Can I go back to last week? I just want to be the ginge’ and either freeze to death or commit suicide, with the latter not being the dream this time. See, those of you who just don’t get it yet, I hate Chris Chibnall. I think the fact he’s running Doctor Who, a show about fun adventures in space and time, is a travesty when the man doesn’t understand what the word fun means. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the thing Chris Chibnall is really good at is a middle-of-the-week ITV 1 drama about a sad cop being sad on a beach. The type of thing you watch and get plainly disappointed by before you forget about it.

Right, on to “The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood”. It is set in a boring village, in a boring place, filled with boring people, and was written by a boring man. I’ve honestly never liked this story, not one bit. The only thing interesting is that 2020 doesn’t look like… what we’ve just experienced, but rather something far duller. I get it, we’re reintroducing a classic monster, but the only Silurian I care about is a green lizard woman who’s lip-locked with a Victorian lesbian, and is protected by a potato. Oh, and the Dyslexic thing is just annoying.

Remember when we had a tall Black man who supposedly had Dyspraxia? It was only from Series 11 and 12, but you might have missed it given what was shown wasn’t really Dyspraxia. At best, it was plot convenience wobblies, only there to provide needless tension because it sounds interesting but hardly anyone knows or cares about it. It is not a direct one-for-one example of Chibnall’s thing with Dyslexia, but it is another case of something glossed over to make an otherwise boring character interesting. Dyslexia doesn’t make you interesting, it makes you hate yourself more than you should. Elliot says: “I can’t do the words, I am dyslexic,” when asked to draw a map. 

That’s not how dyslexia works, of course, it is far more complicated and requires a bit of knowledge and understanding that once in a while you’ll misspell a word that’s more than three-syllables long (no, I didn’t spell syllables correctly the first time). For some, it is a simple case of tripping up when reading lengthy passages. For others, it is the spelling that is affected harshly. I understand painting in broad-strokes, but this is painting in the broadest of strokes and expecting to get away with it. While I am on my very high horse here: If you are about 10-11, you should be able to spell at least some things and read something higher than The Gruffalo.

You can also tell someone has been either reading Paul Cornell books, watching The Simpsons Movie, or reading Stephen King before writing the episode. What do all three have in common? A dome; Paul Cornell’s Human Nature wraps the town in a dome-like border, The Simpsons Movie has Springfield trapped under a dome by the E.P.A (EPA!), and Stephen King’s Under The Dome… Well, that one explains itself now, doesn’t it? See, even a dyslexic can reference literature (without the need for audiobooks).

I honestly don’t get why we need the dome when there are perfectly valid reasons to say: There are aliens, and they take Amy. Well, I say aliens; The backstory (for the benefit of my editor) is that they were the first humanoids on the planet, forced to shelter near the core of the planet away from humans. Essentially (yes, I misspelled essentially the first try, that’s dyslexia), the Silurians have been hibernating for a couple of million years. They are woken up by a stonking great big drill in the middle of nowhere in Wales.

Can we address the pacing that is slower than the heat death of the universe? This is what I mean by fun, the point of Doctor Who is to be light sci-fi fun TV you can sit and watch without too much bother. Here is another little bit of Dyslexia trivia for you, there is a high chance someone with that learning difficulty will also have some small form of ADHD, so a double-bill of Who that isn’t getting a shove-on is really irritating to watch. Watching back that first episode is like being forced to dissect your childhood pet with a butter knife.

The second isn’t much better, trying to prop itself up on a relationship I simply don’t have empathy with. The dad that goes missing moments into the first episode annoys me for two reasons: He looks like the cheap Andrew Lincoln and the set-up to his story is so short I can’t connect with him. I get it, I am not really meant to. He’s meant to be something for dads to connect with. However, if you are connecting with someone with that poor of a story to him, you are very gullible and/or stupid.

Also, given that the episode is set in 2020, I want to take a swipe at the other stupid people, the ones that say “masks aren’t useful.” Reptilian humanoids that are millions of years old even understand proper hygiene in cases where you are coming into contact with pathogens that may be harmful to you. Ok, yes, ignore that they only came into use with the likes of Johann Mikulicz and Paul Berger, of Wroclaw and Paris respectively, and later Dr. Wu Lien-Teh. Yes, the surgical masks we know of today are based on Lien-Teh’s developments during the 1910-11 Manchurian plague. However, even literal dinosaurs (ok, that’s racist to lizards) can wear them.

While we’re on the medical topic, can we also address the two quick taser shots that kill Alaya? Keep in mind, we’re in the UK at this point. You are not going to get a weapon that’s going to kill that easily and readily. Yes, when the Doctor talks about “no weapons, that’s not how I do things” there is a shotgun. However, in rural places that is allowed for reasonable purposes. Having a taser and hitting someone with little more than two quick jabs amounting to maybe 6 seconds wouldn’t be powerful enough to kill you. That is unless you die from electric shocks.

Then again, between Chibnall’s pale understanding of money from the New Year special and well-developed characters, I don’t think it really matters trying to explain something basic to him. Nevermind trying to explain that Ambrose is just David Cage’s melodrama-hammer, an entirely useless character other than to create the tension that makes for a quick solution. None of the characters have thoughts or feelings, they are rather one-note being strummed constantly.

Oh, and Rory dies trying to save the Doctor. The only decent thing about the episode, our Rory; our loveable charming fantastic brilliant Rory dies. That’s the only good thing because we get the fantastic Richard Curtis-written episode next time. Those last few minutes of the second episode just make a tiny bit of it, “worth watching.” None of which would be a Chibnall-lead endeavor, as we once again see the crack in the wall and do the Moffat thing of seeing a bit of what’s to come and what has once been.

Honestly, I can’t wait for next week, it is one of the best episodes of the series and it is a very good series overall. The trouble is between this two-parter, “The Vampires of Venice,” and “The Lodger,” they are four episodes I simply can’t stand. The latter of which is because if I have to look at James Corden for half a femtosecond, I’ll start headbutting a wall. He is an unfunny, characterless droid that TV executives roll out because personality deficient children see themselves in the blank void that is everything he is. Though we don’t have to worry about that for a while, next week we’re going to talk about depression and accepting loss/grief.

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Doctor Who "The Hungry Earth" & " Cold Blood"

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Rory dies!
• The crack returns.
• We can move on to Madame Vastra.

Cons

• Chris Chibnall can't write an interesting episode to save himself.
• Budget Andrew Lincoln isn't that great/not given a decent script.
• Characters feel a bit flat.