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Putting together the information from the available sensors, the Doctor figures out that three entities are heading for the surface, and will arrive in 12 minutes. The Doctor, Dr. Chaudhry, and Tony head to the town church for safety, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose, and Elliot. The attackers put an [[energy barrier]] around the town to prevent escape and provide cover of darkness, while the Doctor and his defenders set up a network of cameras and begin gathering any other supplies that might help.
Putting together the information from the available sensors, the Doctor figures out that three entities are heading for the surface, and will arrive in 12 minutes. The Doctor, Dr. Chaudhry, and Tony head to the town church for safety, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose, and Elliot. The attackers put an [[energy barrier]] around the town to prevent escape and provide cover of darkness, while the Doctor and his defenders set up a network of cameras and begin gathering any other supplies that might help.


Elliot, having left to collect his headphones from his house, is chased back to the church by a reptilian humanoid, who catches up with him before the people inside can get the door open to save him. When Ambrose and Tony attempt to rescue him, Tony is lashed with a venomous forked tongue by a second reptilian. While they are unable to retrieve Elliot, the Doctor and Rory are able to capture one of the intruders, whom the Doctor quickly recognizes as an unknown 300-million-year-o[[File:Siluriansurgeon.jpg|thumb|Silurian surgeon prepares to perform a vivisection.]]ld branch of the [[Silurians]].
Elliot, having left to collect his headphones from his house, is chased back to the church by a reptilian humanoid, who catches up with him before the people inside can get the door open to save him. When Ambrose and Tony attempt to rescue him, Tony is lashed with a venomous forked tongue by a second reptilian. While they are unable to retrieve Elliot, the Doctor and Rory are able to capture one of the intruders, whom the Doctor quickly recognizes as an unknown 300-million-year-old branch of the [[Silurians]].
 
[[File:Siluriansurgeon.jpg|thumb|Silurian surgeon prepares to perform a vivisection.]]
The prisoner reveals herself to be Alaya, a warrior of a Silurian tribe that had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for countless years before being disturbed by the drill, which threatened the safety of the hibernating Silurians. The Doctor tries to negotiate peacefully, but Alaya insists that the Silurians will wipe humanity off the surface of their planet, while Tony insists that they should dissect Alaya to learn more about what they are facing; however, the Doctor refuses, saying that the Silurians will view it as an act of war, and he wishs to negotiate with, not antagonize them.
The prisoner reveals herself to be Alaya, a warrior of a Silurian tribe that had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for countless years before being disturbed by the drill, which threatened the safety of the hibernating Silurians. The Doctor tries to negotiate peacefully, but Alaya insists that the Silurians will wipe humanity off the surface of their planet, while Tony insists that they should dissect Alaya to learn more about what they are facing; however, the Doctor refuses, saying that the Silurians will view it as an act of war, and he wishs to negotiate with, not antagonize them.


Revision as of 16:52, 31 December 2010

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The Hungry Earth is the eighth episode of Series Five. It is the first part of a two-part story. It marks the televised re-appearance of the Silurians for the first time in 26 years.

Synopsis

It’s 2020, and the most ambitious drilling project in history has reached deeper beneath the Earth’s crust than man has ever gone before – but now the ground itself is fighting back. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory arrive in a tiny mining village and find themselves plunged into a battle against a deadly danger from a bygone age.

Plot

In 2020, in the small Welsh village of Cwmtaff, a team led by Dr. Nasreen Chaudhry is attempting the deepest drilling project in history, in order to investigate minerals that appeared locally, but otherwise have not been on the surface for over 20 million years.

Mo Northover, a night watchman on the project, finds a strange subsidence in the ground inside the mine complex, and, upon investigating, is dragged beneath the surface.

File:Hungry Earth 1.jpg
The TARDIS lands in Cwmtaff

Shortly thereafter, The Doctor arrives with Amy and Rory, having promised them a vacation in Rio de Janeiro but misnavigated. What could have been a brief stop quickly turns into an extended visit when the Doctor notices a major drilling operation and some strange blue grass (evidence of the same unusual minerals Dr. Chaudhry was interested in).

When the three head off to explore the mine, Rory turns back to return Amy's engagement ring to the TARDIS for safekeeping, and is unable to catch up to them. Rory is mistaken for a police investigator by local resident Ambrose Northover. Together with her son Elliot, Ambrose explains that local graves were being mysteriously dug up without disturbing the ground, and Rory begins to investigate.

After breaking into the mine, the Doctor and Amy meet Dr. Chaudhry and her assistant Tony Mack. Shortly after they begin talking, an earthquake strike, pulling Tony into a hole in the Earth. Amy and Dr. Chaudhry both attempt to pull Tony free, and are ultimately successful, but in the process, Amy gets stuck in a hole and pulled underground. The Doctor figures out that the ground had been bio-programmed to attack whenever it perceived a threat (a technology thousands of years ahead of the 21st century), and insists that the drill be shut off. The drill is stopped, but not until after Amy has been pulled underground, and the drill head had breached a network of catacombs 21km below the surface.

Putting together the information from the available sensors, the Doctor figures out that three entities are heading for the surface, and will arrive in 12 minutes. The Doctor, Dr. Chaudhry, and Tony head to the town church for safety, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose, and Elliot. The attackers put an energy barrier around the town to prevent escape and provide cover of darkness, while the Doctor and his defenders set up a network of cameras and begin gathering any other supplies that might help.

Elliot, having left to collect his headphones from his house, is chased back to the church by a reptilian humanoid, who catches up with him before the people inside can get the door open to save him. When Ambrose and Tony attempt to rescue him, Tony is lashed with a venomous forked tongue by a second reptilian. While they are unable to retrieve Elliot, the Doctor and Rory are able to capture one of the intruders, whom the Doctor quickly recognizes as an unknown 300-million-year-old branch of the Silurians.

File:Siluriansurgeon.jpg
Silurian surgeon prepares to perform a vivisection.

The prisoner reveals herself to be Alaya, a warrior of a Silurian tribe that had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for countless years before being disturbed by the drill, which threatened the safety of the hibernating Silurians. The Doctor tries to negotiate peacefully, but Alaya insists that the Silurians will wipe humanity off the surface of their planet, while Tony insists that they should dissect Alaya to learn more about what they are facing; however, the Doctor refuses, saying that the Silurians will view it as an act of war, and he wishs to negotiate with, not antagonize them.

Meanwhile, underground, the Silurians have been performing live exploratory vivisection on Mo, and intend to continue with him and begin working on Amy next.

The Doctor, after some pressure from Dr. Chaudhry, invites her to come with him in the TARDIS to meet the Silurians at their underground encampment. While he expects a small group of maybe a dozen Silurians, he instead finds an entire civilization, stretching for miles around.

Cast

Crew

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.
          

Despite the centrality of prosthetics to creating the Silurians — and indeed the inclusion of an interview with Rob Mayor on CON: "After Effects" — no member of Millennium FX's staff received an individual credit on this episode.  Similarly, Davy Jones was fairly extensively interviewed in CON: "After Effects", where he was clearly shown to be doing the job of the prosthetics make-up artist. However he wasn't credited for his work. This was the first time he was visually confirmed to be working on Doctor Who since The Parting of the Ways.  Malcolm Hulke did not receive a credit for creating the Silurians, seemingly indicating that the BBC owns them outright.


References

  • The masks the Silurians wear are similar to the helmets the Sycorax wore. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
  • The Doctor (and later Ambrose) quotes "every little helps," when looking for objects in the van, a reference to the famous caption of Tesco, a large supermarket chain in the UK.
  • The Doctor also refers to the Silurians as 'Eocenes', 'Homo Reptilia' and 'Earth...lians'.
  • The Silurians wear armor similar to what the Sea Devils wore in DW: Warriors of the Deep.

Technology

  • The Doctor has a pair of sunglasses that function as infra-red thermal imaging scanners.
  • The Sonic Screwdriver can't "do wood."

Individuals

The Doctor

Story notes

  • The episode was incorrectly entitled The Ground Beneath their Feet, Warm Planet and Cold Blood.
  • Despite the press release saying that the story would take place in 2015, it actually took place in 2020. It may have been changed due to some events of the previous episode happening in 2015.
  • The visor's different scanning types are reminiscent of the helmets used by the aliens in the Predator film series. Also when Matt Smith moves his hand when looking through the heat scanning glasses, there is the same 'swish' sound heard when the Predator changes scanning type.
  • Matt Smith celebrated his 27th birthday during the filming of this episode.
  • Amy and Rory see future versions of themselves in 2020 from a distance, seemingly revisiting their past adventure and watching their past (current, from a series perspective) selves. However, this may change; as the Doctor says, "time can be re-written."
  • When Amy goes to say hello to their future selves the Doctor stops her saying "Things can get very complicated".
  • The completed episode had a running time of sixty minutes, requiring over fifteen minutes of footage to be removed in order to fit its broadcast slot.
  • This is the first Silurian story to feature a female member of the species.
  • Originally, Mo and Amy were to be stripped down to their underwear before being dissected. This was removed for being "too adult".
  • This is the first episode which does not confirm who originally created the enemy since the revival.
  • In the early stages of production, the new Silurians' masks were intended to quite similar to the originals, only with green scales. (DWA Issue 172)
  • This episode aired on the same day as the K9 episode, Mutant Copper was first broadcast on Disney XD in Britain. It also aired on the same day that Jaws of Orthrus was first broadcast on Network Ten in Australia.

Ratings

Overnight ratings were 4.5 million (4.2 million on BBC1, 0.3 million on HD) for a 32.2% share.[1]

The offical viewing figures was 6.01 million viewers.

The Appreciation Index was 86.[2]

Rumours

  • It is rumoured that the Sea Devils will appear as one of the races seen in the trailers. This was proven false.
  • Melanie Walters will appear in this episode and in Cold Blood. This was confirmed as false but as she was seen filming it could be for the finale.

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

  • When Rory is being shown the graves by Ambrose and Elliot, he has his arms by his side whenever the camera is focused on the latter, but when the camera is on him, his arms are linked in front of him.
  • Before Nasreen enters the TARDIS she has red shoes however when both she and the Doctor fall they are brown boots.
If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

Continuity

Home video releases

File:Series5volume3.png

BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Three will feature Amy's Choice, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood. It will be released on Monday 2nd August 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-ray.[3]

See also

to be added

External links

to be added

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/05/hungry-earth-overnight-ratings.html
  2. ↑ http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/05/hungry-earth-ai.html
  3. ↑ DWM 421, Page 18


Template:Series 5 Template:Silurian & Sea Devil stories

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