Cold Blood

"This planet is to be shared."

Writer: Chris Chibnall

Format: TV

Broadcast: 29 May 2010

Series: 5.09

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis

Once more the Doctor meets members of the Silurian race. However, this time, can he prevent them from being destroyed by humanity out of an act of self-preservation, or can he broker peace between them and bring about a better future for both races of planet Earth?

Verdict

Cold Blood was a very strong conclusion to the story already started in The Hungry Earth and to continue my way through the modern era rewatch with Series 5! Quite unusually for me when it comes to these two-parters, I actually watched this episode almost immediately after the first part with a break purely for writing the blog entry. It was interesting to basically watch this as a film with an interval and it flows really well. I don’t think it’s quite as strong as the first part, but it’s still terrific as my rating reflects! Exploring the Silurian city beneath the surface was fascinating and I liked getting to know some of the different positions of power. General Restac in charge of her Warrior class was a superb character and her distain for the apes was palpable. It was really good to see and whilst the Silurian race as a whole aren’t entirely evil or having bad intentions, there’s people in power that do. That works well and it’s needed. The Doctor trying to make the Silurians see that humanity was peaceful and that they could share the planet was essentially an impossible task. He had to disclose what happened to the other Silurian branch in Doctor Who and the Silurians and then he was faced with Alaya’s corpse. The look of disgust he had when he lifted the blanket to confirm her death said so much without any words but I think what was even more powerful was Elliot backing away from his own mother when Ambrose admitted it was her that did the killing. She almost seemed proud of it and you could tell that her husband was shocked. He was saddened. Malohkeh had a great role in the episode in reviving Eldane as the Silurian leader. It was good to explore the political hierarchy of this Silurian branch and the idea of Restac causing trouble with the surface whilst most of her race was asleep was fun stuff. Eldane wouldn’t stand for it and I really liked the design of him. Malohkeh helping Elliot and even the Doctor when it came to medical supplies was fun and the latter’s comment about celery was a delight. I love simple continuity like that! The pace of the episode was frantic but I do think that the moment where Amy is confirmed as being alive could have been a little more triumphant in the reunion. I’m not sure about the Doctor’s ability to appoint Amy and Nasreen as representatives of the human race when it came to the peace talks as obviously no government let alone all of them would come to a conclusion on where the Silurians could be habited on the surface. That element wasn’t entirely believable but thankfully Eldane saw sense that his tribe were not ready to return. Humanity on the surface needed time to adjust as well and the Doctor setting a deadline of a millennium was fun, although that would almost certainly be cast away through generations. The greed of humanity would never let the planet be shared! The intentions of the Doctor here were admirable though and I can’t fault the good intentions! The real emotion of the story once the Silurians are pushed back into hibernation comes with the emergence of the crack. The Doctor is angry at not knowing so he decides to find some shrapnel from the explosion. That hesitation allows time for Rory to be shot by a Silurian resulting in him passing away and the proximity to the crack meant he was also completely erased from time. He’d never existed. The emotion of the scene in the TARDIS where the Doctor tries to get Amy to keep hold of the memory of Rory is incredible stuff, but the jolt of the TARDIS sending him into the forgotten is just so sad. A bold way to conclude what is a great episode!

Rating: 8/10