WATCH ALONG | CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO | 7x11 | Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode 7
Added 2023-08-10 12:00:50 +0000 UTCA Few Notes:
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*****
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Comments
This story also perfectly shows how lost the Doctor is in this alien environment (he's not from Earth after all) after being exiled by the Time Lords. Him being stuck between humans and silurians and desperately trying to make peace and tragically being unable to do so is brilliant. It was an ingenious move to have this kind of story to properly kick off the stuck on Earth era. The real knife in the heart moment is the fact that the Brigadier - someone he thought he could trust and thought was better than that - betrayed him. What happened here is a reality check for the Doctor. He realises that he doesn't really understand humans (even the ones he considers friends) and their complex political, and personal, issues all that well. The problem is that he's now stuck here! He has to deal with all this shit for the foreseeable future. This story is an excellent set up for the rest of Pertwee's era. I also really do love how they slowly build up the Brigadier going more and more against the Doctor and wanting to take action throughout this story. It was the Doctor warning the silurians about UNIT coming down to the caves that caused the Brigadier and his men to become trapped and for many of them to die, The Doctor also tried to hide the fact that Quinn was murdered by a silurian from everyone. We know the reason why he did that is because he knows the humans will only grow more hostile towards the silurians and that’s the last thing he wants, but the frustration the Brigadier and the other humans feel is also very understandable. And after everything the silurians had done, the Doctor was still willing and even excited to revive them again. The Doctor thinks like a scientist and he allows his scientific curiosity to lead his away. Obviously he’s looking forward to be able to achieve peace between humans and silurians, but he can’t understand why that isn’t possible at this time. His intentions are good, but his mind is clouded and this forces the Brigadier to take matters into his own hands. This is the sort of moral complexity that makes this story and season 7 as a whole so fantastic. All of this build up makes what the Birgadier does at the end that much more believable and even understandable. I totally see why the Brigadier felt he had to destroy the silurians after what they did and why he felt he had to go against the Doctor, but I also completely understand the Doctor's disgust because wholesale slaughter is never an option and not all of the silurians were actually bad. And no matter the Brigadier's reasoning, the way he went about it is in no way justifiable. The silurians said humans could not be trusted and the Brigadier proved them right. It’s one of the darkest and bleakest endings to a story, ever. As much as this story focuses on the differences between the silurians and humans, perhaps the best part of the story is showing the similarity of how there is in fighting on both sides and that there are some who want peace and others who want on war on both sides. This shows that there was a chance, no matter how slim, for peace if the humans and silurians just agreed to talk! I also love how characters like Dr Lawrence and Miss Dawson were both wrong, but for different reasons. Lawrence completely denied the existence of the silurians and blamed all his problems on UNIT and wanted them gone. Miss Dawson on the other hand, insisted the silurians were real and was adamant that we should attack and wipe them out before they had a chance to do the same. The way this story presents all sides in a very morally grey kind of way is brilliant. It doesn't beat you over the head by telling you what or who's wrong or right. It asks the viewer to make up their own mind, makes them think. One of the best stories ever.
Azmat Mahmood
2023-08-10 13:43:48 +0000 UTCThe Silurians is excellent. I think it’s genius the way it twists the normal Earth invasion story on its head by having the invaders be ancient creatures that ruled the Earth before humans. The multi layered and complex conflicts this situation creates is fascinating to watch. I mean, who can really lay a legitimate claim on the Earth in this scenario? I also really love the concept of certain humans being driven mad with fear the closer they are to the caves, or if they have a direct encounter with a silurian. Not only is it a great hint that we’re dealing with something from far back in the Earth’s history, it’s also just creepy that certain humans unlock genetic memories within themselves that throw their minds back millions of years. It also serves an important narrative purpose. It shows us the silurians' pov, it tells us what they see us as. To them we are and will always be just like mindless cattle (or apes rather) that they easily hunted and killed, which is why it's hard for some of them to accept our evolution into becoming a much more intelligent species. They can't accept sharing a planet they ruled over first with a species they consider inherently inferior. It's basically racism on their part and I think it's really interesting to show a totally 'alien' (technically they're not as the silurians are from Earth) species having this view of humans. This is also why I think this much weirder, original design of the silurians works better. There's such a stark, physical contrast between humans and silurians that it's almost impossible for them to relate to one another. I feel this is lost with the modern designs, which are just humanoid with scaly skin. They're too close and within reach of humans for the conflict to work as well as it does in this story. This story does a brilliant job of not only showing moral conflict, but a visual one too. I also think that the silurians retreating into hibernation because of the moon coming into the Earth's orbit is a really clever idea. Their disaster never happened and so they understandably feel like their planet was stolen from them, they feel cheated. It gives them a proper motivation as to be angry and want their planet back. It is because of this that the virus subplot feels like a natural progression, as harrowing as it is. I absolutely adore how those scenes are shot too. It really gives the story a sense of scale and doom. It really feels desperate and that the world is ending. It's also eerily prescient for what's been happening over the last 3 years.... Particularly the scene where Lawrence refuses to take the inoculation and denies the existence of the pandemic.....
Azmat Mahmood
2023-08-10 13:42:27 +0000 UTC
