The Hungry Earth (TV story)

The Hungry Earth is the eighth episode of Series Five. It is the first part of a two-part story. It marks the re-appearance of the Silurians for the first time in 26 years.

Synopsis
It’s 2020, and the most ambitious drilling project in history has reached deeper beneath the Earth’s crust than man has ever gone before – but now the ground itself is fighting back. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory arrive in a tiny mining village and find themselves plunged into a battle against a deadly danger from a bygone age.

Plot
In 2020, in the small Welsh village of Cwmtaff, a team led by Dr. Nasreen Chaudhry is attempting the deepest drilling project in history, in order to investigate minerals that appeared locally, but otherwise have not been on the surface for over 20 million years.

Mo Northover, a night watchman on the project, finds a strange subsidence in the ground inside the mine complex, and, upon investigating, is dragged beneath the surface.

Shortly thereafter, The Doctor arrives with Amy and Rory, having promised them a vacation in Rio de Janeiro but misnavigated. What could have been a brief stop quickly turns into an extended visit when the Doctor notices a major drilling operation and some strange blue grass (evidence of the same unusual minerals Dr. Chaudhry was interested in).

When the three head off to explore the mine, Rory turns back to return Amy's engagement ring to the TARDIS for safekeeping, and is unable to catch up to them. Rory is mistaken for a police investigator by local resident Ambrose Northover. Together with her son Elliot, Ambrose explains that local graves were being mysteriously dug up without disturbing the ground, and Rory begins to investigate.

After breaking into the mine, the Doctor and Amy meet Dr. Chaudhry and her assistant Tony Mack. Shortly after they begin talking, an earthquake strike, pulling Tony into a hole in the Earth. Amy and Dr. Chaudhry both attempt to pull Tony free, and are ultimately successful, but in the process, Amy gets stuck in a hole and pulled underground. The Doctor figures out that the ground had been bio-programmed to attack whenever it perceived a threat (a technology thousands of years ahead of the 21st century), and insists that the drill be shut off. The drill is stopped, but not until after Amy has been pulled underground, and the drill head had breached a network of catacombs 21km below the surface.

Putting together the information from the available sensors, the Doctor figures out that three entities are heading for the surface, and will arrive in 12 minutes. The Doctor, Dr. Chaudhry, and Tony head to the town church for safety, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose, and Elliot. The attackers put an energy barricade around the town to prevent escape and provide cover of darkness, while the Doctor and his defenders set up a network of cameras and begin gathering any other supplies that might help.

Elliot, having left to collect his headphones from his house, is chased back to the church by a reptilian humanoid, who catches up with him before the people inside can get the door open to save him. When Ambrose and Tony attempt to rescue him, Tony is lashed with a venomous forked tongue by a second reptilian. While they are unable to retrieve Elliot, the Doctor and Rory are able to capture one of the intruders, whom the Doctor quickly recognizes as an unknown 300-million-year-old branch of the Silurians.

The prisoner reveals herself to be Alaya, a warrior of a Silurian tribe that had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for countless years before being disturbed. The Doctor tries to negotiate peacefully, but Alaya insists that the Silurians will wipe humanity off the surface of their planet, while Tony insists that they should dissect Alaya to learn more about what they are facing.

Meanwhile, underground, the Silurians have been performing live exploratory vivisection on Mo, and intend to continue with him and begin working on Amy next.

The Doctor, after some pressure from Dr. Chaudhry, invites her to come with him in the TARDIS to meet the Silurians at their underground encampment. While he expects a small group of maybe a dozen Silurians, he instead finds an entire civilization, stretching for miles around.

Cast

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

Technology

 * The Doctor has a pair of sunglasses that function as infrared thermal imaging scanners.
 * The Sonic Screwdriver can't "do wood."

The Doctor

 * This is the second time the The Doctor has planned to go to the beach but ended up somewhere else. The Doctor promised to take Amy to a beach but accidently took her to a graveyard instead. This is a reference to when the Doctor promised to take Donna Noble to a beach but had to take her to a Library instead. (DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead).
 * The Doctor carries a slingshot in his pocket.

Story notes

 * The episode was incorrectly entitled, The Ground Beneath their Feet.
 * Despite the press release saying that the story would take place in 2015, it actually took place in 2020. It may have been changed due to some events of the previous episode happening in 2015.
 * The masks the Silurians wear are similar to the helmets the Sycorax wore. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
 * The visor's different scanning types are reminiscent of the helmets used by the aliens in the Predator film series. Also when Matt Smith moves his hand when looking through the heat scanning glasses, there is the same 'swish' sound heard when the Predator changes scanning type.
 * Matt Smith celebrated his 27th birthday during the filming of this episode.
 * Amy and Rory see future versions of themselves in 2020 from a distance, seemingly revisiting their past adventure and watching their past (current, from a series perspective) selves. However, this may change; as the Doctor says, "time can be re-written."
 * The completed episode had a running time of sixty minutes, requiring over fifteen minutes of footage to be removed in order to fit its broadcast slot.
 * This Silurian tribe have the ability to flick their long forked tongues at their enemies, injecting them with poison. The Doctor implies that he has prior knowledge of such an ability, suggesting that he had encountered another Silurian tribe with a similar trait.
 * This is the first Silurian story to feature a female member of the species.
 * Originally, Mo and Amy were to be stripped down to their underwear before being dissected. This was removed for being "too adult".
 * The Doctor also refers to the Silurians as 'Eocenes', 'Homo Reptilia' and 'Earth...lians'.
 * The Silurians wear armor similar to what the Sea Devils wore in DW: Warriors of the Deep.

Ratings
Overnight ratings were 4.5 million (4.2 million on BBC1, 0.3 million on HD) for a 32.2% share.

The Appreciation Index was 86.

Rumours

 * It is rumoured that the Sea Devils will appear as one of the races seen in the trailers. This was proven false.
 * Melanie Walters will appear in this episode and in Cold Blood. This was confirmed as false but as she was seen filming it could be for episode 11 or the finale.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors
to be added

Continuity

 * The Silurians have appeared twice in television stories in 1970's DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians and in 1984's DW: Warriors of the Deep.
 * The Silurians return after a 26 year absence, having last appeared in DW: Warriors of the Deep.
 * In reply to the question "Are you scared of monsters?" The Doctor says "No, they're scared of me." Similar to something he says in DW: The Girl in the Fireplace to Reinette.
 * A similar drilling project took place in DW: Inferno.
 * DW: The Daemons also featured a small town cut off from the outside world by an energy barrier.
 * DW: The Green Death was set in a small Welsh mining village.
 * The Doctor again mentions that the sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood. (DW: Silence in the Library)
 * This isn't the first time The Doctor has tried to broker a peace between the Silurians and Humans. (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
 * This story shares many simularities to DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians
 * This is the second time the Doctor has used a church as a refuge, the first time was in DW: Father's Day. The Doctor also herded people into the church in Amy's Choice and in The Daemons.
 * The Doctor previously referred to the Silurians as 'Eocenes' in DW: The Sea Devils.
 * When Amy is anaesthetised, she cries out "Not the gas!" In DW: The Beast Below, a Winder used a ring filled with knock-out gas on her.

DVD and Blu-ray 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.