Doctor Who reviews: The Hungry Earth

Saturday, 22 May 2010 16:12 | by Martin Anderson

The original occupants of Earth are woken up by us...again. And they're not happy...

Doctor Who - 'The Hungry Earth'

The rarely-seen original reptilian denizens of Earth surface (literally) again in Chris Chibnal's The Hungry Earth, only their third ever outing in all of Doctor Who from 1963 to the present (the others being the Jon Pertwee entry Doctor Who and the Silurians from 1970, and the appallingly unwatchable Warriors Of The Deep from the Peter Davison era, in 1984).

In Murray Gold's defence (and we don't defend him often), The Hungry Earth is arguably the first time these reptilian sitting-tenants of our planet have ever had a decent soundtrack to accompany their world-conquering adventures to the surface.

There are a number of reasons that the Silurians have not proved frequent visitors to the official TV Who canon. One is that their prior (and quite legitimate right) to the planet Earth has been delved into and explained in their two previous stories. Another is that they were only ever moderately scary when they were channelling the Cybermen's line of intractable military ruthlessness - something which the Cybermen themselves did a lot better, even in their worst stories.

To boot, the one thing they had that made them really scary was their alien physiognomy, which frightening facet Matt Smith removed in a few seconds this week by revealing that those hideous Silurian faces are actually some kind of mask, with a fairly anthropoid fizzog underneath. This quickly gets over the old problem of The Doctor trying to have long conversations with rubber facades, re-introduces a human element that next week's Cold Blood may well find easier if the Silurians aren't recognisably scary...but takes the edge off the behind-the-sofa factor of this particular Doctor Who monster.

"You and I, having been rudely awoken by our neighbours, might rack up the window and shout some abuse, send a text to the offender if we have their number, or at worst phone the council. Instead, every time we wake up the Siliurians, they immediately gather numbers and attempt yet another foray at re-claiming the planet."

This time the endlessly dozy Silurians were woken up by Welsh attempts (hey, it's near BBC DW central) to make a record-breaking burrow into the planet.

You and I, having been rudely awoken by our neighbours, might rack up the window and shout some abuse, send a text to the offender if we have their number, or at worst phone the council.

Instead, every time we wake up the Siliurians, they immediately gather numbers and attempt yet another foray at re-claiming the planet. Okay, so apparently they were drilling up while we drilling down, but...in exactly the same direction? Anyway, the plot makes clear that we're the ones who were operating heavy machinery outside legitimate hours...

The Hungry Earth is another hearken back to classic Who, with a cheap and isolated country location, but this time director Ashley Way summons up the best of the spirit of the Pertwee years, and we're able to enjoy some genuine suspense as we wait to meet the monster-of-the-week. Or weeks, as this is a two-parter. And this is more the way Who two-parters are meant to be - build suspense, deliver a little of the goods, introduce some menace and then make us wait for the next episode.

Threatening Amy with vivisection (not dissection, as her long-suffering cellmate called it, since he is evidently still alive) was quite the appropriate moment for the wheooooo to kick in. It's one of the strongest and most visceral threats in new Who since we caught a glimpse of how the Cybermen turn us into them, but one can't help but feel that the producers backed out of ending on a note so frightening - even if they only quickly delayed the credits with The Doctor's own tumble into peril.

The story is set ten years in the future, and finds two very distant and older versions of Amy and Rory at the TARDIS's landing site, there apparently either to welcome or warn their former selves. Perhaps they are there to save the day in Cold Blood. In any case, we didn't get to meet them this time. One thing I'm relatively sure of - if it is future Amy and Rory, they'll still end up being terribly enigmatic about whether they end up together or not. I do wish I was more interested in this aspect.

I winced a bit at The Doctor's 'nobody dies today' which new series producer Steven Moffat reprised from his own episode 'The Doctor Dances' in 2005. The more I see of Matt Smith not being too like previous doctors - particularly the recent ones - the more I like him, and I welcomed his admission that being occasionally 'disgusting' is apparently a new trait for him.

The Hungry Earth should have left the Giger-like Silurians with more of their original reptilian appearance, but at least it showed a better balance of comedy, horror, tension and series-arc romance business than in recent outings.

It's all still horribly frantic, though. Is there to be no return to the slow character-development that was allowed, even if only for a few minutes, in The Eleventh Hour? Are such luxuries reserved solely for incoming and departing TARDIS crew? They would really help in episodes like The Hungry Earth.