I decided to put these two episodes together, not only because together, they are a two-parter, but because my comments are the same for both.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory land somewhere in Wales in the near future, where a team of scientists is drilling as far into the Earth as possible. They've already set one record, and want to see how far they can go. After exiting the TARDIS, Amy and Rory are astonished to see themselves standing on a far-off hillside; the Doctor muses that they must have gone back to relive their adventures with him. When the ground starts to swallow people (including Amy), the Doctor investigates. Shortly after this, a boy named Elliot gets kidnapped, and the Doctor manages to capture one of the kidnappers. He and Nasreen take the TARDIS deep into the Earth to negotiate a hostage exchange, leaving Rory, Tony and Ambrose to watch over the creature Alaya.
He discovers that the scientists have awoken a race of creatures, Silurians, that has been in stasis for thousands of years. The drill had penetrated their defense system, causing warriors to awaken. Amy escapes and helps Mo, Elliot's father, to escape as well. They meet back up with the Doctor. The warriors of the group want to kill the Doctor and the other humans, but the leader of the tribe, Eldane, puts a halt to the execution. The Doctor instructs Tony, Ambrose and Rory to keep Alaya safe, but after discovering that Tony has been injected with venom, Ambrose kills Alaya.
Meanwhile, Amy and Nasreen are in negotiations with Eldane so the Silurians and humans can share the Earth. They don't reach any conclusion, but the Doctor says that the humans will spend the next thousands years working towards making the world fit for co-habitation with the Silurians. The next time the Silurians wake, the human race will be ready to live in harmony with them. Agreeing with this idea, Eldane initiates a hostage exchange.
The discovery of Alaya's death causes the warriors to redouble their efforts. The surface-dwellers barricade themselves in the lab. Eldane says that he can destroy the drill, but it will cause their escape route to be blocked, so they must leave immediately. Tony, however, must remain behind. The venom is causing him to mutate into a Silurian, and he must receive treatment. He decides to stay behind, and Nasreen stays with him. They will hibernate for 1000 years with the Silurians.
Everyone else runs to the TARDIS, but the Doctor, Amy and Rory stop when they see a crack in the rock. The Doctor sticks his arm through and pulls something out of the crack. Suddenly, one of the warriors appears and shoots Rory. He dies. Again. Light then begins to pour out of the crack, the Doctor pulls a screaming Amy into the TARDIS, and Rory is consumed by the light. The Doctor tells Amy that she needs to remember Rory, but there is a jolt in the TARDIS and she looks up at him blankly - she clearly has forgotten him. Rory has been erased from time. They escape the Silurian complex.
After arriving at the surface, the Doctor tells Ambrose to start preparing humans for the eventual return of the Silurians. Amy sees herself standing alone on the opposite hill, as Rory has never existed. The Doctor discovers that the object he'd pulled from the Crack is part of the TARDIS.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Oh no! Amy might be dead - AGAIN!
2) Rory dies - again.
Dislikes:
1) In this episode, the sonic screwdriver apparently has unlimited uses, including: hacking into computers, analyzing energy fields, disabling the Silurian weapons, analyzing Rory after he's shot. And yet, it doesn't open the church door when they try to get to Elliot as he is kidnapped.
2) Amy and Rory seeing their future selves on the hill - the Doctor would never permit them to do that! The only reason it is in there is to demonstrate that Rory is gone for good.
3) When Tony falls through the floor, the Doctor tells Amy to get out of there. She, of course, demonstrates her normal disrespect for him and, in the true style of Dumbass Donna, ignores him.
4) When they first arrive, Rory is mistaken for a police officer by Ambrose. She asks him to come look at her aunt's grave - the body is gone. Rory climbs around in the grave and jumps on the bottom of it. The insinuation later is that the body got swallowed up in the same way that Amy got swallowed up. However, if that was the case, then Rory wouldn't have been able to climb into the grave without being swallowed himself, as the ground, after opening up, is not solid.
5) Slutty McSlutterson is dressed like a slut, although, as she maintains, she was dressing for Rio!
6) When the Doctor pulls out the piece of the TARDIS, why doesn't he get erased out of time? And if Amy can forget Rory so quickly, why didn't she forget all those guys in Flesh and Stone, when their friends forgot them?
7) Rory's death is so anti-climatic.
8) The Doctor kisses Amy's forehead again. I don't like him being so familiar with her! Or anyone, for that matter.
9) Okay, this is a major one, so I saved it for last: Cold Blood is sporadically narrated by Eldane. WTF? I'm not sure why the story suddenly pivoted to his POV. It was unnecessary, not to mention poorly executed. Had he also narrated Hungry Earth, it would make more sense. However, he only had about three voice-overs, all were in the second part, and they added nothing to the story.
Likes:
1) Throughout, the humans (including Amy) arm themselves with various weapons, to the Doctor's displeasure.
2) These episodes came very close to having the right feel, but didn't quite get there. I do attribute the fact that I liked the feel of these episodes due to the fact that they were written by Chris Chibnall, who was the head writer for Torchwood.
I thought this was low-quality, but appropriate:
No comments:
Post a Comment