Cold Blood

Okay this was fantastic. On my first watch I didn't really appreciate it enough. Not really in the mood for a big review so I'll just say that I loved how it puts into the screen the phrase "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".

I was hooked seeing how everything the Doctor was doing to broker peace between the two species was let down by those that are "so much less than the best of humanity."

Plus, this acts as a sort of sequel to the first Silurians serial with the Third Doctor, which I really liked.

I had very little memory of this story, which gave it an initial thrill, the first so far from the new series where I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d watched it, but could be confident it was over 10 years ago. There is a reason I haven’t rushed back for another helping of this story, it is the stinker of series 5. A dull melodrama, the emotions of which provide very little impact. Based off of this and the equally uninspiring 42, I think it would be fair to say that Chris Chibnall had yet to find his feet on writing for Doctor Who. Though I will give an honorable mention for his high quality episodes of Torchwood series 2, especially Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Fragments.

The Silurians look great. They get a bit of a raw deal though. They conceded nothing and had to concede pretty much everything. So much for the peace talks, which I feel are done much better with the Zygons later. I’m not sure why they were given those infrequently used attack tongues, or the ability to harness unplugged monitors on the surface of the Earth.

Rory’s sudden death, a second episode in a row was either a bad idea, or it was realised poorly. It was tacked on to the end of the episode, when with all the breaking into the crust of the Earth, could have been better baked into the plot. The idea of Amy forgetting Rory is good - high drama.

I guess, similar to 42, I didn’t care about any of the guest cast in the end. There were lots of characters, none of which were memorable, some of which had paper thin character motivations. Nothing about it needed to be a 2 parter either. I could easily imagine this being slimmed down to a much more satisfactory plot. I’d have nominated The Beast Below perhaps as one that could have been expanded out further.

Meh.