Cold Blood (TV story)

Cold Blood is the ninth episode of Series Five. It is the second part of a two-part story. It marks the re-appearance of the Silurians for the first time in 26 years.

Synopsis
It is the most important day in the history of Earth: the dawn of a new age of harmony... or the start of its final war.

The Doctor must face his most difficult challenge yet and he tries desperately to ensure Alaya's prediction of a massacre does not come true. Meanwhile, what fate will befall the captured Amy and can Tony and his friends be trusted?

Plot
This second part starts with the Doctor and Nasreen walking along a bridge in the Silurian civilisation, as the Doctor marvels at the technological advances they have made since he last met them. They find themselves in a corridor covered with plants long thought extinct, and find an entrance. As soon as they walk through it, an alarm goes off and the pair are inevitably captured by the Silurian soldiers where they are taken to the same lab Amy and Ambrose's husband are in. Amy is about to be dissected by the Silurian doctor, but he is called off moments before doing so by the alarm triggered by the Doctor and Nasreen.

The Silurian doctor had used a circular device to lock Amy's hands into the cuffs, but when the alarm goes off he leaves the device nearby Amy, believing human thumbs to be inanimate growths caused by interbreeding. Amy quickly unlocks the clamps around her arms and frees Ambrose's husband. As they walk around trying to find a way out, they stumble upon a chamber where the Silurians are keeping Ambrose's boy alive, but sedated, for observation. The other prisoner, the boy's father, is enraged and determines they need to find weapons to protect themselves and later get his son out. They then find two contiguous chambers, each with a Silurian warrior inside, although they appear to be immobile. Amy deduces that they are hibernation pods, with each warrior standing on a transport disc that can take them to the surface. Since they don't know how to work the transport discs, they take the hybernating Silurians' weapons instead to have something to fight with while looking for another exit.

In the church, while the group are awaiting the Doctor's and Nasreen's return, Ambrose notices her father's injury from Alaya's sting, so she goes to Alaya's room and implores her to give her the cure. Alaya responds that she has no desire nor need to tell her. Angered, Ambrose picks up a stun gun to pretend to threaten Alaya. However, Alaya begins taunting her by asking her where her little boy is, and how she is too much of a coward to use the stun gun even to protect her family. Angered and worried about her family, Ambrose does stun her, at first lightly to get the information, but when Alaya still says no, she shoves the stun gun into her stomach with greater strength, killing her. The others run in, shocked, for keeping Alaya alive was probably the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nasreen are clamped onto the operating tables, where Nasreen is knocked unconscious. The Doctor is kept awake as the Silurians attempt to 'decontaminate' him for analysis. The Doctor, however, is unusually finding the decontamination painful, and yells out in between cringing at the Silurian doctor that he is not human. After the doctor checks and notices the Doctor's two hearts, he turns the machine off and uses a rod similar to the Doctor's sonic Screwdriver to wake up Nasreen. Another Silurian enters, however, and is adamant that they be destroyed. She is found out to be the leader of the army, appointed to the protection of the Silurian species. She takes the Doctor and Nasreen to a conference room, which turns out to be the Silurian court, and informs them they will be executed.

As she is about to fire, Amy and Ambrose's husband arrive, armed with the Silurian guns. They are soon overwhelmed by the dozens of Silurian guards, however, and get tied up as well. Back at the church, Rory and the gang have wrapped Alaya's body in an orange fishing net, when a screen on an unplugged computer turns on, revealing the leader of the Silurian army who shows them the others as hostages. The Doctor reminds Rory that if they bring Alaya back, the Silurians will leave them alone, but the army leader refuses and announces that the first to be executed will be Amy, aiming her gun as the screen switches off completely, leaving Rory in shock. Nonetheless, Amy manages to survive because the Silurian ambassador, who is above the army leader's rank, arrives and orders them to be untied.

The Doctor proposes they hold talks, with Amy and Nasreen as the human race's representatives, to try to figure out a peaceful way for the Earth to be shared between the species. They are making progress, as Amy suggests that certain areas of the planet that are inhospitable to humans could work for the Silurians, a 'homo reptilia' species. In exchange, the Ambassador proposes that all Silurian technology can be used to both species' benefit. As they have found common ground, the Ambassador is open to the idea of exchanging them for Alaya, so they open another communication link to Rory and the others in the church. They agree to bring them down to the Silurians' habitat for the exchange, and it appears as if it will all work out.

After the communications link is closed, Ambrose, still mistrustful of the Silurians and worried because Alaya is in fact dead, decides that before going down, they should set the drill to go off in 15 minutes, which would destroy all oxygen in the Silurians' habitat. And just as the group from the church arrive in the conference room and it becomes clear the Alaya is dead, the army leader returns with many more warriors, who she has woken up from hibernation. This time, there is no one to stop them from shooting to kill, and they almost shoot Ambrose. The Doctor deters them by breaking down their weapons with the sonic screwdriver, as all the humans and the Silurian Ambassador run away and lock themselves in the lab. There, they realise that they have very little time before the drill impacts the surface of the Silurians' habitat and they all die. They need to get from the lab to where the Doctor and Nasreen left the TARDIS, but the Silurian army is blocking the way. The Silurian ambassador tells them that he can stall the army by releasing a 'safety system' that warns everyone to return to hibernation before a toxic gas is released, for only those stubborn and violent enough to continue following the army leader will die. The Doctor approaches the ambassador and promises that in a thousand years, the Silurians and humans should attempt living together once again, for he will insure that the humans are the best they can be by then. He approaches Ambrose's son and asks him to create a myth, story or religion that can inform all coming human generations of the Silurians and how they can cohabitate peacefully one day in order to promote this plan.

As the safety system is triggered, Ambrose's dad yells out in pain. Alaya had previously suggested that he should have been dead soon after she attacked him, but the Doctor finds that instead of killing him, the spit from Alaya has triggered a mutation. The Ambassador tells them that Ambrose's dad can be put in a chamber to stop the infection, but the process takes much longer than the 15 minutes they have before the drill impacts. To this, Ambrose's dad responds that he will stay behind, and everybody else clamors to get to the TARDIS. The Doctor realises Nasreen is not moving, as she informs him she will stay behind with Ambrose's dad. Because the Doctor is taking so long, Amy returns to get him, prompting Rory to stop and wait for Amy and the Doctor as well.

Ambrose's wife and husband quickly get onto the TARDIS, but before Amy, Rory and the Doctor go in, they all notice a crack in the wall, just like that in Amy's bedroom as a child. The Doctor insists on reaching into the other side to see what it holds, and takes something out but does not see it yet. Just as Rory, Amy and the Doctor are about to finally go into the TARDIS and take off to safety, the leader of the Silurian army, who has been exposed to the toxic gas, appears and shoots at the Doctor. Rory pushes him out of the way and takes the blast, dying in Amy's arms, confused because they had seen a future version of themselves across the hill from where they 'parked' the TARDIS in the beginning. The energy from the crack in the wall soon beings absorbing Rory, and the Doctor recalls what he said to Amy in the forest at the 'Byzantium': that if the time energy catches up to you, all evidence of your life is erased, as if you had never been born.

Since the drill is moments away from killing them, the Doctor pries a sobbing Amy away from Rory's lifeless body, locks her in the TARDIS and takes off, watching Rory's body dissipate into the crack. However, Amy implores the Doctor not to let her forget Rory, so he prompts her to clutch onto all the memories of him so that he can live on in her mind. It appears as if Amy will be able to do this, but the drill is too close to them and it makes the TARDIS lurch. Because of the slight crash, Amy is not able to hold onto memories of Rory so it is as if he had never existed. It is unclear if the Doctor remembers, but he does stumble upon Rory and Amy's engagement ring and stares at it curiously.

They arrive at the surface just as the drill is collapsing. Ambrose thanks the Doctor, since he could have let her be killed by the Silurians for murdering Alaya. The Doctor responds that an eye for an eye is no way to live, and that she should seek some sort of repentance by making sure that her son really is the best humanity can be, in preparation for when the Silurians end their hibernation in a thousand years. Amy and the Doctor return to the TARDIS to leave, and they spot someone across the hill again. Except this time, it is only 'future Amy', and no Rory. Amy does remark that for a second she thought she saw someone else as well, but lets go of the thought and goes into the TARDIS.

The Doctor lags behind to see what it is he pulled from the other side of the crack, only to discover a burnt piece of the TARDIS

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Dr. Nasreen Chaudhry - Meera Syal
 * Alaya/Restac - Neve McIntosh
 * Tony Mack - Robert Pugh
 * Elliot - Samuel
 * Mo - Alun Raglan
 * Ambrose - Nia Roberts
 * Eldane - Stephen Moore
 * Malokeh - Richard Hope

Production crew
to be added

Story notes

 * Rory Williams is killed and consumed by a crack effectively erasing himself from the timeline.
 * It is revealed the Doctor's TARDIS is at least at the center of the explosion that started the cracks, as the Doctor fishes a piece of TARDIS out of the crack, which is burnt and destroyed. Of note is that it is the same color as the Ninth Doctor's And the Tenth Doctor's Tardis.
 * This is the first episode since The End of Time Part One to have narration. Other stories with narration include DW: The Deadly Assassin, Army of Ghosts and Human Nature. The TV movie, Doctor Who, also contained opening narration by the Eighth Doctor.

Ratings
to be added

Rumours

 * It was rumoured that the Silurians were stealing bodies to splice with Silurian DNA to make half-human/half-Silurians. It was revealed in part 1 and 2 that they were dissecting humans to learn more about them.
 * According to on-set fan reports, from filming, it seems that Rory Williams will die by saving the Doctor and then be swallowed by the Time Field crack near the end of the episode. This was proven true.
 * The Doctor will look into a crack and see the TARDIS door sign on fire. This was mostly true, as the Doctor recovers a door sign on the TARDIS exterior with burn marks, but no TARDIS is seen physically.
 * There will be conflict among the Silurians. This was true, there was a military-science conflict between them.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * When running from the Silurians in the tunnels, the Doctor holds his sonic screwdriver. In the shots of the Doctor, the screwdriver is vertical, but in the shots of the Silurians, the screwdriver is more horizontal.
 * When Amy is trying to remember and not forget Rory, the memory of him getting shot doesn't show the laser blast striking him.

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions the Silurians going into hibernation when the Moon first aligned with the Earth.
 * The Doctor directly references the events of Doctor Who and the Silurians.
 * Clips from The Eleventh Hour, The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone were shown.
 * The Doctor said how Prisoner Zero knew of the Cracks in Time. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
 * The Doctor said how the Weeping Angels laughed at him. (DW: Flesh and Stone)

DVD / Bluray releases
BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume Three will feature Amy's Choice, The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood and Vincent and the Doctor. It will be released on Monday 2nd August 2010 (UK Only) on DVD and Blu-Ray.