extremely bugged by the pacifism of this two parter. i feel like it was a common theme of ten’s run to question his pacifism, to call out his hypocrisy and emphasize more of a moral greyness. in here though, the pacifism is unyielding and unchallenged, and its portrayed in the most infuriating way. in the first episode, ambrose is frightened and confused after her husband has mysteriously vanished (and for all she knows is possibly dead) and she is trapped in her home. she has everything at stake here, so she understandably gathers some weapons just in case, to which the doctor responds by talking down to her as if she’s a child. then after that, this woman proceeds to lose her son (again, no way of knowing for sure that he’s alive) and watch her dad dying before her eyes. is it really that unwarranted that she would confront the silurian soldier who did this to her family? especially when said soldier is constantly goading her on? and then the doctor has the nerve to call her “so much less than the best of humanity” as if she isnt a normal frightened person who has no idea what is going on and is watching everything she loves get taken from her. and THEN the doctor gives her one final patronizing scolding at the end, reminding her how badly she fucked everything up for everyone and she needs to teach her son to not be as “hateful” as she is. and all of this goes unchallenged! the doctor is consistently positioned as justified and righteous while ambrose is considered lesser. a woman who is currently losing everything and everyone she loves does not owe anyone pacifism.
A weaker second half. Before, The Doctor had a plan to do something, but immediately gets captured and tortured. Then the mother risks killing the Silurian even though she could be important to getting her son and husband back. She doesn't know The Doctor has been captured and so she must still suspect he's doing a negotiation, so why should she jeopardize that at all? And when the Silurian hostage has been uncooperative with the cure yet still torture her/risk killing her, because you don't know her biology, that electrical shock could kill her and risk Jeopardizing the negotiation and risk a planet wide war. No, she wouldn't have done that. Infact, the stun does kill her, somehow.
Amy getting the weapons was nice, but then she did the classic dumb move of a character of moving too close to your enemy and getting disarmed. Stupid.
And then the doctor is helpless once again as him and his friends are about to be executed, until he got lucky with the Siluarian leader appearing. Stupid.
And while it's a nice idea about the negotiation between Amy and Nasreen with the Silurian leader, i'm not keen on the actual execution. So these two people, not versed in diplomacy or politics, are supposed to make one of the most diplomatically and politically important decisions and deals in history. No. But like the doctor said, it's not bad for a first session.
I did like the doctor scolding the mother for being less than the best of humanity. I also liked him disarming the guns. I also like the thousand year countdown until Earth is ready to share the earth.
I do like the folly of humans messed everything up though. Messed up a potential golden age with the co-operation of the Silurians.
The ending was very emotional and well done with Rory.
Wow I totally forgot what happened at the end of this episode :exploding_head:
7.5/10
So Good
But deducting a point
for the annoying character
Since Martha's Mom.
that bitch in this episode
got off far to easily,
talk about undermining
The Doctor at every turn,
oh yeah and screwing
Humanity out of a
technological utopia.
it really got in the way of
me enjoying this double bill
as much as I could have,
I was so stressed with that
Character, the hole episode
was muddied for me.
That being said without that
factor, awesome episode
and really settling things
into motion now for the
Epic season finale.
Talk about Squeaky Bum
Time haha I died...lol.
Shout by AJVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2020-09-10T18:45:11Z
Well... it took me 9 episodes to find a character I hate (but, like, really hate her guts). Hopefully they'll keep the ratio of episodes vs annoying characters!
By the way, I'm talking about Ambrose, the extremely idiotic mom. Although the lizard hostage was a bit annoying too.