Serial Title: Doctor Who and the Silurians
Series: 7
Episodes: 7
Doctor: Jon Pertwee
Companions: Liz Shaw (Caroline John), Brigadier
Alistair Lethbridge
Synopsis:
A strange power drain has been plaguing the new subterranean nuclear
power research center (errrr… centre) in Wenley Moor, drawing the Brigadier, the
Doctor (in Bessie, his new custom yellow jalopy, and his pride and joy), and
Liz to the network of caves that connect to it. One of the workers has recently
been killed there, and his partner reports something large and saurian… could one
of the dinosaurs have survived all these years?
Director Lawrence doesn’t care one fig- he wants the problem resolved
and his power station running smoothly! He even resents UNIT’s presence, though
Heaven knows he isn’t fixing the problem on his own, so who knows what he’s
really looking for! Regardless, it is safe to say that the Wheel WILL run
smoothly, and the gas-flow will NOT be shut off! Meanwhile, Dr. Quinn (Medicine
Wo- okay, okay, sorry, couldn’t resist…) and his assistant, Miss Dawson, know
EXACTLY what’s going on, but they have no intention of sharing that knowledge-
Quinn has great ambitions that he can only achieve with help from his
mysterious benefactors… Major Baker, paranoid security chief, believes that
there is a saboteur loose, and he will shoot anyone or anything that might be
it until the malfunctions stop.
Our thoroughly likable dramatis personae established, the Doctor heads
down to explore the caves, and is attacked by the dinosaur- but it is suddenly
called off by a shadowy figure. Baker, following him, takes a shot at it,
wounding the shadowy figure. Examining blood left at the scene, the Doctor
discovers reptilian characteristics…
The wounded creature, meanwhile, has stumbled out of the caves, and
takes shelter in a barn, where the owners, a farmer and their wife, discover
it- the farmer dies of a heart attack, and the wife goes into shock… but is
able to describe the reptilian attacker. Liz, investigating, also has a close
encounter with the creature, but is only knocked unconscious by it. Quinn,
however, has a leg up on everyone- he has been given a device to summon the
creature by its compatriots down in the caves, whom he’s been in cahoots with
the whole time. He wishes to know their advanced scientific secrets, and has
been trading knowledge of the above-ground world to get it. He is dissatisfied
with the progress, however- and while the beings promise that they will reveal
all if he can recover the wounded creature, he instead decides to abduct it to
his house and hold it there until it gives him the secrets he desires. In
retaliation, it kills him. The Doctor stumbles onto it- a Silurian, so named
for the geological period from which it is thought to originate. He greets the
Silurian and offers to help it, but it flees before he can open a dialogue.
Meanwhile, Baker, determined to go down into the caves and track down
his saboteur, sets off for blood- but is soon captured by the Silurians. The
Doctor and Liz follow, and find him caged in a high-tech underground
installation. They also observe Silurians being awakened from hibernation
chambers, using power siphoned off of the nuclear reactor- each power drain has
been a Silurian waking from suspended animation which has spanned eons.
Slipping back out, the Doctor and Liz meet Masters,
In the caves, the Doctor warns of the coming human invasion in hopes of
getting the Silurians to negotiate. The angry second-in-command tries to kill
him, but the leader intervenes at the last moment. (If Lawrence
The Doctor negotiates the leader into releasing them, and learns the
Silurian history- the Silurians were once the dominant species on the planet,
but when the moon was drawn to Earth, the Silurians believed it would impact
the surface and went into stasis to survive the calamity. However, there was a
malfunction and they never revived. Now, they find their Earth overrun by a
species alien to them, one that had not yet evolved at the time of their
slumber. (Those who know me well know that I consider the preceding paragraph
to be the biggest ‘fiction’ of this entire science fiction episode- but in the
Doctor Who universe, unlike our own, evolution is a reality).
While the Doctor convinces the Silurian leader that negotiation and
peaceful coexistence is possible, the headstrong second has already infected
Baker with a deadly virus and released him. He ends up taken to a local
hospital, and dies by the time that the Doctor can reach him- Masters returns
to London whilst also (unknowingly) infected, and the plague starts to spread. Lawrence
Knowledge that the Silurians are wiping out the human race with
bacterial warfare does not foster better relations with them. That’s okay,
though- the angry and absurdly rebellious second slays his leader and takes
command of the Silurians, and is determined to wipe out all of humanity and
reclaim the planet.
As the Doctor works on- and locates- a cure, the Silurians abduct him to
prevent his saving humanity. So Liz does it with the Doctor's notes. The
Silurains retaliate by planning to destroy the Van Allen Belt and irradiate the
Earth. They think this won’t kill them, for some reason. Maybe they’re
radiation-hardened? They already have glowing red third eyes that operate
controls telekinetically and melt through solid rock, so maybe it’s not beyond
their plethora of Dues Ex Mechanisms. Regardless, they need power from the
humans to do it once again, dependant on the now-inactive reactor (was this
some sort of weird social metaphor for welfare and state-dependency?), and take
the Doctor back into the control center to active the reactor.
Along with Liz, the Doctor conspires to put the reactor into meltdown.
The Silurians flee to re-hibernate in order to survive the radiation (so
they’re NOT radiation proof? Make up your mind, story…) and the Doctor and Liz
manage to shut down the runaway reactor. The Doctor goes down to investigate
the Silurian chamber, and the second/leader, realizing he’s been duped (having
stayed out of hibernation to activate the controls) attacks him. The Brigadier
had followed, however, and shoots the Silurian dead. (That’s hardly the proper
gratitude. He DID get rid of Baker and Lawrence, after all. That deserves some
thanks.)
Afterwards, all is well- the plague is cured, and the Silurians are back
in stasis. The Doctor plans to revive them one at a time, reasoning with them
and negotiating a peaceful settlement in a controlled environment. He is
practically giddy as he returns to his UNIT lab in Bessie to get some needed
equipment- imagine all we’ll be able to learn from their science and
technology!
But the Brigadier dynamites the caves, killing them all in their sleep.
(Or sealing them in forever, as he states- it’s not clear, though the Doctor at
least thinks they’re dead). The paranoia of humanity has won out, and the
Doctor drives off in disgust.
Review:
Doctor Who and the Silurians is badly written. Sorry, but it is.
The story comes in two parts- the cave-intrigue/wounded Silurian story,
and the plague/destroying the Silurians bit. Both are garbage. Some more than
others. But mostly all of them. The plot is by-the-numbers, filled with
out-of-character characters doing annoying things. Who are these packs of
imbeciles? Well…
Liz, while getting attacked and having little to do otherwise, carries
herself in such a manner as to avoid being lumped in with the typical companion
damsel-in-distress mode; for that, at least, I must give her kudos. Otherwise…
too much of a non-entity this serial for me to really review.
Professor Quinn is really quite a fool, or perhaps too paranoid for his
own good- mayhaps the stress got to him, but his suspicious behavior and
eventual decision to blackmail the allies who were cooperating with him got him
killed. Not a very smart man, and not a very clever villain. Likewise for his
assistant, Miss Dawson (given the motivation in the novelization of being a
desperate spinster with prospects of making Quinn her husband, willing to go
along with his insane scheme to get in his good graces… charming.)
Likewise, so is Lawrence, an obnoxious obsessed madman in the vein of Robson
from Fury in the Deep, a man obsessed with his facility’s operation beyond all
reason or safety considerations, who just got more shrill and irritating
throughout the course of the serial until you were practically BEGGING for the
Brigadier to have to shoot him in self-defense. Like the villains upcoming in
the next few serials, and Robson before him in Fury from the Deep, he is a
completely obsessed villain-in-authority who has a
single-minded-to-the-point-of-insanity obsession with a specific goal no matter
what extenuating circumstances surround it, expecting the world to revolve
around his pet project and remove obstacles from his path- and considering
anyone who expects him to factor in or deal with these obstacles to be a fool
attempting to obstruct him. One can only assume that they each had childhoods
in video game RPGs as peasants, who only had one or two pre-programmed stock
responses to any and ALL stimuli, a behavior pattern they kept in adulthood.
*SIGH* In fact, from here on out, I will
refer to them as RPGPs (Role Playing Game Peasants) for their single-minded,
one-note, stock responses to any and all situations in total defiance of logic.
As is Charles, the man who gets captured by the Silurians and WON’T SHUT
UP. Seriously, you spend 80% of this serial wishing that the character
on-screen at that moment would DIE. I cannot over-emphasize this; it is hard to
describe accurately how irritatingly noxious and grating these characters are!
The Brigadier is unfortunately rendered a bit of a two-dimensional cardboard
cutout in this one, almost an antagonist- a gun-happy fool who only thinks of
the violent solution (Though, ironically, the only good moment in which I truly
appreciated him during this serial… was when he shot the sniveling idiot of a
Silurian second-in-command-turned-leader-by-assassination), setting up one of
the first of Who’s recurring “Guns are bad, soldiers are bad, foolish humans
fear and destroy whatever they don’t know” …morality lessons? Parables? Tropes?
Whatever they are, I dislike them- and I practically detest the use of the Brig
in this role for the duration of this serial. Even when he’s not being stubborn
and pigheaded, he seems to be designed to get on the audience’s bad side (poor
writing, or intentional ‘propaganda’ to make him- and the side he represents in
this serial- seem less favorable, I don’t know), barging in on the Doctor and
interrupting his heart-to-heart just as a suspicious woman was about to reveal
the whole plot, disbelieving the Doctor’s assertions, not listening to his
reasoning, and rushing off to war. This is not the open-minded,
possibility-aware Brig that we saw in Spearhead, nor the level-headed and
friendly man from The Invasion.
Nor is the Doctor much better. He keeps vital secrets, plays his cards
very close to the vest, hides important details, conceals deaths- all of which
act to escalate the tension that leads the Brig to take strong actions so that
the Doctor can detest them. Then, he goes and betrays the Brig and the humans
by warning the ungrateful Silurians. A very Doctorish thing to do as per the
New Series, but relatively unprecedented here, and potentially fatal to the
Brig and his men. It is a shame that both the Doctor and the Brig must be
written so badly in order for the story’s central premise to work- it’s sloppy
and shoddy. In addition, the Doctor
keeps up a perfect track record of being WAY too honest when it comes to
dealing with the Silurians, and working to increase the tensions he’s going to
defuse. He comes back to bring a Silurian offer of peace, and makes sure to
give full disclosure that the Silurians were behind the plague intentionally.
Just like the New Series episode in which the Doctor flat out states “I met
Silurians before; two different colonies. The humans killed them all.” In both
cases, he is practically pointing a finger and using the most inflammatory
phrasing possible. Is it so hard to say “He became infected; the Silurians have
a sample of the virus with which we can develop a cure.” Or “They’re both dead
now, I’m sorry/They were killed in a conflict that they began.” I mean,
seriously! In both serials, a peaceful Silurian leader is betrayed by a
war-mongering second-in-command, and the humans are obsessed one-note ranting
idiot RPGPs, and in both serials the Doctor claims to be trying to negotiate a
peace, but saying all of the things that either side could most easily and
angrily misconstrue- as if he’s trying to sabotage his own efforts.
However, the Doctor does have several good moments- trying to make peace
(based on a conceptually brilliant desert-colonization plan) between the humans
and Silurians (heralding the era of a less destroy-the-monsters Doctor and a
more negotiation-based, compromise-finding Doctor- a paradigm shift that, like
the giving enemies a last chance before their destruction from the last serial,
is likely to stick); and a crowning moment of Doctor-ness, a great character
establishment, and one of my favorite bits so far- his immediate greeting of
the monstrous-looking Silurian with a warm smile and proffered handshake. In
amongst the shaky decisions and poor writing, these moments serve the Doctor
well. And of course, here we are properly introduced to Bessie, the Doctor’s
beloved yellow jalopy (with license plate Who 1), which I continue to believe
is a TARDIS surrogate, an emotional replacement and receptacle of attention and
affection which can no longer be poured into the police box; for as long as he
is denied Time and Space travel, Bessie is his TARDIS, and is treated as such.
We learn less about the Silurians, and for the purposes of this serial’s
story, they are far less sympathetic than they ought to be. We get some
standard EP&S (Enemy Politics & Strife, for those of you that don’t
remember), but that’s about it. This is a severe miscalculation. The position
of the Silurians make sense.
If we went into stasis, as a race, in 2012 AD, and then woke up in 502,012 AD to find a race of Cockroach people claiming the Earth as their own, we’d probably feel entitled to take back our planet, too. After all, five minutes ago (to us), the Earth was ours- and now these Cockroaches are building a dunghill dwelling in the remnants ofNew York City New York City
It’s a good dramatic conflict- but it would work so much better with sympathy for both sides. The inhuman appearance of the Silurians works to heighten the different-than-us-we-must-fight-them conflict, but it’s also an obstacle to be overcome in audience opinion, which can only be done with sympathetic characters we get to know. We don’t, and it weakens the story, the conflict, and the dilemma- rendering the reasonable Silurians into evil monsters-of-the-week instead of reasonably, realistically-motivated antagonists with a valid point. (A problem carried through in the New Series revival that makes 3 of the 4 Silurians: A grating irritant spiteful hateful racist pain-in-the-neck, a psychopathic genocidal out-of-control loose-cannon warrior, and a supposedly sympathetic scientist… that vivissects living humans un-anesthetized.) Will middle appearances get this Silurian factor right? We'll see as they come around...
If we went into stasis, as a race, in 2012 AD, and then woke up in 502,012 AD to find a race of Cockroach people claiming the Earth as their own, we’d probably feel entitled to take back our planet, too. After all, five minutes ago (to us), the Earth was ours- and now these Cockroaches are building a dunghill dwelling in the remnants of
It’s a good dramatic conflict- but it would work so much better with sympathy for both sides. The inhuman appearance of the Silurians works to heighten the different-than-us-we-must-fight-them conflict, but it’s also an obstacle to be overcome in audience opinion, which can only be done with sympathetic characters we get to know. We don’t, and it weakens the story, the conflict, and the dilemma- rendering the reasonable Silurians into evil monsters-of-the-week instead of reasonably, realistically-motivated antagonists with a valid point. (A problem carried through in the New Series revival that makes 3 of the 4 Silurians: A grating irritant spiteful hateful racist pain-in-the-neck, a psychopathic genocidal out-of-control loose-cannon warrior, and a supposedly sympathetic scientist… that vivissects living humans un-anesthetized.) Will middle appearances get this Silurian factor right? We'll see as they come around...
Speaking of appearances, the inhuman ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’
look is nicely executed- strange and inhuman for story purposes, and nicely
different from anything we’ve seen. (This is another area where the New Series
bungled them, making them humanoids with snake-skin, with a head shaped like
tree-lady Jabe’s and a human, more expressive face. This could have worked to
engender much need sympathy through expressiveness for the story purposes
explained above… if they hadn’t been such a bunch of obnoxious jerks. As it is,
the design simply serves to render moot the unique non-human-ness of the
Silurians, ignore a great design, make them too much like spike-less Vinvoci or
snakeskin Tree people, and rob them of their unique third-eye powers- which can
drive men insane, operate equipment, and BURN THROUGH SOLID ROCK. Why would you
deprive a major Doctor Who monster race of this unique and powerful ability?
It’s the equivalent of re-designing Daleks for the New Series as sleek cones
without guns; a pointless ruining of a good design. Or, to put it another way… like
re-designing the Daleks the way they did in Victory of the Daleks.) Likewise,
the dinosaur-beast, while a bit fake-looking, is ambitious and huge, and I was
fairly impressed with the execution; a cool effect and story point, with the
attacks repeatedly averted by its Silurian masters forming a good mystery.
Last but not least, we have the Silurian second in command, an upstart
moron in the mold of Zentos/Tor/Dominator Toba- it seems to me that
second-in-commands in Doctor Who only exist to question orders, rebel, and kill
their commanders; they have no other function. Just another random war-monger.
It is to Doctor Who’s woe that these two archetypes cannot be banished, for
they’re as annoying as heck: the second-in-command who disagrees with the leader’s
peaceful notions, then usurps and kills them during negotiations and takes his
people to war (still present in the New Series, from the cult of Skarro to the
New Silurians), and the obsessed project leader who has complete authority and
will not listen to any form of reason to halt or even slow his project down
despite all signs pointing to imminent disaster (a relative newcomer that
hopefully will die out soon). Sadly, these two seem to be becoming Who Stock
Character #1 and Who Stock Character #2 for this Third Doctor era… much to its
detriment! And after all of this hatred… the super-contrived reason everyone
isn’t slaughtered at the end… is because this zealot-bigot spares them because
he wants them to die in a nuclear meltdown instead? Really? Still, this is
hardly the only Silurian absurdity… we also learn that apes used to raid their
crops. So, they developed a viral pathogen that killed millions. …Over-react
much?!? It seems the Silurians skipped “Scarecrow” on the technology tree and
went straight to “Massive globe-spanning biological attack?!?” No wonder they
were a trifle unreasonable in this serial- overreacting seems to be part of
their nature!!!
And speaking of said plague, on the human side- they give everyone
full-spectrum antibiotics (I’m sure they were considered a newly-discovered
miracle cure back in the day… like radiation in the 50s, or stem-cells in the
2000s) which, as you know, simply kill all bacteria, the good and the bad
equally. After distributing this to all of the personnel, they refer to
everyone on-base having received an inoculation. Ummm… while by a dictionary
definition this might theoretically be true (I’m not medically-versed enough to
know), I don’t think a broad-spectrum antibiotic counts as an inoculation
against the plague. It’s more of a preventative measure. Just a minor quibble.
Meanwhile, the music for this entire serial is… hmmm… let’s see. I think
I’m in danger of over-using ‘rubbish’ ‘tripe’ and ‘garbage’ in the finale… let
me check my thesaurus… the music is pure codswallop! Atonal, blaring,
meandering without a tune… and what was WITH that theme for Charles that
sounded like the military funeral ‘TAPS,’ except the trumpet player got bored
and wandered off for the second half of the tune… played on kazoo???? WHAT IS
THIS FOLDEROL??? Worthless trash, the whole score.
And the sound design…! Every sound is loud, screeching, piercing,
grating… as my wife pointed out, the phone sounds were clearly dubbed in later,
and not heard on set, because no one was wincing- and the irritating tonal
pulsing of the Silurian third eye was compounded by the fact that they did
EVERYTHING with it to the point that it didn't seem like they needed hands, as
they never USED them for anything! The sound design was pure trumpery, utterly
designed to scrape one’s nerves raw- I am pretty sure that this serial was the
actual Silurian attack on humanity, an audible assault on the ear drums through
and through. In the last serial, the pulsing reactor actualy drowns out all
dialogue- we can barely even HEAR the first mention of the Doctor’s famous
‘Neutron flow’ (though reversing its polarity has yet to be invented), or
anything else, for that matter!
The effects are decent- the dinosaur and Silurian designs are good
(albeit the execution is a bit clunky). The burn-through effect the first time,
on the cave wall, is an amazingly well-executed effect of molten rock,
rivaling, say, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace or the far-ahead-of-its-time
Forbidden Planet in accomplishing the effect. Future usages are a lot more
hokey, a very simplistic and fake looking animated effect. (And how can they
re-seal the material behind them? That’s a whole different power to
superheating- that’s, like, telekenesis plus molecular re-distribution! At
least the wall still looks scorched afterwards and they can’t just reverse the
burning as if it never happened- that was a good touch). And seriously, the
leader operates the control panel with his third-eye power… and this is
portrayed by a camera shot of the control panel repeatedly going out of focus
and back into focus?!?!? That’s your control panel effect??? A series of RACK
FOCUSES?? (Focus’? Focci?) I will say this for them- the plague makeup looked
very, very good. Quite effective. Likewise, the cave sets were quite good, as
was the Slurian stasis chamber. The plague makeup is very good looking (well,
you know, good at being horrid-looking… horrid… it’s… effective, let’s put it
that way). And the pyrotechnics at the end are excellent.
Overall, this serial has a good concept- but it serves as an exercise in
frustration because of the out-of-character and unlikeable ways that known and
familiar characters must be twisted to accomplish it. Like Pirates of the Caribbean : At World’s End,
everyone seems to be working against everyone else, keeping secrets,
double-crossing… and it’s hard to find someone to root for. The Doctor and the
Brigadier spend the entire serial lying to and betraying each other, completely
out of character, until…
Worst of all is the ending- an unreasonable, predictable little cliché
about ‘fear of the unknown.’ It’s hard to tell whether the Brigadier really
just sealed off the caves as he claimed (paranoid, ignorant, and foolish, but
not evil) and the Doctor was mistaken, or whether he actually did destroy
dozens of hibernating Silurians as the Doctor claims (making him a
mass-murderer of innocent, helpless sentient beings and probably a war
criminal)- either way, it seemed incredibly contrived and unrealistic- was this
government-approved, despite the fact that these were helpless captives? See,
THIS would be the time for a Harriet-Jones-style government toppling and “Here
comes Britain
Sorry, some may feel this is a little premature, but I’m calling it-
this is the Third Doctor’s ‘Galaxy 4.’ This pile of garbage is poorly
characterized, badly written, stupid, and an assault on these ears, filled with
noxious, grating characters and noxious, grating sounds. I am relatively
convinced that it is impossible to make a GOOD, non-irritating, non-cliched,
non-predictable story with the Silurians. Perhaps the Sea Devils and Warriors
of the Deep will prove me wrong… though
from what I’ve heard about the latter, at least… that seems unlikely.
Great moments:
The Doctor’s enthusiastic greeting of the horrific-looking Silurian, and
the big reveal of the ability to burn through rock. Oh, and when Lawrence and
Baker die at last.
Rating:
No “Shoes!” out of 5 for this abomination! I was going to give it 1 for
production designs, costuming, and effects- but the last chapter’s stupidity
and utter discontinuity tripe, adding a MAJORLY IMPACTFUL GENOCIDE needlessly
into Doctor Who canon and then completely ignoring the consequences as if they
never happened, sealed this ‘rubbish tip’s fate! THIS! IS! GARBAGE!!!!
Dating:
Money is referenced in pre-decimal currency (I dunno what that means,
either- ask a Brit!), suggesting that this is pre-1976- supporting a congruent-with-air date
1970s setting. That’s 2 now that suggest the modern day… when will this
controversy enter? Stay tuned, faithful reader…
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