Doctor Who: XI and – Drill, Baby, Drill!
The Hungry Earth (first view)
See? We told you too much drilling was a bad idea.
So, the Doctor promises to take Amy and Rory to Rio (year unspecified). He misses, a bit … Now, I know he (X) managed to take Rose and Martha and Donna and all various places, though he missed occasionally; he did hit the London Olympics on target. Why is it that since this last regen, he can’t seem to hit the broad side of a continent? Or a century? I mean, Cwmtaff, South Wales, 2020 is not the equivalent of Rio, at any time of year … It has its own loveliness, though, even a bit ravaged:
In other words there isn’t a place in that whole cluster of islands I don’t want to go.
There is a lovely scene of a father (Moe) reading with his son (Elliot), or trying to; we find out later the reason Elliot would rather listen to his books than read them. The only reason this scene isn’t lovely is that anyone who’s watched any amount of Doctor Who begins to have a premonition about ten seconds into any sweet moment that at least one person involved in this bit of character exposition will be dead in a minute or five. Moe is a miner, and almost late for work; when he gets there he finds that the day shift has set a record, drilling down deeper into the earth than anyone ever has before: 21 thousand kilometres. Woo. The day shift goes on home, and Moe settles in with his book (The Gruffalo, if I saw the title right – aw!) – – until all sorts of alarms and bells and whistles go off. And a couple of minutes later (in a suitably creepy moment) he’s sucked into the earth.
Enter the Doctor and company (Companions), expecting – well, “Behold, Rio!” Instead, they have 2020 Wales, with bits of blue grass and the ground feels funny, to the Doctor at least. And a moment of weirdness where Amy and Rory wave at … Amy and Rory, across a field. The Doctor won’t let them go meet themselves, due to you can’t do that – “Humans – you’re so nostalgic!” – but you can’t expect me to believe 2020 Amy and Rory were visiting Wales just to catch a glimpse of their younger selves.
As the Doctor loves a “big mining thing”, they’re going to go check it out – 
but first Rory realizes that Amy has on her engagement ring – and that won’t do. What if she loses it? He takes it back into the TARDIS while Amy goes off to catch up to the Doctor, and thereby, in retaining the ring, loses Amy – for a while, at least. Poor Rory. Can’t he just get to go to Rio and enjoy himself?
The Doctor is faced with a fenced-in area, with a posted sign: 
Restricted Access; No Unauthorized Personnel. To the Doctor, signs like this carry the invisible postscript “Oh, except for you, of course, Doctor”.
Amy: That is breaking and entering!
Doctor: What did I break? Sonicking and entering, totally different.
And thus did River Song verb the sonic screwdriver, and it stuck.
I thought this was interesting: the Doctor sticks a few blades of grass in his mouth, trying another taste test, and spits them back out again like a two-year-old with a spoonful of mashed carrots – or a tenth-regeneration Time Lord with an apple (or yogurt, or bacon, or beans, or bread and butter) – – “Oh, please – have you always been this disgusting?” “No, that’s recent.” Heh.
While Rory is off being mistaken for some sort of CSI (“Next week, on CSI: TARDIS…”) and exploring graves which Moe’s wife (Ambrose? Really?) and son have become concerned may be, well, eating the bodies buried there, the others are getting into trouble…
Read the rest of this entry »
Walk in the dust 