much 'accidentally-oversleeping reptiles who've been woken up angry' as more 'ancient reptiles who live underground'. The greater depth at which this particular group are living (as opposed to those in the original tale) could perhaps suggest a different faction altogether, one who opted to remain awake but deep, deep, deep underground. Intriguing...

All in all, I thought it was actually one of the finest episodes this year (mind you, I still maintain that World War Three was one of the best of season one) and am a little surprised to find it's had a lukewarm reaction. Ah well, it would be very dull if we all agreed about everything!!



P.S. Not sure of the significance of the very odd (and oddly unseen) future Rory & Amy near the start - maybe the missing 15 minutes would have made more of it, and maybe part 2 will do too.




***I think that's the word used.

[Darren]

I forgot to say that the Silurians were well realised and quite eerie. Also beautiful, as the Doctor said. And the notion of being cut up and conscious is frankly terrifying.

[Lissa]

Apart from the amount of work they got done in less than 10 minutes during the countdown, this was another great episode. There is something about Matt Smith's movement that is amazing to watch. He doesn't get up - he slides upwards and starts walking all in the same motion. And the bit where he politely asks the woman to get rid of the weapons was spot on.

Amy in hotpants is a thumbs up. I'm not sure why she was wearing a jacket if she dressed for Rio though - surely it's either hotpants weather or it's jacket weather. Rio isn't noted for a hot first three feet so that was probably just an excuse.

The redesigned some-called-them-Silurians were better than in Warriors of the Deep (sidebar, sneak preview from the next of my DWB retrospectives has this optimistic quote from December 1983 about Warriors of the Deep - "The Siurians and Sea Devils have been redesigned with superb results") and the lack of voice modification is fine - why should an organic species speak with an electronic voice effect?

The cliffhanger wasn't great - they like these multi-strand cliffhangers but they only really work when the different threats are of the same type. Amy being menaced by a scalpel would work if the Doctor was being threatened with a gun. Likewise, the Doctor making a huge discovery would work with Amy also discovering something terrible. One scalpel and one revelation don't go together so it doesn't really work.

I seem to keep giving these stories 8/10. I can't help it - it's been solid eights (or better) for the whole season.

[Dino]

I loved the synth incidental in the pre-credits. It reminded me of the music for the Jon Pertwee story! And tell me I imagined it, but I'm sure the Nightwatchman shouted "Christ!" as he was getting dragged down?
And I do love the look of the Silurian, just not their motivation?
But still, this was episode 1...

[Si Hunt]

I keep being drawn to 8/10's this year too. It's the Score of Choice this season.

And the bit where he politely asks the woman to get rid of the weapons was spot on.

I thought that was a bit sledgehammered and has been done to death now. Yes, we know the Doctor is anti-weapons, let's move on to something more interesting...

A couple of things are bothering me. Nothing much has actually happened so far, and while that's not a problem in itself, I think the amount they can do in Episode 2 is going to lead to this story not living up to expectations. If meeting 1 Silurian and finding the base has taken up half the story, Part 2 is going to have to move at one hell of a pace for an adventure with as much depth required to do justice to the Silurian concept to happen in the time. But we'll see.

Also the masks. It just doesn't make sense, and we have a feeling it's just so we can have a scene with 500 of them in Episode 2 all wearing the masks, so they don't have to do the individual make-up on all the actors. But it's going to bother me if that means the reptiles all wear monster masks for no reason. It would have been better if they were armour masks or blank face coverings for wearing in battle. Unless they are somehow supposed to be ornamental? The faces on them are too realistic! It's like the Silurians designed their masks with the skill of a Doctor Who monster maker! Unless there is another explanation we haven't heard yet.

Si.

[egdcltd]

The faces on them are too realistic! It's like the Silurians designed their masks with the skill of a Doctor Who monster maker! Unless there is another explanation we haven't heard yet.

Si.

"We all got deformed by a terrible disease. These masks are cosmetic."

Like the Klingons did in an episode of Enterprise where they wound up losing their skull ridges.

[Awesome Wells]

I don't know if I like it or not; and I don't know if this is because it's part one of two or if it's because what I really mean is I liked bits and didn't like others - or that I didn't really love or loathe anything.

Matt Smith's characterisation seemed to have got younger at the start. He was an old man of 906 at the start of the season, but when he was being all serious with Rory about getting Amy back, there was something overly fraternal about it that grated on me. Oddly, the missed-opportunity-high-five didn't - that worked perfectly for me. Similarly, by the time the Doctor called Tony "lad" (or was it "son"? I can't remember) he had aged back to his decreppit best.

Amy was crap. She was stunningly beautiful as ever, but she was just a generic screamy companion given a couple of Amy-ish (Amish? Good lord, no) lines. Again, maybe this is two-parter syndrome; and I agree wholeheartedly with Si about the poor editing/cliffhanger cock ups. Is it really so important to have double or triple jeopardy at the end of the episode? If so, please, please, please (Anne) can we at least have the music building to a suitably exciting crescendo? My aura of perception didn't even wobble.

I liked the guest cast a lot, without exception... although the bloke playing Tony is one of those actors who is always stuck in my brain as the first character I ever saw him play: in this case, a not-particularly-nice prison warder in Inspector Morse. I always find it difficult to accept him as a nice guy; so when he goes all murder-crazy in part two (except it's not him that the foxy Eocene was on about: it's Rory) things will sit slightly better with me.

There were one or two other nitpicks I was going to mention - the ten minutes of techno-craziness that came to precisely nothing; the 'future' Roramy on the distant hillside*; and something about homo reptilias that I can't remember. All of these dilemmas may or may not be resolved next week.

As ever, writing a brief 'review' (ha!) about the episode has made me re-evalute my initial impressions; and this time, I haven't yet voted so I can do so in sounder mind than I did last week. But this week was not an eight out of ten episode at all; and even if it was, it would lose it for all the Pertweeving in the first ten minutes; not to mention all the other stories that seemed to be referenced at various points.

But before I turn into Lawrence Miles or Ian Levine, I'll retire. If I was rating this story, I'd give it seven Eocenes out of the odd-half-dozen in the tribe.



*Probably just a tip-of-the-hat to Logopolis, to fit in with all the other tips of respective pieces of headgear. All I could think of was the Watcher, er... watching Tegan and her Aunt fannying around with a flat tyre. But as that's my favourite scene in any Doctor Who ever**, that probably makes this the best story of Matt Smith's era; or any other. Possibly.

** A lie. Nearly

[Rob McCow]

I reckon this episode was "Doctor Who And The Silurians - 2010 Remix" in the same way that Age of Steel/Rise of The Cybermen was a "2006 Greatest Hits of The Cybermen". So yes, this story inherits some of the 70's version's slow build up, but that's not a problem for me. Remember when people used to complain that it all went too quickly?

As for the make up - it was fabulous. We watched it this morning on the Sky+, then when the episode ended it took us back to a Deep Space Nine episode with the Jem Ha'dar. Now they've got a similar appearance, but after seeing the Silurians the Star Trek aliens looked a lot cheaper and tattier. So it is a great make-up job.

The only things that are wrong with the make-up are the eyes. To me, a reptile eye should look different from a human eye. Maybe there will be a point about that in part two, but maybe not.

I agree with Lissa about the 10 minutes thing, they seem to have re-wired the entire village in that time. Although I really liked that all their preparations turned out to be useless! I was thinking 'Hmm, this is a bit over-reliant on electricity' when they were setting it up, so I was very pleased when the lights went out.

The cast were great, with Meera Syal playing Amy Pond this week. 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!

I've also been awed by the direction this year. There are so many lovely shots, the lighting is always outstanding and sometimes they even convince me that it's not pi$ing down with rain in every single shot. It's making the bulk of the RTD era look comparatively artless!

So we had a Doctor Who story with about five or six CGI shots (that I could make out), a handful of locations, a tiny cast and one alien. Yet it was just as exciting as some of the more over-blown productions from the past.

And was this the Amy Pond-lite episode or what?

[SiHart]

I think that an effective tension builder. yes, this episode could have been done in 15 minutes as Martin says, but I think it worked as a slow burner, slowly developing the tension and the atmosphere. It might perhaps work better if thet two episodes are watched back to back (depending, of course on what happens next week).

I see Mr Dino Cloud noticed a moment of Silurians music- did anyone else notice the warriors of the Deep music homage as the humans come to see Alesha in chains? Great stuff!

There's a lot of kids in Doctor Who this year, isn't there? Just thought I'd mention that. Elliot was rather well played I thought.

I liked Meera Syall. She was very watchable. I especially liked how she started to clap after the Doctor's very 10th Doc speech. That undercut it quite nicely.

So 8/10 from me. Again!

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

Ah, I'm feeling the love for it now, jolly good! I forgot to say yesterday, although I know Si mentioned not liking it, that I actually thought the 'no weapons' scene was rather good - I got a bit fed up with the sledgehammer "No guns!" in, for example, the Sontaran story, but here it worked very well. Indeed, I thought Matt was actually rather menacing - his smile didn't move at all, he just sort of suggested she leave the weapons behind, in an almost Mafia-like way, very quiet and reasonable, but very steely. What he'd have done if she'd refused I'm not sure....

[matthewsch]

A great episode with clever quirks and some magnificent moments (9/10, which I have been putting for most Series 5 episodes). "Sonicing and entering" was hilarious, as was the eating of the grass, Nasreen clapping after the Doctor's speech.
I loved that the pre-credit accident/death wasn't just a 'let's-write-off-a-minor-that-we-don't-care-about', but that we are touched by the closeness of him and his son and we have reason to care about him. Whoever said that Nasreen is making a great Amy is right. And yeah, Amy seemed to be acting a bit like Martha in this episode - scream, squeal, whine. The cliffhanger was rubbish (where was the music?). I think that the kid who played Elliot did a brilliant job, I really feel for his character, and yeah I noticed too that we seem to be having a number of children this season. Oh, and I loved the capturing of the Silurian, although they could have done a bit better with the makeup - it looked like an actor painted green with the eyes overlooked. The voice was fine.

The two people on the hillside waving weren't Amy and Rory. Apart from the fact that that would be too gimmicky, the woman is Ambrose. The woman on the hillside is wearing the same clothes as Ambrose, and when Ambrose approaches Rory when he exits the TARDIS, we see the back of her head first (which looks like the back of Amy's head), and we think "Oooh it's Amy from across the hill" but the camera angle was deliberately set up to make us think that. I first thought the guy with the woman was Elliot, but they are wearing different clothes, and the guy across the hillside is the same height as the woman (Ambrose). Finally, Ambrose was wanting to see a policeman, so when she saw the police box, she waved, and next thing, she's made her way over to see the 'policeman'. The Doctor couldn't've known for sure that it was Amy and Rory across the hillside because we saw through his binoculars and the facial features were unrecognisable.

[Perry Vale]

There's a lot of kids in Doctor Who this year, isn't there? Just thought I'd mention that. Elliot was rather well played I thought.

He was playing 'Young Chris Chibnall'.

Not the disaster it could have been (for me), but not particularly great either. The smaller cast helped (as character isn't Chibnall's strong point), but the whole thing still felt very uneven in places in the dialogue department. The Silurians definitely looked like (wo)men in suits, and I couldn't understand the point of the mask either. I didn't like the 10th Doctor speech either, which seemed crowbarred in to fit with the folllowing scene with Alaya. Weakest of the season so far, I'd maybe give it a 7.

[Si Hunt]

Ny Nan's verdict: "For the first time Si, I sat through the whole of Doctor Who without having to turn over because it was too frightening. Yes, I liked it, though now we've got to wait a week to find out if he finds Amy haven't we? The Doctor didn't seem that bothered about her though."

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. An old woman speaks.

Si.

[Lissa]

I couldn't understand the point of the mask either

I took the masks to be the technology which let them do those body scans (etc). We saw advanced readouts from the some-called-them-Silurians' point of view so they'd need something to do it for them unless they're bionic. Which they might be. Or not.