264 Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Seven

EPISODE: Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode Seven
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 264
STORY NUMBER: 052
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 14 March 1970
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface (The Silurians/The Sea Devils /Warriors of the Deep)
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using 525 off air video

"Our leader is dead. I killed him. I am the leader now!"

I'm afraid Liz and I were despairing a little after watching the first few episodes .....

As the Silurians kidnap the Doctor Liz Shaw figures out the Doctor's formula and has it distributed. The Young Silurian has a back up plan. The Silurians bring their weapon to disperse the Van Allan belts and The Doctor to the reactor control room. The Doctor overloads the reactor, which will then explode so the Silurians retreat to the shelter to go back into hibernation and sleep out the period of radioactivity. The Young Silurian stays awake to operate the now damaged hibernation mechanism. So close and yet so far because the Doctor stops the reactor by fusing the control of the Neutron Flow. The Doctor ventures into the caves to negotiate with the Silurians and tell them that the explosion has been averted. The young Silurian attacks him but the Brigadier kills it. The Doctor plans to revive the Silurians one by one and goes to London with Liz to fetch equipment. As they leave they witness explosions as the Brigadier seals the caves, the Doctor believing he has killed the Silurians within.

They've spent two episodes on the plague sub plot in this story and this episode, with the Doctor's kidnapping, looks like it's going to play it out even further. However Liz is able to work out the formula from the Doctor's notes though I'm not sure why the crucial piece of paper was lying scrunched up on the floor like it had been discarded. It's next to a test tube, knocked and broken by The Doctor when he was captured, yet when we see The Doctor captured the crucial bit of paper is still on the pad be written!

No matter, the Silurians have an alternate idea for getting rid of the humans:

YOUNG SILURIAN: Since the epidemic has failed, we must use other means. We intend to make this planet uninhabitable for humans beings.
DOCTOR: But you can't do that! You can't exterminate a whole species.
YOUNG SILURIAN: Is the disperser ready for activation?
SCIENTIST: All we need now is the power.
YOUNG SILURIAN: We shall continue to use the electricity of the humans.
DOCTOR: I'm afraid you won't be able to do that. Thanks to you, the humans are no longer making power. Their generator has been switched off.
SCIENTIST: Then you will help us.
YOUNG SILURIAN: We shall force you to reactivate it. We shall take the centre!

This device does seem rather pulled out of nowhere though!

SCIENTIST: You will now connect this device to the nuclear generator.
DOCTOR: The power source is over here. What is the purpose of this machine?
YOUNG SILURIAN: That is no concern of yours.
DOCTOR: If I'm to help you, I must know.
SCIENTIST: This is the molecular disperser. It will convert the energy of the nuclear reactor into microwaves.
DOCTOR: Oh, for what purpose?
SCIENTIST: The microwaves will disperse the molecules of the filter belt which has enveloped this planet since our time.
DOCTOR: But if this process gets out of hand, it will destroy all life on the planet.
SCIENTIST: We can control the process. Commence work!

Things Phil learnt from this story, probably via it's Programme Guide synopsis: what the Van Allan belts were and what they did.

Fortunately Liz Shaw is on hand to explain the real life science that writer Malcolm Hulke has slipped into the script to The Brigadier and the audience:

BRIGADIER: What are they going to do?
LIZ: Destroy the Van Allen belt.
BRIGADIER: What?
LIZ: The Van Allen belt. It surrounds the planet and filters out some of the sun's radiation.
BRIGADIER: What happens when it's gone?
LIZ: It gets so hot, we will all die of sunburn on a cloudy day.
BRIGADIER: What good will that do them?
LIZ: They're reptile, cold blooded. They'll thrive in heat. We shall die. It'll mean the end of the human race.

It might have been nice if the device, and it's effect, had been introduced a bit earlier in the story illustrating that the Silurians want they're world back as it was but they'll need to get rid of the humans to do it. That would have altered the balance of the story because, Young Silurian and his use of the plague aside, my sympathy has more been with the Silurians than the humans throughout!

YOUNG SILURIAN: Turn off the reactor!
SCIENTIST: Remove the uranium from the reactor.
DOCTOR: Liz, keep away from those controls! Get back! The reactor is now permanently overloaded. There's going to be a massive explosion, and a colossal radiation leakage.
BRIGADIER: The whole area will become deadly.
YOUNG SILURIAN: For how long?
LIZ: A quarter of a century, possibly more.
SCIENTIST: This means nothing to us. We shall return to our base and wait in hibernation until the radiation has faded.
YOUNG SILURIAN: Kill these humans!
SCIENTIST: No! They will all stay here to die from the radiation.
BRIGADIER: Well done, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Well done, Brigadier.
BRIGADIER: Well, hadn't you better close down the reactor?
DOCTOR: I can't.
BRIGADIER: You were surely bluffing them?
DOCTOR: Well, I exaggerated a bit, but I had to push the reactor past the critical stage or they'd never have believed me. We'd better get out of here at once.
BRIGADIER: We can't.
DOCTOR: Why not?
BRIGADIER: They've jammed the lift. There's no way out.

With the reactor about to melt down, and having sat through many Third Doctor stories in the past, I turned to my wife Liz and said "I predict some polarity reversal coming soon".

BRIGADIER: Any good now?
LIZ: No, it's still not working.
DOCTOR: Give me time, Liz, give me time. There you are. Try that now.
LIZ: The mega-wattage is still rising.
DOCTOR: Yes, I know. I'll try fusing the control of the neutron flow. Now stand well back and cover your eyes. Well, that seems to have done it.

The Third Doctor's supposed catchphrase:"Reverse the polarity of the Neutron Flow" became famed once Pertwee and Terrance Dicks started telling stories at conventions about how Pertwee found he could remember the line by setting it to a tune and thus it got slipped into every story. Now we get a lot of reversed polarities, and a lot of things done to the Neutron Flow, of which this is the first, but it only gets reversed ONCE during Pertwee's tenure, during this story's sequel The Sea Devils before making an encore performance during the Five Doctors.

Haven't been keen on the Young Silurian throughout, having him down as ambitious and greedy for power. The end is the only point I find him remotely sympathetic as he puts his people first:

SCIENTIST: The re-hibernation mechanism is defective. One of us must remain.
YOUNG SILURIAN: I am the leader. The responsibility is mine.
SCIENTIST: The one who remains here will die.
YOUNG SILURIAN: Is sufficient power stored in the hibernation UNIT?
SCIENTIST: Yes, I have set the controls to revive us in fifty years from now.
YOUNG SILURIAN: When our people revive, you will be the leader. See that the apes are destroyed!

However as the reactor hasn't overloaded the humans have survived as the Young Silurian finds out:

YOUNG SILURIAN: You are still alive. You tricked us!
DOCTOR: I managed to close down the reactor.
YOUNG SILURIAN: Then the others must be revived at once. But first, I shall kill you!

But fortunately the Brigadier has ventured into the caves as well and saves The Doctor, shooting The Silurian.

BRIGADIER: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Well done, Brigadier. Now then
BRIGADIER: And just what do you think you're doing down here?
DOCTOR: I'm trying to find out how this hibernation UNIT works. I must know if we're going to revive them again.
BRIGADIER: Revive them?
DOCTOR: Yes, not all at once, you understand. One at a time, so that we can reason with them. There's a wealth of scientific knowledge down here, Brigadier, and I can't wait to get started on it.

The Brigadier however already has other plans, which is presumably why he was in the caves and surprised to see The Doctor.

DOCTOR: Don't forget, Brigadier. Nobody is to go into that base, all right? I'll see you tomorrow.
LIZ: Goodbye.
BRIGADIER: Goodbye, Miss Shaw.
LIZ: Thank you.
BRIGADIER: Corporal Nutting?
NUTTING: Sir?
BRIGADIER: Everything set up?
NUTTING: Yes, sir.
BRIGADIER: Give them time to get clear, and then set off those explosive charges. I want that Silurian base sealed permanently.

LIZ: What's that?
DOCTOR: The Brigadier! He's blown up the Silurian base!
LIZ: He must have had orders from the Ministry.
DOCTOR: And you knew?
LIZ: No! The government were frightened. They just couldn't take the risk.
DOCTOR: But that's murder. They were intelligent alien beings. A whole race of them. And he's just wiped them out!

The dialogue between the Brigadier and the Cpl Nutting makes it seem like the caves have just been sealed whereas the Doctor thinks they've been killed: Later events will support the initial assumption.

The Silurians themselves have proved popular over the years: there's an on screen sequel during the Pertwee years in The Sea Devils, then they appear in at least one of the wonderful but woefully uncollected back up stories during the early issues of Doctor Who weekly, before returning on television for a team up with the Sea Devils in Warriors of the Deep and have featured in the new series. I can see the appeal of the concept of a creature that lived on Earth before us coming back to life and wanting it's planet back, but I don't think this story works well on screen. It's possible that people's fondness for it stems from the Malcolm Hulke novelization of the story as "Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters", one of the first Target books released that has recently been reissued.

Upton, the UNIT soldier seen reporting to the Brigadier at the start of this episode, is played by Simon Cain who has spent most of this story as a Silurian. We looked at his credits in episode 4.

The solider seen at the other end of the story, Cpl. Nutting, is played by Alan Mason who is in Inspector Morse story The Wench Is Dead as Mr. Greenaway.

And to finish the cast for the story off: more Technicians!

Richard King plays one in this episode but apparently he was in Marylebone Station scenes in the previous episode and is the only person to be in both the broadcast and recorded but damaged version of that location shoot! Likewise Stuart Myers had been a Plague Victim and Private Upton in the last episode.

Leonard Kingston had been a Militiaman in The Smugglers, an Atlantean Priest & Medical Orderly in The Underwater Menace, a Mine Worker & Citizen in The Macra Terror and a Waxworks Auton Replica in Spearhead from Space. He returns as a Prisoner & Audience Member in Mind of Evil. He became a writer and contributed to the Look and Read stories Joe and the Sheep Rustlers and Sky Hunter.

Peter Holmes is making his only Doctor Who appearance.

They're joined by Keith Ashley, Ronald Gough, Cy Town, Cara Stevens & Joan Harsant from previous episodes.

This then shows which Technician is in which episode!

ACTOR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Alan Viccars	1
David Billa	1
Richard Lawrence	1
Maggie Pilleau	1
Michael Lomax	1
Mary Denton	1
Norton Clark	1	2
Keith Goodman	1	2
Alex Hood	1	2		4
Barry Kennington	1	2		4
Michael Earl	1			4
Cy Town	1						7
Cara Stevens	1	2					7
Joan Harsant	1	2					7
Ronald Gough	1	2				6	7
Keith Ashley	1	2		4		6	7
Sheila Knight		2
Olive MacNeill			3	4
Pat Matthews			3	4
Terrance Denville						6
Peter Holmes							7
Richard King							7
Leonard Kingston							7
Stuart Myers							7

Finally 2 UNIT Soldiers for this episode: Alex Donald was a UNIT Soldier in the Caves in episodes 2, where we did his CV, & 6. David Melbourne was a UNIT Soldiers in the Caves in episode 6: see there for his other Doctor Who roles. The only new UNIT Trooper is Brian Haughton making his only Doctor Who appearance.

Back to the state of the Pertwee archive: So we've got two copies of the Silurians: a high quality black & white film and a low quality colour video tape. What if it was possible to lift the colour signal off the video tape and apply it to the black & white film? Bonkers idea, but that's exactly what the Doctor Who Restoration Team did, first producing a version of the The Dæmons for it's 1992 repeat that was released shortly after on video, then applying the same technique to the Silurians, which was released on video in 1993, and Terror of the Autons before running into technical difficulty with Ambassadors of Death: see episode 2 of that story for details in a few weeks time. The process was repeated for the Silurians and Terror of the Autons for the 1999 repeat season, this version of Terror never seeing the light of day in the end, and again for their DVD release in 2008 & 2011 respectively. The 2008 Silurians version, part of Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface along with The Sea Devils & Warriors of the Deep is jaw droppingly good when compared to the previous versions. The quality of the picture improves as the story goes on with episode 7 being the best of the lot!

I said that was mad. But wait till you see what they do to get round the problems with the next story!

Two day after this episode was broadcast the sixth Doomwatch episode Re-Entry Forbidden was shown on BBC1. We'll be hearing a little bit more about that next week!