Rate: "The Silurians"

Strange power disruptions at a nuclear power plant bring UNIT and the Doctor to investigate.  What the Doctor finds is that the activation of this plant has awoken the original inhabitants of Earth: the Silurans.  And these Eocene era reptiles have decided to reclaim the planet by unleashing a deadly virus that will engulf human kind.

So, what did you think of Jon Pertwee's second story?

It's the best of Season 7 for me. Tremendous stuff. 5/5.

One of my favourite stories, and easily one of the best for Pertwee. 4/5.

Only 4/5? You're a hard man to please Dave!

The" co="Ordinator wrote:Only 4/5? You're a hard man to please Dave!

It's really good, but it's not perfect.

My favourite things about it are the way the Doctor tries to deal with the bioweapon the Silurians unleash. I like the presentation of the silurians as an actual race of people with differing ideas and approaches, I like the way they're realised too. The SFX don't really age well, but everything about the story wants us to question whether what we first see as a monster is in fact a monster.

The major problem is that it's a 7 parter and I'm almost sure there's some padding to be trimmed somewhere. I'm not all that mad on the Who 1 numberplate, for most of the same reasons I'm not delighted with the question mark collars, pullovers and umbrella. I'd need to watch it again to remember why it's not perfect, but I certainly wouldn't be unhappy about having to do so!

Dave, I believe you have hit on my lone objection to this story: it's length. The big problem with Season 7 is the number of seven-part stories it held. I mean, we all know why they did this: money. With the budget only able to stretch so far, you can engage in a bit of economy of scale by only needing to construct sets for four stories. But the trade off is that unless you have sufficient plot twists to sustain a story for seven half-hour episodes, you do feel like it tends to drag.

I like the idea of the story, I think the Silurians were well realized and treated as individuals in a race rather than as a monolithic culture, and I like how it left you pondering who the real monsters of the story were. But it was a bit padded in places. 4/5, and that's because I just don't have the heart to give it a three.