Silurians, Eocenes or Homo-reptilia - whatever they are they made an impressive return in Chris Chibnall's Hungry Earth.
I've always been impressed with this "monster" and the unique moral dilemma they offer. They're excellent to explore in a show aimed at children and perfectly bring up issues of tolerance in a non-preachy way. With them we get to see the Doctor at his most "non-human" looking for peace and deals where humans look for conflict and aggression. All the more relevant with Matt Smith's incarnation - the most alien for a while.
Smith's performance was agin the highlight this week - ranging from the cocky "the monsters are scared of me" to his aggressive "don't pretend to be the last of your race" face to face with Alaya he really has made this part his own.
The story itself was classic Who and "classic Silurian" too - with events sparked by a big drilling project which had forced our homo-reptilia friends into attack.
The only real problem of the episode was its pace. It felt a little ploddy after four perfectly timed 45 minutes of Who in a row and the cliffhanger didn't quite feel right. It's almost as if Amy falling through was ready made for that music to then kick in but just happened far too early.
All of that will be forgiven if the following installment fulfills the excellent potential laid down here and it's what makes rating this episode so tough. Either it's the perfect set-up for a belting 45 minutes or it is wasted time that would have been better spent dealing with the action to come next.
For now though a harsh 7/10
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