‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ (1970)


And here’s the post that should have gone up yesterday (before I lost my patience with ‘Scorpion: Second Generation’ and decided to rant about that instead). Sorry it’s a little on the late side, okay a lot on the late side, it has been one of those days (and I know I’m saying that more and more). Oh well, just a couple more days and I’m on leave… 😉

I can’t remember where I picked the book up from originally but I first came across this story as ‘Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters’ and I loved it (I still have a copy lurking about which I really need to find now…) Even back then, and as much as I appreciate Terrance Dicks’ novelisations, I got more out the tie-in books that deviated from the TV scripts. I never saw the actual story on TV though (just a little too young for that) so when I came across a copy, I had to grab it and finally got round to watching it over the weekend. Let me tell you about it…

Exiled to Earth and now working for UNIT as their scientific advisor, the Doctor is summoned to an underground research centre, at Wenley Moor, to investigate a series of inexplicable power losses. Initially suspecting sabotage, he soon discovers that the nearby cave system conceals a colony of an ancient reptilian race called the Silurians. Awaking from a hibernation which has lasted millions of years, they are now intent on reclaiming the Earth from Mankind…

Now I come from a time where the average ‘Doctor Who’ tale consisted of four episodes, sometimes less but never really more (and I’m counting ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ as four separate stories, fight me… 😉 ) so when I saw that ‘The Silurians’ was seven episodes long, and given my inability to focus on longer stories right now, I was a little wary, it has to be said. And I was half right to be. ‘The Silurians’ takes it’s own sweet time to get going, seeming to hover around the good stuff but not quite take that final leap.

When it does though… ‘The Silurians’ swiftly becomes well worth the effort you put in during the early stages. While there’s not an awful lot of action (there is only so much you can do with a daft looking inflatable dinosaur and the show makes a good choice in not giving it too much screen time), there is a surprisingly tense ‘hunt the lizard man’ sub-plot and the scenes of London falling to the Silurian virus are not only compelling in themselves but lend the story an urgency that it wasn’t going to get otherwise. Jon Pertwee is good but even he can only do so much with a few test tubes.

What was more interesting for me was watching the Doctor try and broker peace between the Silurians and humanity. The Doctor is well known for protecting the people of Earth so it’s interesting to see a story that challenges his approach by asking who ‘the people of Earth’ actually are. Well… who was there first anyway. This one isn’t so clear cut for the Doctor and it does make for an exciting last few episodes as he seeks to defuse a war that both parties are gearing up for.

It’s a slow burner (almost too much of a slow burner for me…) but stick with it and ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ ends up being worth your time. Definitely worth a look if you have Britbox or, like me, you’re hunting these down in the wild…

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