Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 3

At the end of the previous episode, Liz was the one in danger from the Silurian. Unlike the previous episode, this one doesn’t have a flimsy conclusion. Liz is still unconscious after the Doctor and others arrive and it takes several moments for her to recover. This seemed like she was destined to do very little in the episode and I don’t think that she was given much to do as everything in the episode took my attention.

This episode shows Dr Quinn’s involvement become a bit more dubious and he spends the early part of the episode trying to locate the rogue Silurian whilst getting around the UNIT soldiers. After getting the Silurian, Quinn then has to try and see off the Doctor’s unscheduled appearance at his cottage and has to try and pretend that the heating is due to a fault with the heater. It’s a fun scene because its clear that Quinn is squirming and the Doctor is loving this as he clearly suspects something. It’s a shame that he dies at the end of the episode which I think is a wasted opportunity as he had a lot more mileage in this story and after just three episodes I think that they made a mistake in killing of the character. Miss Dawson goes from being very close to Dr Quinn to someone who thinks that things have gone to far. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is where she goes after her final scene just before the Doctor discovers Dr Quinn.  Major Baker is a character that is growing more interesting with every episode. It does feel like they have been building up his character and its fun to see him clash with the Doctor.

I’ve not really commented on the trio of Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John. It’s going to form part of the Pertwee era (except we replace Caroline John with Katy Manning in the next season) and it does feel like a family. Nicholas Courtney is the father in the group and is the voice of reason, Caroline John is a sort of sister figure and is willing to go with the Doctor up to a certain point but then feels the need to take a step back. Jon Pertwee is just having fun and flits from one scene to the other with the same sort of energy and enthusiasm that the show needs and its clear why ratings went up from around three million in the latter stages of the Troughton era to eight million for these episodes. It’s not just because of the performances buts the writing and directing. Both Malcolm Hulke and Timothy Combe have worked well to give us something that feels like we are progressing towards something and not just waiting until the business end of the story before things get interesting.

The cliffhanger was rather good but it was slightly strange in the sense that I didn’t get the feeling like the Doctor was in terrible danger. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a good cliffhanger but it probably wont go down as one of the greats in Doctor Who. I thought that this was another solid episode which moved the story on just enough to keep the interest going a bit.