Rory: “Can’t you sonic it?”
Doctor: “It doesn’t do wood.”
Rory: “That is rubbish!”
Doctor: “Oi! Don’t dis the sonic!”
“The Hungry Earth” felt very much like a setup for next week’s conclusion, “Cold Blood,” but there were some great moments and suspenseful scenes to enjoy. Intending to take Amy and Rory to Rio, the Doctor triumphantly throws open the TARDIS door…and discovers the landscape of Cwmtaff, Wales in the year 2020. Oops.
Off in the distance, future Amy and Rory are waving to the trio. Amy, a little surprised that she and Rory are still together in ten years, wants to go say hello. The Doctor puts a stop to that potential disaster and quickly becomes intrigued the blue grass in the surrounding area. He’s off to investigate with Amy close behind, but Rory notices that she’s wearing her engagement ring and worries that it’ll get lost. He offers to return it to the TARDIS and catch up with Amy & the Doctor. The ring and its red box are left in a conveniently ring box-shaped spot on the TARDIS console. It seems very likely that the glimpse of future Amy & Rory and the ring are clues for next week’s conclusion.
The only people living in the area are the crew of a drilling project, specifically Nasreen and Tony, his daughter, Ambrose, her husband Mo, and their son, Elliot. Mo has disappeared after being sucked into the ground during his night shift at the plant, and the bodies in the graveyard have been mysteriously vanishing as well. Moments after the Doctor & Amy arrive at the plant, an earthquake begins and Tony nearly gets sucked into the ground. Amy stops to help him (hooray for Amy showing sympathy for others!) and ends up getting sucked into the ground herself.
Rory is obviously displeased when he finds out, but the Doctor thinks there’s still hope that she’s alive. Whatever has been attacking them is on its way up and will arrive in a few minutes, and it has also created an energy barrier around the village so that nobody gets in or out. Just to make thing scarier, the group is plunged into darkness as well. The Doctor has a lovely moment of bonding with Elliot when they talk about leaving home.
Elliot: “Did you get away?”
Doctor: “Yeah.”
Elliot: “Do you ever miss it?”
Doctor: “So much.”
Then the Doctor, not realizing that he shouldn’t let a small child run off on his own, lets Elliot go outside. He is promptly stalked through the graveyard by something that looks very slithery and menacing, and he joins Amy and Mo on the list of the abducted. His grandfather, Tony, gets hit with some alien venom in the process as well.
The Doctor puts on some sunglasses that allow him to track the creature in the dark (very similar to the 3D glasses used by Ten in “Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”). He and Rory trap the alien in a Meals-on-Wheels van and they’re adorable. Can Rory be the companion, please? They’re so entertaining together.
The creature is revealed to be a Silurian, a species that has apparently made several appearances in classic Who. The Doctor removes the Silurian’s mask (“You are beautiful!”) and learns that she’s named Alaya. Her people have been in hibernation under the earth and now want to emerge and take back the land that rightfully belongs to them. Humans are vermin, she says, and the Doctor tries to negotiate with her. She’s not interested; she’s prepared to die for her cause. “What will you sacrifice?” she asks the Doctor.
The Doctor gives a rousing speech to the group about being the best of humanity, for which Nasreen gives him a round of applause. I love her. The Doctor plans to go underground and find some other Silurians that might be more willing to come to a peaceful agreement. Nasreen offers to join the Doctor while the others will stay above ground and make sure nothing happens to Alaya. Rory, Tony, and Ambrose visit Alaya and she reveals that one of them will kill her, starting a war between humans and Silurians. When the Doctor and Nasreen arrive underground, they discover that they’re not dealing with a small handful of survivors; there’s an entire Silurian civilization beneath the earth. The episode unexpectedly ends as they gaze out over the city. Seriously, it was an odd transition to the credits.
Oh, and Amy is indeed still alive. She wakes up next to Mo, both of them strapped to some sort of board. Mo warns her about decontamination and dissection, which he’s already been through, as a Silurian heads towards Amy wielding a scalpel.
JUNE 19: The story concludes with “Cold Blood.”
Screencaps from Sonic Biro.
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