Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth Review…

So the Sontarans came back in Season 4 with a two parter and now it’s time for Silurians to make a grand two part episode entrance.
After last week’s psychological episode, we get a good ole Aliens Invade episode and thankfully it’s not Cardiff. It’s in the country side! With an ole Church! And Graveyards! People eating graveyards! Yes, that’s a lot of exclamation points but it’s fun exclamation points!

I don’t remember much of the Silurians. I missed most of the Pertweet Era so episodes entitled The Silurians and Davidson’s Era entitled Warriors of the Deep aren’t even a vague memory for me. (Thank you Wikipedia) This vagueness brings up an interesting question: Exactly how much are the rights to the ole Doctor Who Episodes and why isn’t BBC America or another channel re-broadcasting them? The only way to find these classics are either Youtube or DVD. I realize Netflix can stream most of them but for those aren’t wired into the Internet and the On-Line, they’re missing out on a fun 30mins of Classic Sci-Fi.
The handling of these refreshes of old enemies is going well I think since you have so much mythos to fall back on it Doctor Who. If the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Master get to be boring then bring out an ole forgotten favorite. The Sontarans were handled fine, their overall design never really changed that much. But, now the Silurians get a much bigger face lift. After so many years of Star Trek, the ole latex skull cap can get a little dull but overall the actress playing the first Silurian we see pulls it off quite well. The only thing missing is the reptilian/cat contacts and a tail.
The overall plot goes like this for The Hungry Earth: Tardis gets does not appear in Rio, instead it lands in South Whales in 2020 and trouble is abrewin’ with green grass growing, the Earth swallowing people and future Amy and Rory coming to wave their younger selves on. This season has played with time a lot more than usual. It’s nice to see since the last time they fussed with the Time/Space Continuum was all the way back in Season 1 in Father’s Day. The Doctor bouncing in and out of Amy’s life in The Eleventh Hour to the possibility of the Doctor appearing twice to Amy during Flesh and Stone.
I mentioned in last week’s review along with several other reviews that “We ain’t in Cardiff no mo! ” The country side, like last week’s episode is welcome relief and once the night settles in it gets creepy with it’s old Church and it’s human eating graveyards. Yeh, the idea of a grave talking like Aubrey would make a great t-shirt wouldn’t it? Someone go tell Uncle Ellis.
After pulling double duty last week, Amy sits most of this episode out after the ground sucks her down and into her own little lab of horrors. This gives the Doctor, Rory and a new bunch of tag alongs to bunker down inside the church. Happy to see Rory has not become a Mickey. The standout in the group would be Meera Syal since she travels with the Doctor to find out exactly how fubared the entire situation is and does not freak out.
Overall I think this episode was better than the Sontaran’s plot since UNIT wasn’t involved and it was very small episode. And for not being a Moffat-written episode, it went quick and easy without being boring.