Day 269: Doctor Who and the Silurians, Episode Five

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 269: Doctor Who and the Silurians, Episode Five

Dear diary,

In 2010, when the Silurians made their return to Doctor Who, several parts of fandom were up in arms about the pretty radical redesign. It has to be said, I've never minded the look of the new Silurians. I love the face masks worn by the soldiers (even if they are a way of keeping the costs down), and can you imagine Jenny falling for Madame Vastra if she'd looked like one of the Wenley Moor lot?

Still, I've never appreciated before just what a great design this one is. Looking at a proposed design for The Hungry Earth, which is far more in keeping with this original version, does make me a little sorry not to have kept with it. Certainly, the redesign of the Silurians is the most drastic one we've had since the series returned - many of the other revived creators have stayed much closer to the things we'd seen before. The costumes for the creatures here aren't the best, I'll admit - the very obvious join between the head piece and the rest of the body is a real let down, and it's a shame it's so visible - but the actually look of the creatures is a great one. Where everything completely falls apart for me is when they actually start to speak.

Because I've never seen Doctor Who and the Silurians before, and because it's been so long since I last watched Warriors of the Deep, I'm not sure I could remember if the classic Silurians even could speak. That seems a bit silly in retrospect, 'cos they're quite chatty little lizards, but having spent the first three episodes watching just snippets of the creatures moving around in the corner of the screen, they'd built up a bit of a mystery. Even though I knew what was coming, I was still drawn in my it.

The voices are terrible, though. They come across, simply, as 'actor in a rubber monster suit'. Yeah, yeah, I know that's exactly what they are, but it just seems painfully obvious to me. I hate to admit it, but these voices really are bringing down my enjoyment of the story a little. We get a discussion today of the reasons the Silurians have taken to hibernation, and why they're only starting to wake up now. They all seem to make perfect sense to me, and Malcolm Hulke has clearly given it some thought. The entire description, though, left me cold, because I was listening to it through that ridiculous voice.

I don't know how I'd imagined they might talk. Maybe a bit like an Ice Warrior perhaps? They're both lizard-esque, after all. I almost want to hear them talking in a proper, RP accent, simply so I can enjoy the drama on display without this bringing things down. Ah well, I suppose you can't have it all!

And I can't really complain, because elsewhere, this story is boasting one hell of a guest cast! Until his death just a few episodes ago, we had Fulton Mackay, making his only appearance in Doctor Who. We've also got Geoffrey Palmer who's been in pretty much everything over the years, and will be making a couple of returns to the programme over the rest of this marathon. He's turning in an especially nice performance. It helps that when he first appeared, I got to play that favourite game, in which you point at the character every time he's on screen and say aloud 'Oh, it's him! What-his-name. Thingy. What's he been in?' unit lI suddenly realised who it was and felt a little bit silly.

Also making the first of a few appearances in the programme is Paul Darrow, who's taking things very seriously without Colin Baker to act up against. I'm rather liking his performance, too. And then there's Peter Miles, who gets an awful lot of praise for his performance in Genesis of the Daleks from a few years after this, but he's a great character here, too. With all of these fine actors turning up, I've not got any right to complain about a few silly Silurian voices really, have I?

(They are bloody stupid voices, though…)