Classic Doctor Who - Season 7 - Doctor Who & The Silurians (1970) - Review

Starring: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John, Nicholas Courtney, Peter Miles & Fulton MacKay

Written By: Malcolm Hulke

Directed By: Timothy Combe

 

With the new Doctor, companion and hefty change in direction established, it was time for Doctor Who & The Silurians to give the audience a taste of what to expect in the coming weeks. While the new Earth-bound formula may have helped cut costs, it brought about restrictions in what kind of stories you could tell. Where was there to go once you'd done Earth invasion or mad scientist stories? As this story proved, it seemed U.N.I.T didn't just face threats from above, but below as well...

 

Now confined to Earth and working as U.N.I.T's scientific advisor, the Doctor and his companion Liz are called to investigate a nuclear research centre built into the caves of Wenley Moor. The centre has been experiencing unexplained power losses, and although the Doctor first suspects sabotage, the truth is much more complicated. Deep in the caves, the work of the centre has awoken an ancient and intelligent reptilian race known as the Silurians, a race who inhabited Earth before humans, and they want their planet back...

 

The first thing that stood out to me with Doctor Who & The Silurians is how Jon Pertwee and Caroline John fit so effortlessly into their roles as the Doctor and Liz respectively, especially when we remember that this is only their second outing. While in the previous story, the new Doctor was recovering from the effects of his regeneration, here you can barely tell that it's only his second adventure – that's how confidently Jon Pertwee approaches the role. It's also nice to see the start of the Doctor's turbulent relationship with the Brigadier. Caroline John also settles well into her role as the criminally underrated Liz. Liz is noticeably less hostile towards the Doctor and U.N.I.T than she was in Spearhead From Space, and is all the better for it. That being said, she's still prepared to stand up to both the Doctor and the Brigadier when she often needs to, and it still feels refreshing for a companion not to have to ask questions all the while, and to just instead get on with what she has to do.

 

Doctor Who & The Silurians further features a great variety of characters in the research centre, brought convincingly to life by some brilliant acting talent. The character of Dr. Quinn could have been greatly mishandled in the wrong hands, seeing as there's many different sides to him. However, Fulton MacKay's performance manages to balance all of them and makes for an effective warning against the dangers of scientific hubris. Similarly great performances come from Norman Jones as the narrow-minded British Empire supporting Major Baker, Geoffrey Palmer as permanent under-secretary Masters and of course Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier. At the end of the day though, it's Peter Miles that absolutely steals the show as Dr. Lawrence. It's not just me that he left an impression on, seeing as he would return again in villainous roles for Invasion Of The Dinosaurs and Genesis Of The Daleks. His performance is just perfection – everything from the facial expressions, to the delivery of his dialogue, to his insane, angry yet powerful attack on the Brigadier in Part 6, I simply cannot find fault.

 

The Silurians themselves are a great creation and present a morally ambiguous dilemma. They're very reminiscent of the Sensorites from 1964, in that they aren't evil monsters with plans to take over the world, but individual beings where there are many different shades of grey. They also make for a clever way of getting round the problem of the Earth-bound formula I mentioned earlier. Being the species that dominated Earth before humans, you can understand their point of view when they say the world belongs to them, so who is right? There's no one answer. Just like human beings, there are some Silurians willing to cooperate, and others who refuse and this makes them feel very believable – it's no wonder the production team would bring them back so often. While you can't feature species like the Sensorites or the Silurians every week in Doctor Who, they certainly deserve a place in the show's mythos. The Silurian design is pretty good too, and while some have criticized the rubber suits, I don't really have a problem with them and the prosthetics used for the head are even better.

 

Clocking in at seven parts, or around three hours long, Doctor Who & The Silurians could have very easily dragged, but surprisingly it's one of the rare 6+ Parters that can almost be watched in one sitting. While I personally think this story could have worked as just a six-parter, Malcolm Hulke still does an effective job at pacing out the story, developing it from a mystery in a research centre, to trying to co-operate with the Silurians, to trying to fight off a deadly pandemic (the last of these three is probably my favourite part). For its time, the story also makes use of some cutting-edge ideas in sci-fi, specifically the idea of plate tectonics, which back in 1970 was still a debatable and unproven scientific theory. In fact there's a great deal of emphasis on science and social issues in Doctor Who & The Silurians. It helps to remind us that while the show dabbles in fantasy, it's still sci-fi at its heart. The idea of humans having to share their space with another equally-intelligent species comes across as a very tongue-in-cheek look at many pressing social issues of the 1970s.

 

While not every aspect of the production works to full effect, there's still a great deal that does. Most of the sets are effective enough, with the standout being the research centre's cyclotron room. But what's most impressive is the use of location work later in the story as people in London start succumbing to the Silurians' pandemic. When you take into account the filming constraints and small budget at the time, it's well-accomplished work. But like I said, not everything succeeds and there are some smaller things that pull you out of the experience. Despite Timothy Combe's stylish direction, it doesn't mask the fact that a lot of the cave sets look pretty cheap. The Silurians also keep a pet dinosaur in those same caves as a form of guard dog, and while it doesn't show up that much, it does come across as poor and silly when you do see it. But easily the worst, most grating and annoying thing about this story is Carey Blyton's atrocious music score. In one of (thankfully) only three times Carey Blyton recorded music for Doctor Who, rather than regular composer Dudley Simpson, the score is whiny, high-pitched and just terrible. It doesn't fit with the tone of the story at all and it would have honestly been better off with no music at all compared to what we eventually got.

 

As a whole, Doctor Who & The Silurians is definitely a standout of Jon Pertwee's time on the show, which is impressive considering how early this story came in his tenure. While exploring what could be done with the new Earth-bound formula, it presents the audience with a complex moral dilemma where there are no clear answers, and undoubtedly shows that Doctor Who was growing up and starting to cater for adults as well as younger viewers. Watch and enjoy it, but do your best to ignore that god-awful music...

 

 

Doctor Who & The Silurians
 

8/10