Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Seven

Long story is long!

The Silurians capture the Doctor and pewpewpew a UNIT manny on their way out. Their hypno-eye even tidies up after them, by closing up the tunnel. While it seems there is nothing they can't do with this extra eye, and mannys have thumbs, cats are still best.

Captain Hawkins sees the UNIT manny and draws his gun quick as a flash. He also sees a big mark left on the wall where the Silurians' tunnel had been made and unmade. Liz also sees the wall, and that the Doctor is gone, and the mess that got made when he got pewpewpewed - the Silurians forgot to use their hypno-eyes on that!

Captain Hawkins tells the Brigadier the Silurians have been in their base killing their d00dz, and about the "scorch mark on the wall." They leap into action at once, leaving Liz to try to sort out the Doctor's still-secret formula.

After putting him in the big cage, Pink Face and his friend talk to the Doctor. He tells them he has cured the plague, and learns from them that Green Face has been killed when Pink Face gloats.

"Our leader is dead. I killed him. I am the leader now."

He likes saying that.

Liz tells the no-longer-secret formula to a doctor (another not the Doctor) so they can make it to cure all the infected mannys. Like the proper baddys that they are, Pink Face and his friend already have a new plan to wipe out all the mannys, which they are happy to discuss in front of the Doctor because, as I said, they are proper baddys.
For it to work they need POWER (a Ben Steed episode, so easily enough to wipe out any and all mannys it comes into contact with), and to get it they plan to make the Doctor turn the nuclear reactor back on.

The Brigadier and Liz are luckily standing on the right bit of the set when the Silurians remake their tunnel into the research centre (it's not as good as the original). They get captured, but the Silurians don't know about Captain Hawkins, who was just out of sight.

Pink Face is about to kill the Brigadier when Captain Hawkins heroically attacks, but he gets pewpewpewed.

This is by far the biggest misstep of Doctor Who and the Silurians, killing off Captain Hawkins like that. In terms of the plot structure, it makes sense that an important character such as Captain Hawkins should die to show that the Silurians mean business and inspire the Doctor to stop trying to make peace with them and to resist them, but hasn't that already been shown by all the mannys they have killed so far, and the two attempts to wipe out all the mannys? As we shall soon see, the Doctor still has not learned that lesson, and never will - unless that is what Peter Davison's Doctor meant when he said "There should have been another way," i.e. they never should have killed off Captain Hawkins.

What it does mean is that, while the Sylvester McCoy era of Doctor Who saved its best story until last, the Jon Pertwee era has already peaked and only at his second story. As a captain, had Hawkins lived, he could have filled the role that Mike Yates would later play in 'the UNIT family,' only infinitely cooler and a much more plausible love interest for Jo Grant... as well as for any cats that happened to show up.

The Silurians burst into the cyclotron room and start pewpewpewing the extras (the Doctor having persuaded them to spare the regular characters after Captain Hawkins's death). Jon Pertwee is really good in these dramatic, climactic scenes, although they are missing a certain Paul Darrow-shaped something to make them truly excellent.

There is a large dump of exposition delivered to explain how the Silurians' superweapon works, but it is cleverly divided between the Silurian, the Doctor, and Liz, with the Brigadier there to ask the questions, and this stops the scene from getting bogged down.

The Doctor is, of course, only pretending to go along with the baddys' plan, which Liz recognises. Despite her telling the Brigadier to "trust him," even she is shocked when she finds out what he plans on doing. The superweapon starts to glow to show that it is beginning to go, but then the Doctor and Liz turn the POWER to maximum and the full force of Gunn Sar's moobs and Ben Steed's sexism causes the superweapon to explode!

The Doctor tells the Silurians

"The reactor is now permanently overloaded. There's going to be a massive explosion, and a colossal radiation leakage."

Pink Face and his friends leave the mannys behind to go back to their base for some sleeps and to wait for the radiation to go away. Pink Face says of the mannys

"They will all stay here to die from the radiation."

In their base, one of the Silurians has to stay awake to let the others have their sleeps, and that one will be killed when the centre blows up - showing a first and only glimpse of some nobility, Pink Face accepts the responsibility as leader. He tells his friend that when they next wake up in 50 years (even Dragon is impressed by how much sleeps Silurians have!) his friend will be the new leader.

The Brigadier thinks the Doctor was bluffing and they are safe really, but then the Doctor says it is real and they should all leave as fast as they can - but the Brigadier knows they are trapped in there.

The Doctor tries to jury-rig the nuclear reactor to shut it down safely, perhaps in the hopes that it will turn off the Blakes 7 DVD. He says

"I'll try fusing the control of the neutron flow."

which doesn't sound quite right, somehow.

But it works, and in the next scene the Doctor has gone straight back to the Silurian base. Pink Face comes in and tries to pewpewpew the Doctor, but the Brigadier runs in and shoots him repeatedly until he falls over. The Doctor says

"There's a wealth of scientific knowledge down here, Brigadier, and I can't wait to get started on it."

and the Brigadier gives him a look that says 'you're a dick.' Clearly he remembers what happened with Dr Quinn, even if the Doctor doesn't.

Back at the cyclotron set, the Brigadier waits for the Doctor and Liz to leave and then says to Corporal Nutting (who could easily have been Captain Hawkins if they hadn't stupidly killed him off already)

"Give them time to get clear, and then set off those explosive charges. I want that Silurian base sealed permanently."

In the Silurian base we see that Pink Face still isn't ded yet, but after he stands up he is alarmed by the camera shaking a lot, like he's on the bridge of the Enterprise, and then he gets blown up.

The Doctor and Liz are on location in Bessie when they see some explosions. The Doctor immediately realises what has happened and says

"But that's murder! They were intelligent alien beings. A whole race of them. And he's just wiped them out."

Er, yes, but... I mean... when has that ever stopped you, Doctor, either before or after this? You do remember that they just tried to wipe out all the mannys twice and killed Captain Hawkins on top of that? And how do you know they have been wiped out and not just buried in their beds where they are having nice long sleeps?
The Doctor has jumped to some hasty conclusions here, and all because he got along well with Green Face, his Autloc. Doctor, you failed to save a civilisation, but at least you helped one Silurian.

What's so good about Doctor Who and the Silurians?

Paul Darrow is in it. Purr purr purr, that's good enough for me.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Six

A doctor (not the Doctor) and a nurse (not the Nurse) come out to help Major Baker, not knowing he is already ded, and the Brigadier has to pull his gun on them to keep them away. Now they have to quarantine the entire hopistal.

The Doctor and Liz try to find a cure, and begin by giving everyone "broad-spectrum antibiotics." There is a little scene where Liz has to give the Doctor an injection, with a big needle and everything, that serves as a clever lesson for little mannys in the importance of injections and that it doesn't really hurt at all. I find it helps if you are made from socks.

Dr Lawrence and Masters are the only mannys who have not been given the injections, and Liz can't find either of them until she finds out that Masters has gone to London. They realise how serious this is and the Brigadier immediately sets out to try and catch him.

Masters gets off a train and tries to pretend he isn't ill. In accordance with the laws of drama, he leaves the station just seconds before the policemannys sent by the Brigadier arrive.

The Doctor and the Brigadier are still arguing about whether or not peaceful coexistence with the Silurians is possible.

"Maybe one of the Silurians is friendly but the rest seem determined to wipe us out."

I think the Brigadier makes a good point here - the situation seems to be analogous to that of The Aztecs, where Barbara believed the Aztecs could be turned aside from their historical path and so may have been saved from destruction, but really she had just met one exceptional individual leader, Autloc, who was enlightened enough to see her perspective, while the rest of the Aztecs were more like the baddy Tlotoxl. But we have so far seen so few of them that we cannot yet tell if the Silurians as a whole are more like Green Face (the Silurian Autloc) or Pink Face (the Silurian Tlotoxl).

Green Face is ded, and Pink Face literally says "I am the leader now!"
The other Silurians (at least the only two we see) seem to accept this as a valid transition of power, so it is once again not looking good for Team Barbara.

Dr Lawrence refuses to see the seriousness of the situation and refuses to get injections, being more concerned with his upcoming reelection campaign research centre being shut down. Even when told by Liz that the plague is real and "Major Baker is dead" he dismisses her and clings on to the false reality he has constructed in his mind.

"He may have been ill for some time."

and

"I will admit nothing. There is no epidemic."

'FAKE NEWS!'

Meanwhile, mannys at the train station start to get ill.

In the caves a UNIT manny gets attacked by a Silurian, but not before he has time to telephone Captain Hawkins's mannys, which makes Captain Hawkins want to go to the rescue. He sees the manny is ded, and when the Silurian pewpewpews his sergeant, he shoots back - quick on the draw as ever, purr.

Watching this on their TV, Pink Face and his friend see that the UNIT mannys have resisted the plague so far. Pink Face's friend is worried that the Doctor may be able to cure the plague, so they decide they have to capture him.

Mannys at the train station are starting to fall over from the plague, and there is a montage sequence of the Brigadier on the telephone and the Doctor and Liz working on a cure, before we see Masters running around and falling over, looking confused with a 'How can this have happened to me? I'm a senior civil servant for Hoff's sake!' expression on his face.

The policemannys finally catch up with him, but only at the very moment he goes

...or maybe this is the point where he regenerates into Roger Delgado?

The Doctor and Liz do more science while the Brigadier answers multiple telephones at the same time to show his best Ian Levine impression how busy he is. Eventually even the Doctor begins to despair.

"You know, I'm beginning to lose confidence for the first time in my life. And that covers several thousand years."

Liz suggests they try some technobabble to see if that does anything.

"Have you considered the addition of A37 in the presence of Z19 might well be effective?"

The Brigadier hears on the telephone (well, one of them) that

"Outbreaks of the disease are being reported all over London."

Dr Lawrence comes in looking like the other plague victims, but is still more concerned with his own career.

"You think I don't know what's going on, don't you? This whole business has been a plot to get rid of me!"

He goes mad and tries to strangle the Brigadier with his tiny paws, and then he goes

In the laboratory, the Doctor says "Eureka!" which, as we all know, is Greek for "this bath is too hot."

The Brigadier hears more bad news:

"The first one abroad. Paris."

So the stakes have just been raised even higher. Liz says

"If we can't contain it in Britain, what chance has the world got?"

and because Liz is a goody I don't think she means 'if we, the Great British, cannot contain it, what chance do a bunch of foreigners have?' but I suppose it's one interpretation you could put on that line of dialogue...

Pink Face and his friend pewpewpew a wall to make it glow. It makes a tunnel they can walk into - at this rate their hypno-eyes are getting worse than the sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor thinks he has found a cure at last, and they use it to make one manny in the hopistal feel better. The Doctor goes off to write down the secret formula for the cure so that other mannys can make it.

Captain Hawkins comes in to tell the Brigadier that the Silurians are attacking. The Brigadier goes to take action, but first he has to take a telephone call from the Daily What.

"The Daily What? How did you get hold of this number? Look, I have no comment to make. Now will you please get off this line?"

This is an interesting scene in that although it is pure padding since, unlike the equivalent scene of the Brigadier dealing with the press in Spearhead from Space, it does not advance the plot in any way or assist in building tension or upping the stakes, but it does add a small moment of realism and world-building to the situation.

The Doctor is busy writing down his formula when he hears a noise. The camera zooms in on the door and it starts glowing like the Silurians' wall did earlier when they pewpewpewed it.

Suddenly Pink Face and his friend come in and pewpewpew the Doctor, causing him to make a face. By now we know the Doctor making a face can only mean one thing - it's cliffhanger time!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Five

Green Face stops Pink Face from killing the Doctor, and we learn that Captain Hawkins and the other UNIT mannys aren't ded (phew!) but they are trapped and running out of air.

The Doctor continues to try and warn the Silurians, but now he is warning them that mannys will retaliate if they get killed. Major Baker tries to stop him, for some reason, but only gets hypno-eyesed for his trouble.

Pink Face conspires with another Silurian who appears to be his friend. Meanwhile Green Face talks with the Doctor.

"This is our planet, we were here before man. We ruled this world millions of years ago."

Actually the planet belongs to cats because cats are best. This is the story's big twist moment, although it has been carefully foreshadowed with things like the 200 million years old globe that the Doctor and Liz found. The Silurians aren't aliens at all, they are Earthlings - a clever reversal of the twist in Quatermass and the Pit where mannys turn out to be aliens.

The Doctor realises that the Silurians are really very stupid, and were having sleeps to hide from a "catastrophe" that "never happened."
Major Baker calls the Doctor a "traitor" because he is after the coveted position of most stupid character in this whole story. So far he is winning easily, in spite of the large amount of high-calibre competition he's up against.

The Silurians were only able to wake up when the mannys built their nuclear power station nearby. Or at least that is Green Face's excuse - I think they were just being very lazy. The Doctor tries to convince Green Face that there is room for mannys and Silurians to both live on the Earth in peace, and asks him to release the trapped UNIT mannys as a sign of good faith... and to counteract trapping them to die, which was a sign of bad faith.

One of the trapped mannys goes mad and attacks Captain Hawkins, like the manny in the hopistal did to the Doctor back in episode one. Green Face releases all the UNIT mannys just in time, and then tells Pink Face what he has done and why.

"This other species has developed its own civilisation. We must accept them as equals."

No! Not that kind of Civilization, Gandhi!

"I disagree! We must destroy them!"

Pink Face loses his shit and storms off in a huff.

Pink Face's friend is watching Major Baker on a Silurian TV, even though the real Major Baker is right there in front of him. He changes channels on the TV using his hypno-eye. It has so many uses. Pink Face wants his friend to help him become their new leader, and threatens to hypno-eyes him if he doesn't.

The Brigadier makes it back to the power station and Dr Lawrence's office set, where Liz and Masters were trying to be competent, but being hindered by Dr Lawrence and Miss Dawson acting like dicks.

Green Face and the Doctor reach an agreement, unaware of Pink Face's Starscreamesque plotting. Green Face leaves the Doctor behind an invisible door, giving Jon Pertwee an opportunity to show off his miming skillz.

Pink Face releases Major Baker as part of his plan, after first having secretly infected him with his friend's manny-killing plague. Green Face is angry when he finds out what Pink Face has done, and Pink Face says

"You are no longer fit to lead us."

to his face. Like Megatron, Green Face responds by saying

"I shall destroy you if you defy me again."

but he doesn't actually destroy him. Instead he tells the Doctor what has happened and gives him some of the plague in a jar as a present, hoping the Doctor can use it to find a cure (since the silly Silurians didn't think to make one).

Major Baker arrives back first and pretends to have escaped. The Doctor gets there soon after and tells him

"Major Baker, you are ill. You are very, very ill."

and there are signs of the plague on Major Baker's wrist. The Doctor gets everybody to stand back, at least two metres away from Major Baker.

Pink Face pewpewpews Green Face so that he can say 'I Pink Face am the new leader of the Siluricons!'
This must be the equivalent of a Silurian election, because all the other Silurians seem happy to go along with him after he's done it.

Major Baker gets taken to the hopistal so that he can start spreading the plague there. The Doctor tries too late to get the mannys to do a quarantine, but they are as hopeless as the UK government in 2020 (little bit of politics there, cats and doggys, oh yes indeed). Masters, for example, heads straight off to London, despite his starting to feel unwell before he has even left the office.

When the Doctor and the Brigadier arrive outside the hopistal in Bessie, they see Major Baker running around in his dressing gown trying to get away - by this point he has made more escape attempts from the hopistal than Number Six from the Village. But this is his last, because soon he goes

"Is he dead?"

asks the Brigadier, after unwisely touching him. Wash those paws, naughty Brigadier!

"Yes. The first one."

replies the Doctor - topical cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Four

Derp! Silurians look so derpy, lol.

Obviously the Doctor reacts not with fear but with "Hello. Are you a Silurian?"
He tries to make friends with it, but the Silurian hears a noise from outside and runs away.

Major Baker escapes from the hopistal. Liz asks the Brigadier if he wants to chase after him, but the Brigadier knows where he will be going - back to the caves. He's right, and when he gets there, Major Baker gets captured immediately by two Silurians, who pewpewpew him, or hypno-eyes him, or possibly both at the same time.

The Doctor tells Liz that Dr Quinn is ded, but he keeps this fact from the Brigadier because, so he says, "they're not necessarily hostile." I mean, hardly any mannys have been killed so far, and none that really count, right?

The Doctor has found Dr Quinn's map of the caves, so he and Liz follow the route marked on it. They find clues left behind by Major Baker when he got captured, and eventually they come to the door where Dr Quinn got hypno-eyesed back in episode two. They see a Silurian and hide while it goes through the door.

Dr Quinn's homing device also acts as a key and opens the door for them. They go inside and sneak around for a bit, dodging Silurians until they find Major Baker in a cage.

Baker tells the Doctor that the Silurians have been asking him "a lot of questions."

"What do they ask?"
"The population of the Earth, what weapons we use, what food we eat. Don't you see? They are trying to gather information for an invasion!"

Or they could be practising for an appearance on Pointless?

They see a Silurian waking up after a sleep, and the Doctor concludes that their alarm clock is what is causing the power drain of the mannys' nuclear reactor. They can't rescue Major Baker right now, so they decide to go back to warn UNIT and try to bring back more help. On the way out they see a pet dinosaur going rar, although it doesn't do anything else.

Back at the Cyclotron room, Masters, the Permanent Under-Secretary (Geoffrey Palmer), arrives and talks to Dr Lawrence. These two together are an appalling combination of unlikable characters who bring out the worst in each other.

"We've got to get this sorted out, you know. I'm under very heavy pressure from the Minister. The future of this centre is very much in question."

Masters may be a Permanent Under-Secretary, but he's more of a Sir Jason Fowler than a Sir Humphrey Appleby. However even he is more competent than Dr Lawrence, who projects his own failings onto the Brigadier in an attempt to avoid any blame for things going wrong:

"He's exaggerating this whole business out of all proportion merely to magnify his own importance."

Just as he did in Spearhead from Space, the Brigadier needs his reinforcements to come from the "regular army." In that story it was General Scobie who was responsible for them, and here it is Masters, and Masters won't give him any.

Two Silurians ask Major Baker some questions, including

"Is your species the only intelligent lifeform?"

Major Baker lies and says yes, obviously wanting to keep the existence of cats secret from the Silurians. When they ask him about weapons he refuses to answer, and one of them (who has a pinkish-coloured face) gets angry. Like with the mannys we have just seen in the previous scene, I think there is some projecting going on, because Pink Face says it is Major Baker who is "becoming aggressive."
The other Silurian (who has a green face) seems more reasonable. He wants to study mannys, while Pink Face wants to "kill them all."

The Doctor and Liz tell the Brigadier, Dr Lawrence and Masters what they saw in the caves. Masters wants proof (which actually sounds fairly reasonable under the circumstances) ad the Brigadier wants to go and get it from the caves. The Doctor wants to make peaceful contact with them, and reiterates his point about them only attacking in self-defence - he has not met Pink Face yet!

I think the story is trying to establish a thematic parallel between the contrasting methods of the Doctor and the Brigadier and Green Face and Pink Face, but the Brigadier at least is a lot more nuanced than Pink "wipe them out, all of them" Face would seem to be.

Anyhow, the Doctor's point about self-defence is undermined when Miss Dawson comes in and tells them about Dr Quinn being ded, and she knows he was killed by a Silurian. This gets Masters to agree to the Brigadier's plan to take UNIT into the caves, and he goes to get ready. The Doctor decides to warn the Silurians that UNIT are coming, telling Liz

"If the Brigadier won't listen to reason, Liz, maybe the Silurians will."

He gets there in the twinkling of a scene change, and meets with three Silurians. Pink Face asks

"Shall I destroy him?"

but Green Face says no. Even Green Face is not in the mood to listen to the Doctor though, and they put him in the big cage along with Major Baker. They open the cage door in the way they open all their doors - by hypno-eyesing it with their special hypno-eye that all the Silurians have, which is a neat trick that cats have yet to master.

The Brigadier and some UNIT mannys, including Captain Hawkins (purr, I thought for a while that he wasn't going to be in this episode at all, but it is suddenly looking a lot better now he is), are in the caves, and they get trapped by walls appearing where they weren't before. This happens to cats sometimes too, mew.

Pink Face goes to the Doctor and tells him he has "destroyed" the mannys - oh noes, I hope he doesn't mean Captain Hawkins!

"And now I shall destroy you!"

He pewpewpews the Doctor with his hypno-eye, and the Doctor makes a face - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Captain Hawkins and the Silurians: Episode Three

After the recap of episode two's cliffhanger and some more POV shots of the wounded Silurian hiding from a policemanny, it cuts to Dr Quinn showing his "communications device" (wait, I thought it was a homing beacon?) to Miss Dawson, and from her he hears that UNIT are looking for the Silurian at the barn.

UNIT arrives at the barn and Captain Hawkins searches the place. I bet he's quicker on the draw than any of the other UNIT mannys, lol, but all he sees here is a chicken.

He smiles. Is this the first ever instance of a sardonic Paul Darrow smile? Purr.

He finds the hole out of which the Silurian escaped and tells the Brigadier, who decides they need to search "the whole area" for it. The Doctor asks Liz what she saw, and she describes the Silurian, but slowly, to increase the tension.

"It was like a reptile, but it walked upright like a man."

Dr Quinn arrives, and the Doctor grows suspicious of why he is there and the questions he asks, but the Brigadier wants him to help with their search.

There is some exciting footage of UNIT (including Captain Hawkins) on location doing their searching - they even have doggys to help them. No cats so far as I could see, although all the cats I know would have been happy to help Captain Hawkins.

Dr Quinn goes to a place where he can use the homing device to make the sound effect that is meant to summon the Silurian - I hope it doesn't summon any dinosaurs too, since it's the same as that noise. A doggy hears the noise, and so does Captain Hawkins, and he tells the Doctor and the Brigadier when they drive past him in Bessie. Captain Hawkins is even able to identify it as the sound they heard back when they were in the caves.

The sound gets faster and faster as Dr Quinn gets closer to the Silurian, and it uses its POV camera to see him and sneak up on him. The Doctor and the Brigadier hear the noise too, until it stops suddenly.

Fortunately for them there is another clue, as the Brigadier sees a Silurian footprint and they examine it, then he uses his own homing beacon to summon the rest of UNIT.

The Doctor is still suspicious of Dr Quinn so goes to his house, alone. He forces his way in and makes no secret to Dr Quinn that he is investigating. Even we cats can tell that Dr Quinn is lying when he answers the Doctor's questions with innoccent-seeming answers that he is forced to make up on the spot - the Doctor is like Columbo here, trying to trip him up.

"Only it is rather like the reptile house in the zoo, isn't it?"
"What do you mean, eh? What do you mean?"
"Nothing. I was just referring to the temperature of the room."

Eventually the Doctor says plainly

"You'd save yourself a lot of trouble if you'd let me help you."

But Dr Quinn only makes him leave as his way of answering.

I suppose I should have some pictures of things in the episode that aren't Paul Darrow, mew.

The Doctor and Liz investigate Dr Quinn's things, and find a globe where all the countries are wrong, which means it is from "200 million years ago." Miss Dawson catches them, but the Doctor quickly turns the tables on her and starts interrogating her. She is about to tell them what she knows when the Brigadier comes in and, for some reason, this changes her mind and she goes away without helping them. Even more inexplicably, the Doctor then acts as though this is the Brigadier's fault.

Miss Dawson goes straight to Dr Quinn's house and tries to persuade him to tell the Doctor what he knows. But Dr Quinn says

"He's a scientist too. He only wants to steal the credit for my discoveries."

This gives us further insight into Dr Quinn's motivation, and at the same time shows his increasing paranoia. Dr Quinn has decided to force the wounded Silurian, who he now has hidden in his house, to tell him the secrets of science before he will let it go. This seems like a foolproof plan that can't possibly go wrong.

The Doctor, Liz, the Brigadier and Captain Hawkins are having a meeting with Dr Lawrence to decide what to do, when Major Baker comes in uninvited and demands they attack the caves. Perhaps because the Brigadier would have been suggesting this himself before very much longer, he gets annoyed and orders Captain Hawkins to take Major Baker back to the hopistal.

As soon as Major Baker is gone...

"I must say, Brigadier, that I'm delighted that you didn't agree with him."
"Oh but I do. I intend to send for more men and mount a full scale search of those caves."

Told you so.

Dr Lawrence says the Brigadier must act quickly before the Master comes to take over. The Master! I didn't think he was going to be in this story - Roger Delgado and Paul Darrow in the same episode, purr. Best Doctor Who evar?

Oh, wait, I must have been getting overexcited - what Dr Lawrence actually says is

"I advise you to do your best to achieve some kind of results in the time available to you. Masters, the Permanent Under-Secretary, is coming down here to conduct a personal investigation."

Mew.

The Doctor decides to go and speak to Dr Quinn at his house again. After ringing the doorbell and waiting only a few seconds, he goes in - impatient Doctor, he must know the cliffhanger is coming up soon.

Dr Quinn is having sleeps in a chair. The Doctor finds him and takes the homing beacon from his paw. The Doctor turns it on and it summons the Silurian, who was hiding in the next room, and who walks into full view of the camera so that we see it properly for the first time only as the Doctor sees it. It's the big reveal at last and, unsurprisingly, the cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Two

The dinosaur is about to claw claw bite the Doctor when there is a sound effect that makes it change its mind and it goes away instead. Phew, that was lucky! The Doctor sees a dinosaur footprint and thinks it is a clue, as if seeing the dinosaur itself wasn't enough for him.

The Doctor gets back and tells everybody about what he saw - the Brigadier, Liz, Major Baker, and a new character Captain Hawkins, played by... PAUL DARROW!

*Explodes!*

The others don't believe the Doctor's story, not even after he does a komedy bit.

"Well, it was certainly some kind of dinosaur. Certainly nothing that I've ever seen before, though."

"In museums, you mean?"

Major Baker is today's straight manny.

"No, I do not mean in museums. Well, on second thoughts... perhaps... perhaps I do, yes."

However the military mannys do want to go to the caves themselves and find out if there is a problem there that they can solve by shooting it. The Doctor says

"That's typical of the military mind, isn't it? Present them with a new problem, and they start shooting at it."

But when the Brigadier wants to leave Liz behind, even the Doctor gets in on the patronising.

In the caves, Major Baker wanders off on his own. He sees a Silurian and shoots at it, then he gets attacked by a very stealthy dinosaur until the sound effect once again calls it off.

The Brigadier and Captain Hawkins follow the trail of the Silurian, while the Doctor takes Major Baker back to the hopistal - I know which of those I'd choose to go with, lol!

The Silurian is injured and makes its way to the outside of the studio, where it wanders around on location, accompanied by some classic POV shots and the sounds of heavy breathing - this is no time to make a dirty 'phone call, naughty Silurian! All the time we still don't get a proper look at it, clearly this is being saved for a big reveal.

I don't know how many different ways there are of us not seeing the Silurian, but that there are so many varieties used here is evidence of a director at the top of his game.

The Brigadier loses its trail when it gets dark, by which time the Doctor has worked out that the Silurians are in charge of the dinosaur and called it off both times, so he thinks they "may not be hostile." I think the Brigadier is annoyed by this suggestion, since he really wanted it to be something he could shoot.

The POV footage reaches some houses and goes inside a barn.

Dr Quinn goes to the caves to meet with the Silurians and they shine a red light on him, either to hypno-eyes him or else just for the lols. He goes into a control room where he looks confused for a bit - so he probably was hypno-eyesed - then talks to a mysterious disembodied voice. From this we can deduce that the Silurians were obviously fans of Dr. No.

The voice gives Dr Quinn a pider in a box "summoning device" that will help him find the wounded Silurian, as they want Dr Quinn to bring him back to them.

A manny goes into the barn and gets a surprise when he sees the Silurian's paw in his pile of hay. The Silurian uses its POV powers to attack the manny.

The Doctor wants to shut down the nuclear reactor so the Silurians can't drain it any more, but Dr Lawrence is a dick ("pompous idiot" the Doctor calls him) and says its "out of the question."

The Brigadier gets telephoned about the manny with the barn who has been killed by the Silurian. They all go straight there and see the Silurians have different claw attacks from the dinosaur, but the Doctor says the manny didn't die from claws but instead "you might say he died of fear."
Alright then I will say that: he died of fear.

The Doctor is still prepared to give the Silurians the benefit of the doubt, but with the number of attacks on mannys mounting up the Brigadier and Liz both think it doesn't look good for them. Again they leave Liz behind while the Doctor and the Brigadier go off to speak to Mrs Manny, who also saw the Silurian in the barn. When they ask her what the Silurian did next, she tells them it's still in the barn.

Of course, this is where Liz has been left. She is busy doing science in the barn, so the Silurian can sneak up on her with its POV powers, much as it did to the manny before. Liz screams and it claws her face (in self defence, the Doctor would no doubt claim) - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode One

Doctor Who and the Silurians is a seven-episode story from season seven of Doctor Who, first broadcast in 1970. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Caroline John as Liz Shaw, and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. It also has a certain guest-star make an appearance, although he is not in episode one, alas and mew.

It starts with two mannys exploring a studio when they hear a rar. Either bravely or foolishly, they keep on exploring until one of them meets a studio monster, and this immediately set us cats who are watching into an argument with Dragon as to whether this was a dragon (as he claimed) or a dinosaur (which was our consensus opinion). One of the mannys gets nomed while the other one runs away.

The Doctor has acquired a car since the last story, and has been doing some science on it when Liz comes in with an "urgent message from the Brigadier." The message, which is doubtless full of important exposition to get this story going, reads:

"Miss Shaw and the Doctor will report themselves forthwith to Wenley Moor. Attend a briefing meeting at precisely..."

which is as far as Liz gets before the Doctor interrupts her. He isn't interested until Liz tells him about the famous caves.

The Doctor has named his car "Bessie," which understandably makes Elizabeth Shaw worried that he might be a loony.
"I see," she says when she sees him blow a kiss to the car, maintaining her outward calm while inwardly plotting to get out of her contract at the earliest possible opportunity.

After a brief scene of the Doctor and Liz driving around with the incidental music sounding like it's time to go nationwide,

we go from them to Peter Miles, famous as Davros's left-hand manny Nyder, but today playing Dr Lawrence. He is shouting at some other mannys while the Brigadier looks on. The Brigadier meets with the Doctor and Liz, and introduces them to important named characters - Dr Lawrence, Dr Quinn (played by Fulton "Mr" Mackay) and Major Baker (no relation, as far as I'm aware, to either Tom or Colin).

Their "atomic research centre" has been suffering from "unexplained leakages in the power supplied by the nuclear generator" and they need the Doctor to find the explanation. So far this seems a fairly mundane sort of problem for UNIT and the Doctor to use their talents on, but appearances can be deceptive and, since this is a seven-part story, there is still plenty of time for the mystery to deepen and for even better guest-stars to appear.

Dr Quinn shows the Doctor and Liz the nuclear reactor they use to power their cyclotron.

"What happens if one of these power losses occurs at a particularly crucial time?"
"So far, we've always managed to stabilise."
"If you didn't?"
"Well, theoretically..."
"Your nuclear reactor could turn into a massive atomic bomb."

You see, already its looking pretty serious. Dr Quinn tells the Doctor about the mannys from the first scene, and the Doctor goes to see the one that ran away.

The manny has been drawing on the walls of his room, and when the Doctor tries to ask him about it he goes mad and attacks the Doctor.

Even though we will not see a Silurian for a while yet, they are cleverly foreshadowed here in the manny's drawings.

Dr Quinn conspires with Miss Dawson, who is worried UNIT are "bound to discover something." This lets us know they are really baddys, and that there are others, who she refers to as "them," that are causing the power losses. Miss Dawson thinks she and Dr Quinn should change sides and tell the Brigadier what's going on. She says

"It's not worth the risk."

But Dr Quinn replies with

"The knowledge I shall gain is worth any risk."

This gives us an insight into Dr Quinn's motivation.

Dr Quinn does a nuclear test, which involves a big glowing red thingy on the wall. There is a power failure while they are doing it, and the more it goes wrong the more the camera zooms in on the glowing thingy.

One of the mannys goes mad and attacks Miss Dawson until the Brigadier and the Doctor rush in to help.

The Doctor works out that the cyclotron room is near the caves, and becomes convinced that all the clues he has found are pointing that way. So he goes to investigate the cave where the studio set from the first scene is, even dressing up like the mannys to recreate their exploring as closely as possible. This works out well for him, as almost immediately he hears a rar just like they did.

He sees a dinosaur and makes an 'oh noes!' face - cliffhanger!

Notice how, in later Doctor Who they would end episodes with a crash-zoom to the Doctor's face, but in a long story like this one there is time for a crash-zoom to both the Doctor's face and the dinosaur's.