The Hungry Earth

"The ground is attacking us."

Writer: Chris Chibnall

Format: TV

Broadcast: 22 May 2010

Series: 5.08

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis

The most ambitious drilling project ever reaches far below the Earth's crust – but the ground is fighting back! The Silurians are disturbed by what they consider to be an attack from a mining mission in South Wales and are taking human hostages, including Amy. Can the Doctor maintain peace and retrieve his companion?

Verdict

The Hungry Earth was a really strong opening episode of the second two-parter of Series 5! It's a little bit of a shift for me to be judging these as individual ratings but I think it's important given the different name of the episode and it's a slightly different perspective personally which is good stuff. I like to look at things differently where possible because this is an episode I'm very familiar with despite it being around seven or eight years since I last watched it. It makes me feel incredibly old that this aired fourteen years ago now but having a Welsh setting as remote and unique as Cwm Taff is magnificent. I liked the Welsh representation in the episode and it felt right. Not stereotypical. This is the first time I have watched the episode since becoming a father back in 2021 so hearing the words of The Gruffalo being read was a fun moment for me and my partner as the episode opened! We both looked at each other with a smile on our face as we recognised those words for the first time. It had never come to my attention before so that was a sweet little moment. I hopefully look forward to watching this with my little boy in the future and I'm sure he will also recognise it. I remember seeing the newspaper reports confirming that the Silurians would be returning in the build up to Series 5 being broadcast and at that point I hadn't long purchased the Beneath the Surface DVD collection so I was keen to catch up. I am still not wholly set on the redesign but I can't help but appreciate how good they look. It's just a bit of a shift from what we saw in the Classic era but that's absolutely fine. It works and the Doctor explaining that he'd encountered a different branch previously is more than enough to justify it. I think the foreshadowing of events to come with Rory and the engagement ring is done tremendously well and it's a little odd to not really dwell on seeing the future versions of Amy and Rory, but we know that will become very significant in the next episode. The guest characters here are excellent with Ambrose and Elliot really good alongside the quirky Nasreen and Tony. The threat of something drilling up from the Earth's surface was presented so well and Matt Smith absolutely shines in this episode. It's an underrated performance and I love the moment he interrogates Alaya. He's not interested in the defence of being the last of her species because he knows that's not true. He is the last of his and he knows what that feels like. That was a glorious moment. I also loved how he was practically begging humanity here to not harm Alaya but she was confident that she would be killed. She even knew by which human. That was harrowing stuff and played so well. The moment Amy is lost beneath the surface is horrifying and the Doctor is so desperate, but the hope of her still being alive down there is brilliant to cling onto. Having her wake up in essentially a glass coffin with no room to move is up there with my worst nightmares though! That was a powerful image and the threat of being dissected is just brutal. The cliffhanger works well as the Doctor and Nasreen soon learn that the branch of Silurians they're dealing with is far more than just a small bunch of perhaps a dozen. It's an entire civilisation. The design there is beautiful and I really like the idea of them existing beneath the surface. Until the drilling woke them up and now they felt like they were being invaded. A really good dynamic. Overall, an excellent opening episode! 

Rating: 9/10