Skip to content
TARDIS Guide

Review of The Hungry Earth by mndy

24 January 2025

This review contains spoilers!

It's 'Doctor Who and the Silurians 2: Electric Boogaloo'! (Plus a big drill, like in 'Inferno'! Had Chibs just watched season 7 or something?)

Hadn't seen this one in a long time. I remembered I didn't care much for it, but on rewatch, it's good! Humans with big drill are unwittingly threatening the sleeping colony of Silurians (or homo Reptilia, as they are shying away from the name 'Silurian' -- I guess someone noticed making them be from the Silurian period didn't work and is trying to shush it). Silurians feel threatened, of course, kidnap Mo the drill guy and Amy. They attack, kidnap little kid Elliot, but the Doctor and Rory kidnap Alaya. With both sides hostages, the Doctor tries to do what he couldn't in 'Doctor Who and the Silurians': get these people to sit down and talk and come up with a way to share the planet. His one request is that Rory, Ambrose (who got her husband and kid kidnapped), and Tony (who's her dad) do Not Kill the Hostage. What could go wrong.

Oh, I must say I love Nasreen. Great character! Funny, clever, excited about new things, bounces off of Eleven very nicely, great actress. Companion material for sure. Another little moment I love was Eleven getting a big slingshot out of his pocket. 'Bigger on the inside pockets/the jacket know what the Doctor needs' is one of my favorite gimmicks.

One of the focuses of this episode is the Doctor always promises to keep people safe, and tries his best to do so, but sometimes he just can't. Either because his best was not enough, like when the ground swallows Amy, or because he made one tiny mistake, like not paying attention to Elliot for 1 minute. These are 'reversible' mistakes, since both Amy and Elliot were just kidnapped, but it makes you wonder what could happen if they weren't, if they had died. Something is being set up here. The other focus is on the 'best of humanity' bit: can the humans and the Silurians control their aggressiveness (which arises naturally as both are feeling attacked) and set things right by talking? Tune in next week, 'cause this is a two-parter.

So, the story is good, but there's some useless bits that bloat it up, like them setting up those security cameras that do nothing. A personal gripe of mine is just how much the Doctor uses the sonic in this. The sonic does it all, and I hate it when the sonic does it all. It should open locked doors, let him access computers, fry some electronic equipment, do sonic things, and normal screwdriver things. Any more than that I'm qualifying as Overuse and will be pressing charges.

 


mndy

View profile