Who Reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians by Matt Rabjohns

When Doctor Who entered its seventh season, a stark change in the tone of the series came with it. Season 7 is probably without a doubt the single most mature and adult season of Doctor Who ever in its long history. None of the four stories within this season are done for laughs. The seriousness of the tone in fact makes them have a feel quite unlike most of the following Jon Pertwee seasons too. There is a real sense of acting gravitas and storytelling that is pertinent and highly engaging. Spearhead from Space first brought an iconic menace to the show in the Nestenes, and then next came one of the show's most morally ambiguous and interesting stories ever.

Malcolm Hulke's scripts for Doctor Who are always firstly character led. All the characters in his stories you truly feel something for and you care about what happens to them, even his creatures and alien menaces too. And another trademark stamp of Malcolm's writing is his almost routine use of Humans as being the main adversary in the stories. Whilst that is not wholly true in the Silurians, it is still a very firm suggestion in the story, especially towards the climax.

The characters in this story are all extremely well developed. Fulton Mackay as Dr Quinn is a superb character, with his downfall being his hunger for knowledge from the species that predate our own. That his own greed for that power leads to his undoing is a resonant theme of the first three parts of the story.

Nicholas Courtney turns in a very very fine performance as the Brigadier in this story. This is definitely one of his best performances as the man with the totally immovable military mind. His scenes with Jon Pertwee are always a great joy to watch for the fractious and unpredictable friendship they have. And his actions at the end of the story can only be described in his own words on the show: Typical, absolutely typical in how he just routinely murders the Silurians.

Caroline John is superb as Liz Shaw and a great foil for Jon Pertwee. Frankly she is my favourite of his three companions. Despite the fact that she never travelled in the TARDIS I for one still definitively call her a companion. I think that she never truly had a long enough go at showing us what Liz was made of actually. And it was an even bigger shame that she never got a proper goodbye story either.

Peter Miles portrays the director fo the Nuclear Project with ease too. And his descent into disease provoked lunacy in his final scene is extremely harrowing and very very frightening to watch. The makeup of the people catching the Silurian disease are extremely convincing and very well done indeed.

This story is also notable for its appearance of the late great Paul Darrow and here he portrays Captain Hawkins and he is brilliant in the part. He plays the deadpan soldier with ease and is very convincing.

The Silurians here are of a far better quality than the frankly appalling new series efforts. Here the Silurians have three eyes and they have a very human streak to them though, in that there is a wiser Old Silurian who is prepared to listen to the Doctor when he starts trying to promote a peace between the races, yet there is also the devious and treacherous Younger Silurian who ends up murdering his elder in cold blood so that he can ascend to being Leader. This is very paradoxical for a race who are so against the humans, when the Silurians start bickering amongst themselves they sound very human like too!

The scenes of the plague claiming victims in the London station are very bold and gripping. And they add a genuine sense of real fear and foreboding to the episodes. So much so that this story never feels like it is Seven Episodes long at all. The script is of a fantastically strong quality and unravels at a believable and very good pace.

The story's climax though is surely one of the finest in the show's history. The Doctor's shock and indignation at the slaughter of the Silurians is extremely palpable and ends this story on a real sombre note, which is unusual for the show. It is extremely impacting and I share his bleak silence as he drives off with the caves still exploding. It’s a haunting image of the mindset of humanity when faced with anything new, and resorting to the tried and wasteful method of destroying what they don't understand. Themes that still run through our race as commonly today as ever. Doctor Who and the Silurians succeeds in making the perfect statement on this trait. Utterly excellent story telling.