Saturday 29 May 2010

Cold Blood

This second part starts with the Doctor and Nasreen walking along a bridge in the Silurian civilisation, as the Doctor marvels at the technological advances they have made since he last met them. They find themselves in a corridor covered with plants long thought extinct, and find an entrance. As soon as they walk through it, an alarm goes off and the pair are inevitably captured by the Silurian soldiers where they are taken to the same lab Amy and Mo are in. Amy is about to be dissected by the Silurian doctor Malohkeh, but he is called off moments before doing so by the alarm triggered by the Doctor and Nasreen.

Malohkeh had used a palm-sized device to lock Amy's hands into the cuffs and had placed it in his pocket. But while he is distracted by the alarm, Amy pickpockets him and steals the device. Amy quickly unlocks the clamps around her arms and frees Mo. As they walk around trying to find a way out, they stumble upon a chamber where the Silurians are keeping Elliot alive, but sedated, for observation. Mo, Elliot's father, is enraged and determines they need to find weapons to protect themselves and later get his son out. They then find two contiguous chambers, each with a Silurian warrior inside, although they appear to be immobile. Amy deduces that they are hibernation pods, with each warrior standing on a transport disc that can take them to the surface. Since they don't know how to work the transport discs, they take the hibernating Silurians' weapons instead to have something to fight with while looking for another exit.

In the church, while the group are awaiting the Doctor's and Nasreen's return, Ambrose notices her father's injury from Alaya's sting, so she goes to Alaya's room and implores her to give her the cure. Alaya responds that she has no desire nor need to tell her. Angered, Ambrose picks up a stun gun to pretend to threaten Alaya. However, Alaya begins taunting her by asking her where her son is, and how she is too much of a coward to use the stun gun even to protect her family. Angered and worried about her family, Ambrose does stun her, at first lightly to get the information, but when Alaya still refuses, she shoves the stun gun into her stomach with greater strength, killing her. The others run in, shocked, for keeping Alaya alive was probably the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nasreen are clamped onto the operating tables, where Nasreen is knocked unconscious. The Doctor is kept awake as the Silurians attempt to 'decontaminate' him for analysis. The Doctor, however, is unusually finding the decontamination painful, and yells out in between cringing at Malohkeh that he is not human. After Malohkeh checks and notices the Doctor's two hearts, he turns the machine off and uses a rod similar to the Doctor's sonic Screwdriver to wake up Nasreen. Another Silurian, Restac, Alaya's sister and the Silurians' military commander, enters, however, and is adamant that they be destroyed. She takes the Doctor and Nasreen to a conference room, which turns out to be the Silurian court, and informs them they will be executed. On the way, the Doctor explains some of the Silurians' history: that they went into hibernation when their astronomers predicted a solar catastrophe approaching Earth. When the Silurians ask how he knows so much about them, the Doctor explains he has encountered their kind before. Initially delighted that others of their species survived, the Doctor angers them by explaining humans wiped out those who woke before. Restac views such an act as justification to destroy humanity.

Just as Restac is about to fire, Amy and Mo arrive, armed with the Silurian guns. They are soon overwhelmed by the dozens of Silurian guards, however, and are about to be executed as well. Back at the church, Rory and the gang have wrapped Alaya's body in an orange afghan, when a screen on an unplugged computer turns on, revealing Restac who shows them the others as hostages. The Doctor reminds Rory that if they bring Alaya back, the Silurians will leave them alone, but Restac refuses and announces that the first to be executed will be Amy, aiming her gun as the screen switches off completely, leaving Rory in shock. Malohkeh attempts to reason with Restac as he believes that the Silurians and humans are compatible with each other and so war is unnecessary; however, she simply orders him to leave. Nevertheless, Amy manages to survive because Eldane, a Silurian above Restac in rank, arrives after being fetched by Malohkeh and orders for them to be untied.

The Doctor proposes that the Silurians hold talks, with Amy and Nasreen as the human race's representatives, to try to figure out a peaceful way for the Earth to be shared between the species. They are making progress, as Amy suggests that certain areas of the planet that are inhospitable to humans could work for the Silurians. In exchange, Eldane proposes that all Silurian technology can be used to both species' benefit. As they have found common ground, Eldane is open to the idea of exchanging them for Alaya, so they open another communication link to Rory and the others in the church. They agree to bring them down to the Silurians' habitat for the exchange, and it appears as if it will all work out. Meanwhile, Restac and a number of troops storm into Malohkeh's lab and execute him for betraying her cause.

After the communications link is closed, Ambrose, still distrustful of the Silurians and worried because Alaya is in fact dead, decides that before going down, they should set the drill to go off in 15 minutes, which would destroy all oxygen in the Silurians' habitat. As the group arrive with Alaya's corpse, Restac returns with many more warriors, who she has woken up from hibernation, intending to stage a coup. When she sees that Alaya, her sister, is dead, Restac loses control and orders her warriors to kill all the humans, starting with Ambrose. As the Silurians open fire, the Doctor deters them by breaking down their weapons with the sonic screwdriver, as all the humans and Eldane lock themselves in the lab. There, they realise that they have very little time before the drill impacts the surface of the Silurians' habitat and they all die. The Doctor decides that they should use the Silurian technology to send an energy pulse through the tunnel network to destroy the drill before it demolishes the Silurian civilisation. However, doing so would cause an underground collapse, so they will need to escape before the drill is destroyed. They need to get from the lab to where the Doctor and Nasreen left the TARDIS, but the Silurian army is blocking the way. Eldane tells them that he can stall the army by activating 'toxic fumigation'; a safety system that warns everyone to return to hibernation before a toxic gas is released, for only those stubborn and violent enough to follow Restac will die. The Doctor approaches Eldane and promises that in a thousand years, the Silurians and humans should attempt living together once again, for he will ensure that the humans are the best they can be by then. He approaches Elliot and asks him to create a myth, story or religion that can inform all coming human generations of the Silurians and how they can cohabitate peacefully one day in order to promote this plan.

As the safety system is triggered, Tony yells out in pain. Alaya had previously suggested that he should have been dead soon after she attacked him, but the Doctor finds that instead of killing him, the spit from Alaya has triggered a mutation. The Ambassador tells them that Tony can be put in a chamber to stop the infection, but the process takes much longer than the 15 minutes they have before the drill impacts. To this, Tony responds that he will stay behind, and everybody else clamors to get to the TARDIS. The Doctor realises Nasreen is not moving, as she informs him she will stay behind with Tony, to study the Earth and help the Silurians co-operate with mankind when the time comes. As the Doctor is taking so long, Amy returns to get him, prompting Rory to wait for Amy and the Doctor as well.

Ambrose, Mo and Elliot quickly get onto the TARDIS, but before Amy, Rory and the Doctor go in, they all notice a crack in the wall, just like that in Amy's bedroom as a child. The Doctor surmised that the cracks in the universe must have been formed by an explosion and insists on reaching into the other side to see what it holds, because explosions often leave shrapnel. He takes something out and looks at it in horror. Just as Rory, Amy and the Doctor are about to finally go into the TARDIS and take off to safety, Restac, dying due to exposure to the toxic gas, appears and shoots at the Doctor. Rory pushes him out of the way and takes the blast, dying in Amy's arms, confused because they had seen a future version of themselves across the hill from where they 'parked' the TARDIS in the beginning. The energy from the crack in the wall soon begins to absorb Rory, and the Doctor recalls what he said to Amy in the forest at the 'Byzantium': that if the time energy catches up to you, all evidence of your life is erased, as if you had never been born.

Since the drill is moments away from killing them, the Doctor pries a sobbing Amy away from Rory's lifeless body, locks her in the TARDIS and takes off, watching Rory's body dissipate into the crack. However, Amy implores the Doctor not to let her forget Rory, so he prompts her to clutch onto all the memories of him so that he can live on in her mind. Unlike with the Byzantium and the Weeping Angels, Amy will not remember Rory just because she is a time traveller, as he is part of her own personal history. For a moment, it looks as if Amy remembers. However, the TARDIS jolts, causing Amy to lose her focus, and she is not able to hold onto memories of Rory, so he is deleted from existence. The Doctor finds Amy's engagement ring on the floor of the TARDIS.

They arrive at the surface just as the drill explodes. Ambrose thanks the Doctor, since he could have let the Silurians kill her for killing Alaya. The Doctor responds that an eye for an eye is no way to live, and that she should seek some sort of repentance by making sure that her son really is the best humanity can be, in preparation for when the Silurians end their hibernation in a thousand years. Amy and the Doctor return to the TARDIS to leave, and they spot someone across the hill again, except this time, it is only 'future Amy', and no Rory. Amy does remark that for a second she thought she saw someone else as well, but lets go of the thought. On her way back into the TARDIS, Amy makes a remark to the Doctor and uses the term "you boys".

The Doctor lags behind to examine what he pulled from the other side of the crack: a burnt piece of the TARDIS.



Saturday 22 May 2010

The Hungry Earth

The Doctor, Amy and Rory land in the small Welsh village of Cwmtaff in 2020, as opposed to their intended destination of Rio de Janeiro. The Doctor quickly notices a major mining operation is occurring near to the village, and proceeds to investigate with Amy. They discover that the mining operation is a project by Doctor Nasreen Chaudry and her assistant, Tony Mack, investigating the appearance of minerals that have not been seen for over 20 million years (which the Doctor had also noticed in the form of patches of blue grass). Meanwhile, Rory, who went back to put Amy's engagement ring in the TARDIS for safekeeping, is mistaken for a police officer by local resident Ambrose Northover (Tony's daughter), and her son Elliot, who explains that the dead are being removed from their graves, but there is no sign of disturbance on the surface, which could only mean the bodies were taken from below...

At that moment, an earthquake hits the mining facility, causing parts of the ground to open. Tony and Amy fall into the cracks and while Nasreen is able to pull Tony free, something beneath the ground drags Amy under. In the aftermath, the Doctor explains that the minerals were a warning to keep away and that when they started drilling, the ground 'fought back'. The Doctor realises that the ground has been bio-programmed to attack whenever it perceives a threat, which should be impossible as he remarks humans will not develop such technology for millenia. At that moment, an alarm goes off; the drill, having gone down 21 kilometres has breached into a network of underground catacombs, and three unknown entities are heading up. With only twelve minutes until the unknown attackers reach the surface, the Doctor orders the pair to take safety in the local church, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose and Elliot, by which time the attackers have erected an energy barricade to prevent escape and turned day into night for their own benefit. In private, the Doctor tells Rory what has happened and promises to get Amy back.

The Doctor has the group barricade themselves in the church and sets up a network of cameras to let him know when the attackers arrive, but problems arise when Elliot leaves to collect headphones from his house, as the attackers- strange reptilian humanoids- have arrived and take him. Ambrose and Tony run out to try and rescue him, but another one of the creatures attacks, lashing Tony with a venomous forked tongue before being subdued and captured by the Doctor and Rory. The Doctor deduces that these attackers are a new species of an old enemy; the Silurians. At that point, the energy barricade dissipates and daylight returns; the Doctor explains that the Silurians have retreated, as now both sides have hostages to bargain with.

The group imprison the captured Silurian in the church's cellar and the Doctor goes to interrogate it. The prisoner, a female member of the warrior caste called Alaya, reluctantly explains that her tribe had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for eons, but the drill was perceived as a threat to them and the warrior caste were reawakened to deal with the threat. The Doctor explains that the humans didn't mean any harm, but Alaya aggressively snarls that the Silurians will not tolerate mankind (whom she derogatively refers to as "apes") on what they still view as their planet. The Doctor tries to warn her that mankind will fight back if threatened, but she is confident of the Silurians' victory over humanity.

The Doctor explains the Silurians' history to the group and that he intends to go underground and negotiate with the Silurians, and tells them that Alaya must be kept safe if they are to bargain with them. Tony (who appears to be suffering from the effects of Alaya's venom) comments that they should be studying the creature by dissecting it, but the Doctor refuses, saying that if Alaya is harmed, the Silurians could view it as an act of war. The Doctor and Nasreen, who having studied the earth all her life wants to see it for herself, descend in the TARDIS, while the others speak to Alaya. They try to assure her they don't mean any harm and that she will be kept safe, but she replies that they will kill her, triggering an unwinnable war between humans and Silurians. She also remarks that she knows who will kill her, even if they don't.

Deep underground, Amy awakens strapped to an examining table. Next to her is Ambrose's husband, Mo, who was taken earlier by the Silurians. He apologises, explaining that the Silurians intend to vivisect them, as a Silurian in scrubs advances on them with a scalpel. The Doctor and Nasreen arrive in the catacombs, the Doctor explaining that they are unlikely to find more than a dozen Silurians, but falls silent as they enter a cave and find an immense Silurian civilisation, stretching for miles underground before them...




Saturday 15 May 2010

Amy's Choice

Five years after she last travelled with the Doctor, Amy is now pregnant and living in Upper Leadworth married to Rory. The Doctor lands the TARDIS outside their house, and seems just as astonished by Rory's new ponytail as Amy's pregnancy. While sitting on a bench in the village, the three fall asleep - only to wake up back inside the TARDIS. When they all figure out that they have just had the same dream, they decide that strange forces are at work, but fall asleep again and awake in Leadworth.

The Doctor points out a retirement home where a large number of the village's population are living. When Rory and Amy take him inside, the Doctor seems to find something a little odd about all of the residents, particularly the elderly Mrs Poggit (Audrey Ardington). The three collapse again in the middle of the room and wake in the TARDIS - but this time they are confronted by a strange figure calling himself the 'Dream Lord', who shuts off the TARDIS' power supply. The Dream Lord gives the three a challenge: one of the two worlds they are drifting between is real, while the other is fake. In each world, they will face 'a deadly danger', and if they are killed in the fake world, they will wake up permanently in the real one. Of course, death in the real world will be permanent, so the Dream Lord advises them to take their pick very carefully.

Back in Leadworth, the Doctor notices that all of the elderly residents have moved away from the room. After spotting Mrs Poggit watching over a group of children, he moves in for a closer look, but collapses before he can reach her. Inside the TARDIS, they see the first danger: they are slowly drifting towards a freezing cold star, and they only have a short time to save themselves. After waking up in Leadworth, they find that the children have been somehow reduced to dust. When they turn around, a large group of residents are heading towards them. The elderly reveal themselves to be aliens known as the Eknodine, small green eye stalks which use humans as hosts. Poggit explains that their race was very nearly killed off, and that they plan to do the same to other races. The Eknodine try to turn the three into dust -- as they have done with the children -- simply by breathing on them, but Doctor and his Companions manage to get away.

The Doctor leads away the large group of aliens, and locks himself in the storage room of a butcher's shop when he starts to fall asleep. Amy and Rory escape to their house and fall asleep on their staircase. In the TARDIS, the Dream Lord tells them that they do not have long in either of the two worlds, and that they must decide which of the worlds is real soon. Amy stays in the TARDIS while Rory and the Doctor try to defend themselves from the Eknodine in Leadworth. Waking up on the staircase, Rory drags the sleeping Amy up into what will be their baby's room. The Doctor escapes from the butcher's and takes a camper van towards Amy's house, rescuing a number of civilians on the way. The Dream Lord questions Amy as to who she would choose between Rory and the Doctor; he states that she should choose between the worlds, because one leads to a peaceful married life with Rory while the other leads to adventure and excitement with the Doctor.

Amy falls asleep and wakes up beside Rory in their house. The Doctor arrives at the house just as Mrs Poggit climbs up to the window; in an attempt to protect Amy, who is going into labour, Rory tries to fight her off, but she breathes on him and knocks him back. The Doctor pushes her back and she falls to the ground below, but Rory turns to dust when he turns back round.

Amy decides that she will always value Rory more than the Doctor, despite the fact that she was visibly unsure before his death. Amy decides that the world in Leadworth with the Eknodine is the fake, and that if they all die there they will be able to save themselves in reality and she will be reunited with Rory. Even if Leadworth is the real world, she doesn't care if she dies there because she now knows that she can't live without Rory. The Doctor and Amy storm outside past the Eknodine and climb into the camper van; Amy then crashes it into the house at full speed, killing them both.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory all wake up in the TARDIS. The Dream Lord reactivates it mere seconds before it crashes and states that they have made the correct choice and that he has been defeated, he then leaves. However, Amy and Rory are shocked when the Doctor sets the TARDIS to explode. When they ask him why, he says that it is because both worlds are not real and that he knows this because he knows who the Dream Lord really is.

The three awake for the last time in the real TARDIS. Amy and Rory find the Doctor holding several specks resembling crystals. The Doctor tells them that they are specks of psychic pollen which had fallen into the TARDIS and heated up, which then made them fall asleep. He blows them out of the door and into space. He then reveals that the Dream Lord was actually a physical incarnation of his darker side, as the pollen acts as a parasite which feeds on people's dark sides and builds them into physical forms. Rory asks Amy why she was so sure that Leadworth was the fake world after he died; Amy replies that she wasn't sure at all; she just wanted to be with him again, which Rory is delighted to hear. The Doctor begins to fly the TARDIS away, and sees an image of the Dream Lord smiling slyly at him in his reflection on the console.. Turning, the Doctor sees no-one behind him, signifying that the being is dormant; his reflection changes back, and he warily looks away.




Saturday 8 May 2010

The Vampires of Venice

Following Amy's attempts to seduce him, the Doctor gatecrashes her fiancé, Rory's stag party and tells him the problem. Knowing full well that travelling with him has a habit of destroying his companions' lives and relationships on Earth, the Doctor decides to take Amy and Rory on a romantic trip to get their relationship back on track. The TARDIS lands in the city of Venice in 1580, but he quickly discovers all is not well, as according to the citizens, plague is running rampant, and the city has been placed under quarantine at the order of the city's patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri.

The Doctor heads to the Calvierri's palazzo, where he discovers that Rosanna runs a school for the betterment of young ladies which is highly sought after. However, as the Doctor watches, he sees a Venetian boat-builder called Guido, who had entered his daughter Isabella into the school several days before, trying to remove her. After Guido is turned away by the guards, the Doctor goes after him and learns that something evil is happening in the school, for his daughter didn't recognise him, and the girl who turned him away had a face like an animal.

Meanwhile, Amy and Rory, desperately trying to get along, hear a scream, and go to investigate, finding Rosanna's son, Francesco Calvierri, drinking blood from the neck of a flower girl. As Rory tends to the girl, Amy chases Francesco, only to lose him when he turns into an alley that opens on to the canal. Meanwhile, with Guido's help, the Doctor sneaks into the school, where he is ambushed by five beautiful girls. Upon noticing the girls have no reflections, and seeing their teeth are curved fangs, the Doctor quickly makes an escape and tells Amy, Rory and Guido the problem: there are vampires in Venice.

Needing a way into the school, Amy suggests that she pose as a destitute girl to gain entrance to the school, then open a way for the Doctor and the others to enter. Despite his distaste for the idea, the Doctor reluctantly agrees; however Amy is caught opening a trap door for the others and is taken to a chamber by Rosanna, Francesco and the other girl to be transformed. As they sneak into the school, the Doctor and Rory find a desiccated female corpse; the Doctor theorises that not all the girls survive the process of being turned into vampires, and Rory angrily tells the Doctor that the greatest danger he poses to his companions is the fact he drives his companions to put themselves at risk trying to impress him. Fortunately, the Doctor and Rory, with the help of Isabella, are able to rescue Amy and escape, though Isabella is caught and thrown into the canal, where something alive in the water drags her under.

The Doctor goes back to the school and confronts Rosanna. He identifies her as a Saturnynian, a race of aquatic beings. The vampiric traits displayed are a result of the natural teeth of the species, their natural aversion to sunlight (being deep-sea creatures) and a perception filter they wear to give themselves human appearance by manipulating brain waves which is rendered redundant when seen in a mirror, hence no reflection; the teeth emerge when attacking because, sensing danger, the human brain 'tweaks' the perception filter to see something dangerous. Rosanna explains that her people's planet was lost when "silence fell" and that they fell through a crack in time that sealed behind them, leaving the Saturnynians trapped in 16th century Venice. When the Doctor identifies himself as from Gallifrey, Rosanna proposes an alliance to restore their peoples together, but the Doctor refuses and departs after confirming that she doesn't even remember Isabella's name. Rosanna remarks that she will "bend the heavens" to save her people, then orders her girls to kill the Doctor and his companions.

At Guido's house, the Doctor realises that the Saturnynians are planning to make Venice habitable for their species by sinking the city. The purpose of Rosanna's school was to lure girls to the school that could be converted into female Saturnynians, since only Rosanna and her male offspring survived the fall through time. At that moment, the Calvierri girls, now fully transformed into Saturnynians, attack the house, but Guido buys the Doctor, Amy and Rory enough time to escape by detonating barrels of gunpowder he had stolen from his workplace at the Arsenal, sacrificing himself but killing the girls. At the same time, Rosanna activates a device that triggers an immense storm over Venice; the Doctor realises that the storm will trigger earthquakes and tsunamis that will sink the city; the Doctor tells her that all the female Saturnynians she has created are dead, and then with the help of Amy and Rory, deactivates the device saving Venice. Defeated, Rosanna throws herself into the water in human form to be eaten by her doomed offspring, but not before tormenting the Doctor with the knowledge he is now responsible for the extinction of two species: hers, and his own.

In the aftermath of the incident, Amy and the Doctor invite Rory to continue travelling with them in the TARDIS, but as the Doctor and Rory are about to enter the TARDIS, everything falls silent. Unnerved, the Doctor remembers Rosanna's words: "We saw silence, and the end of all things..."