Doctor Who: Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode 7 starts as the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) confronts the Silurians & tells them that he has developed an antidote to their virus & that their plan has failed, obviously upset by the news the Silurians come up with another just as deadly way to rid the Earth of the human race & just about every other living thing on it. Unless the Doctor can stop them of course...
This Doctor Who adventure was episode 11 from season 7 that aired here in the UK during early 1970, directed by Timothy Combe this has been a good story using the new Doctor Who format that would become a regular feature where he is stuck on Earth & help out UNIT for several seasons to come. The script by Malcolm Hulke plays the ethical card at the end as it tries to make you feel sorry for the Silurians & preaches the 'we destroy what we don't understand' message. It's been playing this moral card throughout the story & it works well enough I suppose, hey I'm all for sci-fi with a message. This particular episode also features some woefully inaccurate science, the Silurians & the Doctor wrongly attribute the properties of the O-Zone layer to the Van Allen belt which you might of got away with over 35 years ago but these days it's quite laughable & hurts any integrity the story had. Containing seven parts each running 25 minutes (you do the math) Doctor Who and the Silurians has dragged a bit in places & some of it has felt like padding but I guess they had a time scale to stick to & when all said & done it's still Doctor Who which means it's good light hearted sci-fi fun so in an entertainment regard I can't have much complaint. My only question is what happened to the paper mache dinosaur?
This was the first story to use the special effect technique of CSO, Colour Separation Overlay which is basically an unconvincing way to composite two separate images into one, the scene when Major Baker is standing behind an obviously fake cave background being one suitably poor example. It's an effect that would be used many times throughout the Pertwee years. The acting during Doctor Who and the Silurians has varied but generally speaking it's been OK.
Doctor Who and the Silurians is a good story with good monsters so across it's seven episodes I will give it 7 stars out of 10 although I wish it ran for a episode or two less.
This Doctor Who adventure was episode 11 from season 7 that aired here in the UK during early 1970, directed by Timothy Combe this has been a good story using the new Doctor Who format that would become a regular feature where he is stuck on Earth & help out UNIT for several seasons to come. The script by Malcolm Hulke plays the ethical card at the end as it tries to make you feel sorry for the Silurians & preaches the 'we destroy what we don't understand' message. It's been playing this moral card throughout the story & it works well enough I suppose, hey I'm all for sci-fi with a message. This particular episode also features some woefully inaccurate science, the Silurians & the Doctor wrongly attribute the properties of the O-Zone layer to the Van Allen belt which you might of got away with over 35 years ago but these days it's quite laughable & hurts any integrity the story had. Containing seven parts each running 25 minutes (you do the math) Doctor Who and the Silurians has dragged a bit in places & some of it has felt like padding but I guess they had a time scale to stick to & when all said & done it's still Doctor Who which means it's good light hearted sci-fi fun so in an entertainment regard I can't have much complaint. My only question is what happened to the paper mache dinosaur?
This was the first story to use the special effect technique of CSO, Colour Separation Overlay which is basically an unconvincing way to composite two separate images into one, the scene when Major Baker is standing behind an obviously fake cave background being one suitably poor example. It's an effect that would be used many times throughout the Pertwee years. The acting during Doctor Who and the Silurians has varied but generally speaking it's been OK.
Doctor Who and the Silurians is a good story with good monsters so across it's seven episodes I will give it 7 stars out of 10 although I wish it ran for a episode or two less.