From MadCap's Couch - Doctor Who: "The Hungry Earth"

"I'll never let go, Jack."
"AMY!"
"Right, Amy. Amy... right..."

So... it is now the year 2023. The Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who is over, and I can very generously say that it was a contentious era in the show's history. We'll be getting to it and all of its downs and... downs... later. I opened this episode this way because I'm about to drop a bombshell on you... ready?

Chris Chibnall... once wrote good Doctor Who. Other than the just ok Doctor Who he wrote before this point. Apparently with Moffat holding his reins, the man can produce something halfway decent. Go figure.

The Hungry Earth kicks off in Wales of 2020 and, right off the bat, it goes down fast. A drilling operation is going pretty well for the Welsh and the night shift brings some trouble - namely the kind of trouble that drags a man into the ground in a very, very unnatural way. Largely because the security cameras go out and he hears strange noises, so of course the nightwatchman goes to investigate.

As one does.

Some time later, the TARDIS arrives in the village. The Doctor was apparently intending to take Amy and Rory to Rio di Janeiro, Brazil and they ended up in the wrong place. The Doctor notices that the ground seems "weird" and notes the blue grass. As he investigates, though, Amy notices two people waving at them. Using binoculars, the Doctor notes that - being that they're ten years in their future - it's the pair of them from the future. While he does ixnay them going to speak to their future selves, he does notice the "big mining thing" and decides to go and have a look.

Before Amy heads off after him, though, Rory notes that Amy is wearing her engagement ring. While she thought he'd like her wearing it, he points out that she could lose it and she gives it back to him to take to the TARDIS for safe-keeping.

At the mining facility, the hole the nightwatchman was pulled down through is discovered.

Rory sets the engagement ring in its box and puts it on the TARDIS console, coming out to be accosted by Ambrose and Eliot - the wife and son of the missing nightwatchman. Ambrose had apparently called for the police and they mistake Rory for a policeman because he came out of a box marked "police".

Seriously, do people in the UK even watch the show?!

"Heh. These are gonna be really funny in like... five years. Just wait."

They show Rory the graveyard, where entire graves have been completely emptied... seemingly from below, as Eliot gives a Sherlock Holmes-ism to explain to Rory.

Amy chastises the Doctor for breaking and entering ("sonicing and entering" as he puts it) into a restricted area, which is odd considering how she once said she could never resist a "keep out" sign. They get in, meeting the heads of the drilling project - Nasreen and Tony - and fast talk their way into questioning about the drill sight. The Doctor notes some strange readings and advises everyone to leave quickly. Steam rises from the hole in the ground and, in saving Tony, Amy gets pulled into the hole... and despite the Doctor's efforts, she sinks into the soil, seemingly lost.

The Doctor tries to work out just what is going on with the ground, discovering that the soil has been bio-programmed and working out that someone would have had to have done it, someone non-human as the technology does not exist on Earth in 2020. He notes, to the surprise of both Nasreen and Tony, that there's still a drill drilling after they shut off their drill... from below. Checking the records, the Doctor eventually questions them on why they chose to drill here. When Nasreen explains it was the trace minerals in the grass, the Doctor starts putting things together - the grass was a warning to stay away, and now something is coming up to the surface. Three somethings that will be there in about 12 minutes.

As the Doctor, Nasreen, and Tony get some equipment together, they are witness to an energy dome being generated over the site. No one can get in or out and even the TARDIS can't be used due to how the energy will mess with the time circuits. Rory catches up, rightly chewing the Doctor out for losing Amy, but he does agree to help the Doctor in trying to save the day.

Elsewhere, some sort of alien technology is used to scan an unconscious Amy.

"I'm certainly going to be here to give you Hell about this later..."

Ambrose, Eliot, and Rory have indeed met up with everyone and we see some connections being made. Namely - Ambrose is the wife of Mo (the nightwatchman from before) and the daughter of Tony. The Doctor makes a promise to Eliot that he can save his father and begins to get everyone out looking for every bit of equipment that can track movement that they can get a hold of, having Eliot mark up a map of where all the cameras are.

Ambrose brings along a bunch of weapons, which the Doctor is very much against. He tells Ambrose that she's better than that and, in a totally not at all mildly worrisome manner, tells her to put them away. As a bit of foreshadowing... she doesn't.

We touch on the Doctor's backstory when he and Eliot get to talking about where they grew up and the boy asks the Doctor if he ever misses his home.

DOCTOR: ... so much.

So much done in just two little words, Matt Smith is amazing in the role.

Then, we have one of the more badass lines when Eliot asks if the Doctor has ever encountered monsters before.

ELIOT: Are you scared of them?

DOCTOR: No... they're scared of me.

Surprisingly, no ham whatsoever.

With time running out, Tony and Nasreen kiss - apparently Tony's had a thing for her for quite some time and vice-versa) - and despite all of their work and all of their set up to get the motion trackers going, the power goes out due to the newcomers cutting it. The drilling stops and they all soon realize that they're missing someone - Eliot, who went to go get some headphones.

Honestly, pretty engaging supporting cast in this one.

We cut to Eliot, who is being chased down by a figure we see only out of focus. Stuck behind the barricaded door, the group struggles to get it open while the figure closes in on him... and Ambrose runs screaming into the night trying to find her son, finding only his headphones. As she has a bit of soul-crushing agony channeled through a desperate sob, she gets jumped by a reptilian creature that Tony ends up pulling off of her. The creature attacks him with a tongue to the neck, causing him to clutch it in pain.

The Doctor and Rory quickly get to work trying to hunt down the attacker - the Doctor putting to use some infrared sunglasses (a clear precursor to the sonic shades of Capaldi) to learn that the creature has cold blood... and that he knows who they are. The pair then lure the lizard into a trap, the Doctor disorienting it with a fire extinguisher before he and Rory trap it in a Meals on Wheels van. The dome is lowered, but the Doctor doesn't think things are over by any means.

Elsewhere, Amy finally awakens in a very, very small container covered in frosted glass. After berating a figure she can't clearly see through it, but who is clearly in white surgical gear, Amy gets sprayed with gas that knocks her out.

Up on the surface, the Doctor confronts actress Neve McIntosh making her first of seven appearances on the show, although hers here and in the following episode - Cold Blood - are not the character she would most be known for playing. Alaya at first attempts to play off herself as the last of her race - the Silurians, or rather Homo-Reptilia as the Doctor will be insistent upon later - and the Doctor does not take that well. It seems that the Silurians were only responding to the drilling, seeing it as a form of attack. The Doctor attempts to diffuse the situation, but Alaya is insistent that the humans must be wiped off the face of the Earth. The Time Lord insists that there will be no battle here today.

A horrific, eldritch being from before recorded history... and a Silurian.

The Doctor explains his plan to go and talk to the Silurians. The humans are very against this plan, but the Doctor gives a speech about how he plans to do the impossible. Save everyone and bring them all back. He needs the humans to be the best of humanity, keeping Alaya alive until he returns. They have to be their best... or the plan will fail.

Also, Nasreen gives the Doctor a proper bit of applause... and then insists that she go with the Doctor into the TARDIS to go down there. Nasreen and Tony share a goodbye and then she sees the bigger inside than out nature... and loves it. The TARDIS gets hijacked before the Doctor can get anything started, something pulling them down into the depths.

Alaya taunts Rory, Ambrose, and Tony trying to egg them into making a mistake or killing her. She insists that one of them will kill her before the end of this, and that death will ignite a war between the humans and the Silurians.

Elsewhere, Tony finds that the place on his neck where he was hit by the Silurian tongue is now mottled and green, veins popping up. He's not doing well.

The TARDIS finally comes to a stop, the Doctor and Nasreen heading out to find themselves deep, deep underground - deeper than they should be able to be without burning alive or the pressure killing them.

Amy awakens sackled to a table, finding herself next to Mo. He advises her not the struggle, saying that they're going to dissect her just like they did him - his open shirt allowing Amy to see a wicked scar across his stomach.

We see the figure in full from before, a Silurian Doctor with a pike, coming toward Amy.

The Doctor and Nasreen walk along through the caves, the Doctor insisting that the Silurians are likely just a small tribe of "maybe a dozen". On a cliff overlook, though, they find... a sprawling metropolis of buildings... an entire civilization, living beneath the Earth.

... and that's where The Hungry Earth ends.

"I have to wear what for Guardians of the Galaxy 3?!?!?"

We have a fairly good set up with the mystery at the beginning, building up gradually to the reveal of the new Silurians. I'm honestly not a huge fan of the redesign of them and the Doctor's sneaky little line about "different bloodlines", but I can look past it for the most part. Neve McIntosh does well as the only one we see without the mask in this episode, giving us an almost immediately sinister vibe.

A promising start, rather like a lot of Doctor Who two-parters in the Revived Series. Will the second part follow the same trend? Come back for part two - Cold Blood.

Be there!