Cold Blood

Dear Gary—

“In future, when you talk about this . . .”

(And I will; and I’ll try to be kind.)

“. . . you tell people there was a chance, but you were so much less than the best of humanity.”

All of the set up from The Hungry Earth comes to fruition as expected.

It is a decent episode, like its predecessor just good enough. The atmospheric first half makes way here in Cold Blood for an underground Model UN, spurred on by the Doctor’s inspiring words of “Do good for humanity, and for Earth,” and “Come on, be extraordinary.”  It is ultimately an exercise in futility that for some reason is given gravitas by voiceover narration from Eldane some thousand years in the future. It takes its tone from “I dressed for Rio” Amy. It is a romp; teens playing at war games; at least underground. Above ground Rory and Ambrose take things more seriously, and these are the strongest elements to the story.

Ambrose has been set up to take the fall, and she does it well. She plays the scared woman genuinely concerned for her family, and yet she leaves little room for understanding of her actions. As the plot’s patsy she needs to maintain that baseness of character to underscore the Doctor’s “best of humanity” moral. Defense of home and family is not a legitimate vindication in this Doctor Who world, and despite momentary cracks in her defiant demeanor she remains the black sheep of the group without becoming an outright villain. There is a wealth of gray area in her portrayal that defies the one-dimensional nature of her role. There is no tea and sympathy for Ambrose as she stoically accepts the Doctor’s admonition. She did what she had to do and would probably do it again; and she will live with that knowledge.

Rory, on the other hand, is helplessly heroic. He cannot undo what Ambrose has done, and he can only stand by as Ambrose pushes ahead with her bold rejection of Restac’s demands. But he nobly takes on responsibility for the group and quietly leads them down below with Alaya’s body. He knows what is right and he does it, regardless of the consequences.

Meanwhile the toy soldiers and mock delegates carry on below. Restac is the wild card on this level. Alaya taunts Ambrose until she spills first blood in a mildly convincing gambit to depict the Silurians as a basically peace-loving race who will only act in self defense. Restac, however, doesn’t seem to honor this code in her heart (makes you wonder why she was put in charge of the warrior class, but oh well).  It is only by sheer chance that one or more of the Doctor’s gang is not dead.  Just in the nick of time Eldane appears on the scene to calm his quarrelsome kids. “You woke him to undermine me,” little sis Restac accuses a gloating Malohkeh.  That’s when the great diplomat Eldane makes his big mistake: “Shush now, Restac. Go and play soldiers. I’ll let you know if I need you.” There is nothing a sulky teen resents more than being sent to her room. If that sulky teen happens to have a gun and control of an army, look out.

The Silurians are destined never to find peace on Earth.

All of the component pieces of Cold Blood are well executed.  The peace negotiations are interesting as the two sides come to a surprisingly swift and satisfactory agreement (even though the pact has no realistic chance of ever being accepted by the powers that be). The various standoffs are compelling. The final run-for-your-lives moments are suspenseful. And the grief that Restac expresses as she kneels by her dead sister is especially effective. All of it comes together in an enjoyable 45 minutes, even if it all comes apart upon close examination.

“Are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of the planet?”

The answer is of course a resounding no. Amy and Nasreen both recognize this, yet the Doctor sets them on this task and they dive in with all due earnestness. I can only take the Doctor’s “come on, who has more fun than us” justification as a qualifying wink. He has to know that even if he can swing UNIT backing using his connections, this is going to be a hard sell to the various power blocs. Natural distrust and political posturing aside, at the very least the sudden emergence of millions of lizard people, even in currently uninhabitable areas of the world, would warrant dozens of environmental impact studies taking who knows how many years. The Silurians might as well hit their snooze alarm.

That brings up the question of these dozing reptiles. Eldane says, “Our sole purpose has been to return to our rightful place.” Then why are they still sleeping? Malohkeh and his family before him have been awake “through the millennia” and have been studying the “apes.” Surely they know that the Earth’s surface is safe. Why didn’t they wake their brethren years ago?

What of Malohkeh? “Malohkeh, I rather love you,” the Doctor tells him when the scientist says he never meant to harm Elliot. He never meant to harm him; he just kidnapped him (along with many other children apparently) and slowed down his lifecycle to study him. And he only kidnapped Mo and Amy for dissection. (Mo seems to have survived the process without any ill effects, though. I guess Malohkeh didn’t remove any vital organs, simply opened Mo up to take a look-see.) So it’s OK for the Silurians to take human specimens and keep them in glass cases and experiment on them, as long as they don’t kill them. (And I notice that the Doctor doesn’t bother looking for any of those other children locked up by Malohkeh and family.)

Then there is the drill that Ambrose and Tony Mack have started up to threaten the Silurians. In The Hungry Earth the Silurians had a defense against that. They were able to stop the power. They were able to use bio-programming, to hear the Doctor explain it, to halt the drilling. They also were able to activate an energy barricade around the drill site. Yet none of this is even considered when Ambrose and Tony Mack make their threat in Cold Blood. Instead it is left for the Doctor to come up with a plan to blow up the drill.

And of course we have the petulant Restac on the rampage with her army. I have to wonder, as the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to deactivate their weapons, why he hasn’t ever done this before. Is the sonic only effective against Silurian weaponry and useless against, say, Sontaran guns? And Eldane’s ultimate solution of Toxic Fumigation is pulled out of a hat, but OK. So he sends the soldiers back to their sleep. Why does this mean they now have to wait another thousand years? “The Earth isn’t ready for us to return yet,” Eldane proclaims. Based on what? On one woman’s act of violence out of love and fear? On the murderous vengeance sought by one of his own? If the Doctor really had faith in his peace plan, why not bring Eldane up to the surface with them and set about gathering the nations for a real peace conference? No, it’s so much easier to send the Silurians back to their slumber and not have to deal with them anymore.

Like so much of New Who, it is best not to think too hard upon viewing. Just sit back, let the story unfold, and enjoy.

Until the end when the Crack appears and the Doctor carelessly gets Rory killed.

The Crack. The Crack, the Crack, the Crack. I hate the Crack. How is it that the Doctor can stick his hand inside with no repercussions but anyone else just has to get too close and is wiped from history?

I do have to say, though, that the impact of Rory’s death and erasure from time is extremely effective. I don’t know why Amy and the Doctor never think to drag the dying Rory into the TARDIS, but the following scene as Amy desperately tries to hang on to Rory’s memory is heartbreaking. (Although I again have to wonder how she can remember her mother but not Rory.) When she does inevitably forget it is even more tragic and the Doctor’s reaction even more touching.

I also have to give some credit to the TARDIS shrapnel; despite my hatred of this Crack, the last few minutes of Cold Blood provide some of the most intriguing and baffling moments of the season. If only that darn Crack could live up to this promise.

Like the Doctor, I travel on in hope, Gary; hope that the next will not be so much less than the best of Doctor Who.