 This two-part adventure, by former Torchwood head writer Chris Chibnall, heralds the return, after a 26 year absence, of the Silurians - classic monsters from the original run of the show. Their previous appearance was in the 1984 Fifth Doctor story "Warriors of the Deep".
This story shares many similarities to the very first Silurian story - the 1970 Third Doctor story "Doctor Who and the Silurians" and The Doctor directly references the events of this first encounter.
This is the second Doctor Who story written by Chris Chibnall. His first being the 2007 Tenth Doctor story "42". He also scripted episodes of Torchwood and Life on Mars.
This story was directed by Ashley Way - his first full Doctor Who story. Ashley Way has previous directed the 2005 Doctor Who Interactive adventure "Attack of the Graske ", the online Tardisodes that were part of the 2006 season, and six episodes of Torchwood. His other directing credits include sixteen episodes of BBC Wales’ Belonging from 2005 to 2007 and three episodes of the 2009 BBC Wales drama Crash.
This story guest stars Meera Syal who is best known for her appearances in Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42. Meera Syal also starred in Steven Mofiat’s Jekyll.
Also starring are: Robert Pugh (who played Jonah in the Torchwood episode "Adrift"), Samuel Davies (Framed), Alun Raglan (Belonging), Nia Roberts (Holby City), Neve McIntosh (Bodies), Richard Hope (The Bill) and Stephen Moore who is best known to science-fiction fans as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the original radio and television versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
This story formed block 4 of Season Thirty One (New Series 5) production schedule. This story was shot across late October and November 2009 in Upper Boat and Llanwonno, Wales.
The first episode was incorrectly entitled, "The Ground Beneath their Feet". The title was confirmed on the cover of issue 421 of the Doctor Who Magazine.
The first episode, when completed, had a running time of sixty minutes, requiring over fifteen minutes of footage to be removed in order to fit its broadcast slot.
Despite the press release saying that the story would take place in 2015, it actually takes place in 2020. It may have been changed due to some events of the previous story happening in 2015.
At the beginning of this story Amy Pond and Rory Williams see in the distance what may be future versions of themselves - seemingly revisiting their past adventure and watching their past (current, from the show's perspective) selves. However, as proved at the end of this story this may change, as The Doctor is heard to say, ‘time can be re-written’.
The story being read to Elliot at the beginning of the first episode is "The Gruffalo", written by Julia Donaldson. It was adapted for the small screen by the BBC in 2009.
This is the second time The Doctor has planned to go to the beach but instead ended up somewhere else. In this story The Doctor promised to take Amy to a beach but the TARDIS materialises in a graveyard instead. This is a reference to "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" when The Doctor promised to take Donna Noble to a beach but they ended up in a library instead.
The Silurians first appeared in a 1970 Third Doctor story "Doctor Who and the Silurians". It was written by Malcolm Hulke, directed by Timothy Combe and featured Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. This first Silurian story is generally held to be one of the show's finest and brilliantly depicted the nuances of the Silurian species, portraying them as a varied race of individuals driven by conflicting aims and ideologies. Some Silurians feared and loathed the humans who now claimed Earth as their own; others, guided by The Doctor, sought peace. Ultimately The Doctor was unable to prevent human forces bombing the Silurians' base, leaving the Time Lord fuming at the unnecessary destruction of life.
The Third Doctor later faced the Silurians' marine cousins, known as the Sea Devils, in the 1972 story "The Sea Devils". The Sea Devils forged an alliance with the Master who had convinced the Sea Devils that mankind was their enemy and although at one point it seemed The Doctor would be able to broker a peaceful solution between the two species, once again the encounter ended in bloodshed.
The third and final meeting with the Silurians and Sea Devils occurred in the 1984 Fifth Doctor story, "Warriors of the Deep". Once again The Doctor attempted to find a peaceful solution and failed as the Silurians appeared more single-minded in their aggression towards mankind. Following the deaths of many Silurians and humans a distraught Doctor was only able to mourn, ‘There should have been another way’.
In this story the warrior class of Silurians wear armour and use heat-ray weapons similar to the Sea Devils in "Warriors of the Deep".
The masks the Silurians wear are similar to the helmets the Sycorax wore in the 2005 Tenth Doctor story "The Christmas Invasion".
One of the major differences in the Silurian tribe, The Doctor encounters in this story, is their ability to flick their long forked tongues at their enemies, injecting them with poison. The Doctor implies that he has prior knowledge of such an ability, suggesting that he has encountered another Silurian tribe with a similar trait.
This is also the first Silurian story to feature a female member of the species.
The Doctor is heard to refer to the Silurians as ‘Eocenes’, ‘Homo Reptilia’ and ‘Earth...lians’. The Doctor previously referred to the Silurians as ‘Eocenes’ in "The Sea Devils".
The Silurian Council Chamber is a redress of the Platform One meeting room set from the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "The End of the World" and the Mona Lisa chamber at the art gallery in The Sarah Jane Adventures story "Mona Lisa's Revenge".
The Doctor is heard mentioning the Silurians going into hibernation when the Moon first aligned with the Earth. This is a reference to the book "Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters" - Malcolm Hulkes’ novelisation of "Doctor Who and the Silurians".
The gravity bubble, used by the Silurians, was also used by Edwin Bracewell to keep the Spitfires in space in "Victory of the Daleks".
At one point Elliot is heard to say: ‘When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’. Thgis is a quote from Sherlock Holmes who originally shared this theory with Doctor Watson in "The Sign of Four" - the second novel, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, to feature the Great Detective.
It seems The Doctor is drawn to people called Rose as the name ‘Nasreen’ is of Persian origin and means ‘wild Rose’.
In response to the question ‘Are you scared of monsters?’ The Doctor replies with ‘No, they're scared of me’. This is similar to something he says to Reinette in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "The Girl in the Fireplace".
This story has similarities with a number of previous stories: A similar drilling project took place in the 1970 Third Doctor story "Inferno"; The 1971 Third Doctor story "The Dæmons" also featured a small town cut off from the outside world by an energy barrier and the 1973 Third Doctor story "The Green Death" was set in a small Welsh mining village.
The Doctor again mentions that the sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood. He last stated this in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead".
The Doctor attempting to drag Amy from a mysterious hole the visor's different scanning types are reminiscent of the helmets used by the aliens in the Predator film series. Also when The Doctor moves his hand when looking through the heat scanning glasses, there is the same 'swish' sound heard when the Predator changes its’ scanning type.
This is the second time The Doctor has used a church as a refuge, the first time was in the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Father's Day". The Doctor also herded people into the church in the Third Doctor story "The Dæmons" and in "Amy's Choice" - the story that precedes this one.
The Doctor is heard asking the Silurians for a stick of celery after the almost lethal ‘decontamination’. This a reference to the Fifth Doctor, who wore a stick of celery on his lapel. In "The Caves of Androzani", he claimed it had restorative powers and he also stated it could detect certain gasses.
The Doctor is heard to mention fixed points in time again. He previously mentioned this in the Tenth Doctor stories "The Fires of Pompeii" and "The Waters of Mars".
This is the first story since "The End of Time" to have narration. Other stories with narration include the 1976 Fourth Doctor story "The Deadly Assassin", the 1996 television movie "Doctor Who: The Movie" and the Tenth Doctor stories "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" and "Human Nature/The Family of Blood".
As with the previous stories, involving the Silurians and their marine cousins, the Sea Devils, this story also has an unhappy ending – in the case of this story the death of Amy’s fiancée, and fellow travelling companion, Rory. "The Sea Devils" ended with The Master escaping The Doctor while "Warriors of the Deep" saw terrible numbers of humans, Silurians and Sea Devils killed in the final episode. Perhaps most shocking of all, "Doctor Who and the Silurians" concluded with the deliberate bombing of a Silurian base. The Doctor refers to this attack when giving Nasreen a crash course in Silurian history.
At the end of this story Rory is killed when he pushes The Doctor out of the line of fire only to be mortally wounded himself, just like what happens to Jenny in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "The Doctor's Daughter".
The events at the end of this story continues the running season's story arc in bringing the threat brought about by the cracks in the universe to a more personal level for the TARDIS crew when The Doctor is forced to drag Amy into the TARDIS when Rory is eventually consumed by another crack in the universe, effectively erasing him from the timeline.
This is not the first time that a companion has died while travelling with The Doctor. In the 1982 Fifth Doctor story "Earthshock", Adric, a companion of both the Fourth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor died after an encounter with the Cybermen. Katrina, a young woman who travelled with the First Doctor lost her life during an epic battle with the Daleks, in the 1965/66 story "The Daleks' Master Plan", which also cost the life of Sara Kingdom, another companion of the First Doctor. Captain Jack Harkness was also killed in "Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways", in 2005, and "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End", in 2008 (though in both cases, due to his unique abilities, he was later resurrected).
Arthur Darvill, who played Rory Williams appears in the 2010 big screen version of Robin Hood. This film also features Robert Pugh, who stars in "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" as Tony, and John Atterbury who appeared in two Second Doctor stories. The 1968 story "The Mind Robber" and the 1969 story "The War Games".
Strangely when Amy is trying not to forget Rory, the memory of him getting shot doesn't show the laser blast striking him.
During the scene where The Doctor and Amy discover another crack in the universe clips from "The Eleventh Hour", "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone", and "The Vampires of Venice" were shown.
At the end of this story The Doctor is seen fishing a burnt piece of the TARDIS out of the crack – it seems that The Doctor's TARDIS is at least at the centre of the explosion that started the cracks.
Following on immediately after each episode of this story, on BBC3, were the eighth and ninth chapters of the fifth series of Doctor Who Confidential. These being "After Effects" and "What Goes on Tour…". Both looked into the making of this story and the Silurians. They were presented by Alex Price.
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The Firsts:
The first appearance of The Silurians in the revamped television series and the first for 26 years - since the 1984 Fifth Doctor story "Warriors of the Deep".
The first Silurian story to feature a female member of the species.
The first story since "The End of Time" to contain a narration.
The first story where a companion (Rory) has died while travelling with The Doctor in the revamped television series and the first for 28 years - since Adric in the 1982 Fifth Doctor story "Earthshock".
The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Ashley Way.
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(Position = 7 out of 10)
(Position = 178 out of 241)
