Doctor Who Reviews

The continuity part's particularly annoying. We're not the kind of fans who write outraged letters to the BBC when the Doctor's hat's on backwards, but even we notice when a monster's third eye suddenly starts blinking along with its speech as if it's been crossbred with a Dalek. (Who is that Icthar guy, anyway? And are the Silurian Triads some kind of Asian criminal outfit or something?)

And it's not just that kind of continuity, either. The Silurians and Sea Devils are noble races bent on peace, are they? Were we watching the same programme? If they insist on rerunning old monsters, why in God's name do they then totally ignore the past they're so hot on re-creating? It's a bit hard to concentrate on the tragedy of it all when you're busy going "But wait a minute...". Put it this way: we all agreed it was a senseless, pointless, tragic waste, and it wasn't the body count we were talking about.

So there's very little continuity with the past. And sadly, there isn't much sense within the story either. The Doctor and companions, on arriving at the base, set off to find the guy in charge. All fine, business as usual, etc. So why are they the next minute desperately fleeing the base's inhabitants before you can say "Take me to your leader"? Yes, they triggered a security alarm, but so what? Same diff if they ran into a security patrol, isn't it? Then after an exceptionally flabby fight the Doctor takes a bath. Turlough must be more persuasive than we thought: not only does he managed to convince Tegan the Doctor's snuffed it after about three seconds in the water, he's obviously won round the guards too, since they don't bother glancing into the pool to see the Doctor dog-paddling away. That was lucky, wasn't it?

The Doctor makes a dramatic underwater escape, then barely pausing to wring out his celery he's nicking some guy's clobber. (Some unconscious guy. Given his performance in the fight, it's pretty clear the Doctor wouldn't have had a hope in hell of getting it off him any other way.) So now he's cunningly disguised. Explain to us why this was necessary again?

Blah blah blah, and then the Doctor's facing off with the head honcho. He dramatically gives up his gun, which seems impressive until you realise that fronting up to the base commander unarmed was his original intention anyway. He then explains that he knows whose ship that is, but the Captain's not falling for that one. Asking the Doctor what he was talking about? Well, that'd just be too obvious, wouldn't it? Then, after a track record of running away and sneaking around, the Doctor ask the Captain to trust him. Unsurprisingly, the Captain isn't impressed by this request. It's only after he lets fly with all barrels at the mysterious ship that the Doctor thinks it might be a good idea to reveal that said ship has a particle suppressor. Ha! That'll teach ya!

And so on and so forth, and on and on and on. Escapes, recaptures, the traditional monsters who can't shoot straight and who a snail could overtake, evil villains, cheesy dialogue ... something like that, anyway. We can't really be more specific, because we fell asleep. It's strange, though, because we all had these really weird dreams. Something about people running down Persil-white corridors, and this giant pantomime lizard. And why did we all wake up muttering "Excellent!"?

We wouldn't mind about the ineptness of it all so much if any of it was even slightly coherent. But between the references to a past that never existed and the feeble scrabble to make something highly morally meaningful out of a base under siege, the story loses its way early on the piece and never finds it again. The Doctor seesaws between being devious and being indignant that nobody trusts him, and as for the nobility or otherwise of the reptile dudes, they just can't seem to make up their mind: one minute the Doctor's saying that they were honourable and only wanted to live in peace, and the next he says the Silurians see humans as an evolutionary error they want to correct.

Unsurprisingly for a show as rushed as this one was, the acting's not exactly stellar. Tegan in her relentless needling of the Doctor is at least more tolerable than usual, Peter Davison struggles manfully with the dreck he's been given, and everyone else is in the ordinary to appalling range. Of course, at times it's hard to tell whether this is due to a lack of thespian talent or to the script, which is a giant steaming pile of compost. (Poor Tegan actually has to say "This is madness!" at one point.) We're probably supposed to be entranced by the spectacle of Turlough wrestling with his cowardice, but frankly, we couldn't care less, particularly after his moronic insistence on writing the Doctor off as drowned when he's their only ticket out of there.