(Spoilers for episodes 8 and 9 of Doctor Who Series 5.)
Item 1: The biggest talking point is no doubt the "new look" Eocenes. Though more or less associated with Silurians, they have more than a little in common with the Sea Devils (the mesh cloth, the gun shapes, the back of the head), but look like neither. There's been a lot of talk about the Star Trek aesthetic leaking into Doctor Who here, but there was a very good reason for Star Trek's emoting aliens, and it makes sense here as well. And had these guys been redesigned Draconians, I don't think we would have heard a peep. No, the thing here is that Silurians and Sea Devils were previously portrayed as inhuman, and some fans were let down by the design choice. I don't have a particular problem with it, though I did think the males of the species were a little too humanized in their behaviour, especially compared to the much more reptilian females. Performance makes a big difference. And while I think it's reasonable and interesting to think of the "Eocene era" as having multiple sentient reptilian races, it's surprising that they all had bases in and around what is today Great Britain.
Item 2: So that was really old school, wasn't it? Drawing heavily on the third Doctor era, not only bringing back the idea of sentient reptiles, but their entire dynamic with humanity and the Doctor. This is probably why I was a little bored by the exercise. I've seen it all before. THRICE before! Each time new Silurian cousins are discovered, the Doctor tries to make humanity share the planet with them, and every time, neither side is trusting enough to make it happen. I will be interested to know how people who didn't see the original stories felt about this, but for my part, it had an air of predictability until the last 15 minutes of Cold Blood where it was perhaps too late to redeem it.
Item 3: The "bad human" in this scenario is just a mom who's afraid for her family. And while Ambrose probably reacts the most realistically in the whole story (certainly more than wannabe companion Nasreen), she is an extremely frustrating character. As Doctor Who fans, we accept HIS point of view, and wouldn't want to admit that in that situation, we'd act more like Ambrose than Amy. However, she makes all the wrong choices, which makes us shout at the screen rather a lot. It certainly doesn't help that the Doctor piles it on with repetitive "you should have been better" rhetoric.
Item 4: Another problem I had was with Chibnall's over-reliance on coincidences and last minute reprieves. Amy gets a couple of those and they just cheapen the suspense. She gets in danger, and people just walk in an interrupt the jeopardy.
Item 5: Rory's erasure is the big surprise of the last episode, and while a shock, we get the feeling it'll all be undone by the finale. Beat the crack, return everything to reality. Right? Well, that's as maybe. For a character who started out as a second Mickey (and nobody wants that), he leaves quite a few fans pissed at his unrealized potential. I'm a little more even-tempered, and would rather have Amy as the sole companion, but I still liked Rory a heck of a lot. I just don't know how they could have gotten rid of him without breaking up the couple (which is part of the reason we like him, so that's no solution).
Item 6: There are two reasons why I think he'll be back. One is the story's structure. When an important character says his goodbyes, the episode usually focuses on him or her. That's basic television grammar. Not doing that needs a good reason. So while his death and erasure were given weight by Amy freaking out, Rory was much too marginalized in Cold Blood for it to be his farewell episode. Of course, he was rather central to The Hungry Earth (with Amy sidelined instead), so it may be a problem with the basic structure of the two-parter (especially since each part had alternative companions to take their places - Elliot and Nasreen). Or it may be that the direction didn't get the scene its proper weight.
Item 7: The other piece of evidence is much more conclusive. While Rory disappears, the wedding ring does not. There's a meaningful look to it, implying there's no way the Doctor won't be allowing Rory to remain erased forever. We've been told repeatedly in Series 5 that history can be changed (in this story and others). Is it foreshadowing?
Item 8: The piece of shrapnel inside the crack would seem to strongly imply that it's the TARDIS that blows up and cracks up the universe. Two ways to go: 1) A big fake-out because it's too obvious; 2) history can be changed so let's change it in a finale that's essentially a quest to prevent the TARDIS from exploding.
Item 9: This story features an overt appearance by a second Amy and Rory, where they wave from afar. The Doctor surmises that they've come to see a part of their own history, 10 years on. Maybe that's why he's so convinced that 2020 is a turning point and that history could be "made" with the reptilians. He may be wrong though. Other episodes have featured much more subtle hints that the TARDIS crew is doubling back on itself (to fix the cracks?). It all began with a mysterious figure running through young Amy 's house in The Eleventh Hour (Prisoner Zero had no yet learned to take on human shapes), and that door that opens on the roof in Victory of the Daleks. There are probably others. I just haven't watched the episodes enough yet. But keep an eye out!
Item 10: Fixed points. In Cold Blood, the Doctor uses the fixed point concept to illustrate exactly the reverse of what we've been told about fixed points before. For example, while Adelaide's death was meant to be a turning point that sent humanity far across the stars, the integration of the reptilians would change history at least has much and yet is allowed. He talks about creating a whole other timeline, so... a parallel? How does the TARDIS navigate back from that? It makes even less sense than usual, and they should probably stop talking about fixed points. It was much easier to understand when they just couldn't change history as it was understood by the companions. 2020 was in Amy's future, so no chance of paradox. Simple.
Item 11: But is there a chance of paradox with the rest of Doctor Who history if the reptilians come out and share the planet in 3020? Surprisingly, no. Even going back to Classic Who, there are no stories taking place on Earth around that time to put the lie to it. In fact, it sometimes seems that Earth has been completely forgotten in 3rd millennium stories. It's been abandoned. It's a legend. Perhaps they left it to the reptilians when solar flares started hitting hard (a frequent theme in Doctor Who future stories). Perhaps the reptilians came out of hibernation to an empty planet. Either they died out or left as well and carved their own niche among the stars. We don't see enough of Earth in thr 4000s and beyond to know if they made it or not.
Next week: Vincent van Gogh (pronounced Guff)!
1274. Splashdown, Part Two
DIVERGENCES: The aeroshuttle was never used on the show, but that's a problem with the show. A Commander Sherwood appears, which seems too high a rank for us not to know who she is.
REVIEW: This issue uses technobabble right. We know Starfleet ships have all these systems, and Janeway uses as many of them as possible in order to address the sinking problem. I'm sure some crew members will be unhappy that their furniture got beamed out with the bathwater, so to speak, but hey, it's a crisis. And that's very well conveyed here. The situation is dire, and every new solution brings its own set of problems. It's really the kind of thing that could never be filmed for television (flooded decks, anti-gravity, oh my) but remains grounded in the show's reality. Character moments aren't forgotten, especially the tense relationship between Seven and B'Elanna. The appearance of the aerowing is an unexpected and very cool surprise. It always irked me that the Enterprise never used the Captain's Yacht (from the Technical Manual), and with the Delta Flyer, Voyager ignored its own design even more. The visit to the alien ruins is more standard fare then the disaster movie elements, so we'll see how that goes.
