Day 765: Cold Blood

Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, this will end up having to be a short entry for the blog. It's a shame, because Cold Blood is actually an interesting conglomeration of ideas that, whilst not ending up absolutely brilliant on screen, is still very interesting to think about. We've got the idea of peaceful negotiations, a sinister scientist who ends up becoming an ally, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a semi-sequel to Midnight and the general overhaul of the Silurians to talk about. Oh, and Rory's death, how could I forget that? (Well, Amy did...). With all of these things to talk about, what should I focus on in this entry?

What I'm going to talk about is the interesting knock-on effect that this episode ends up having on the rest of the Moffat era. The Silurians, as originally developed by Malcolm Hulke, were seen as a race of creatures that were not of singular mind. By that, I mean that they weren't all obsessed with conquering the Earth, each of them had their own distinct wants and goals for the future, and how these goals should be achieved. It made the race feel more real, as opposed to just being another set of generic aliens for the Doctor to fight off. This follows through to the Silurians in the new series, where in this episode we meet some Silurians who are more interested in fighting than making peace, while others are hopeful for a peaceful solution. And whilst we don't get to fully know these characters, we still get the impression that this is a more complex race than we've previously encountered in Doctor Who. It's what makes the Moffat era of the series relatively interesting, in my opinion, because it seeks overtly to overcome the notion that alien characters are all going to be evil. (I should note though that the Davies era also did this to an extent, such as what is seen with the Ood or the cat people)

And, of course, the Moffat era would go on to use the Silurians regularly, in the form of the Paternoster Gang, which allowed for a further development of the race and how they are perfectly normal lifeforms, just like humans are, with their own abilities to be good or evil. And that makes for a far more interesting view on storytelling, in my opinion.

Oh, and one other quick thing. I'm going away for the weekend, so I actually have no idea whether I'll be able to update this blog over the course of the next three days. Hopefully everything will be as normal, but we'll see how things develop.

Day 764: The Hungry Earth

The Hungry Earth is not a particularly notable episode. To be fair, it's not really meant to be, instead being a source of build-up for the storm that is to come ahead with Cold Blood. But that's oddly what ends up making the whole thing rather interesting.

The Hungry Earth doesn't feel like it could have been done in the Russell T Davies era. It's just a little bit too slow paced, a little bit too light on action. Instead of spending time getting into the story, we have an episode where the Doctor is allowed to explore his surroundings, both in terms of character and plot. We're allowed to meet the characters at the drilling site, as well as get to grips with the mystery at the heart of the episode and figure out why it's happening. It feels refreshing, as if Chris Chibnall decided to take advantage of the increased running time of the two part story that he had to really allow the story to breathe, and feel more real.

And, as I say, it feels unique to Series 5 as an episode. Series 5, whilst covering such things as bringing back the magic present within the original concept of Doctor Who, also feels like a soft reboot for the series, as if Moffat decided to start from scratch with respect to this era of the series, trying out new forms of storytelling in order to create something different. And what that means is that we're allowed to try having stories with slower pace, which even though it doesn't quite translate to an exciting episode, still feels new and different. And that ability to feel new and different is part of the reason why I love Series 5 so much.