Really!? The Doctor Who writers decided to break their streak of decent episodes with that? And it’s a two-parter as well so we have more of this story to ‘look forward to’ – there wasn’t even enough story to fill up this episode, so I doubt there’ll be enough in the next one to justify two.

I think this is going to be a very short review as I’m at a loss to write anything interesting about this week’s episode, it wasn’t even that it was bad, it was just nothing really. It was the usual part of the series where the producers decided to stop pretending they were filming anywhere else and just let Wales be itself (which you could say is a nice gesture on their behalf, as they’re acknowledging the country’s hospitality, but I’m not sure the Welsh would be particularly happy with getting such a dull episode devoted to them).

Landing in a remote Welsh village when they were in fact aiming for Rio (something that happens a bit too often for my liking really – I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting things in Wales to make the Doctor actually want to visit the place), the Doctor and co once again found themselves caught up in another pickle brought about by human endeavour. I will give the creative team credit for deciding to make the year 2020 look incredibly ordinary – we’ve been disappointed by the inaccurate predictions of science-fiction enough through the years to know that in the future things will pretty much look the same, with just a few high-tech tweaks here and there. I also very much enjoyed the glimpse of future Amy and Rory in the distance, coming back to the scene of the adventure to relive past memories (it could be argued that it’s ruined any tension as to whether Rory and Amy will make it out alive or not, or even together – but then I think even the old version of Doctor Who didn’t like to kill off its companions and I’d hate for Rory and/or Amy to be one of the rare ones to meet a sticky end), in particular Rory and Amy’s amazement that they would still be together in ten years time was quite sweet.

And that was about it for the companions – Rory got held behind as he put Amy’s engagement back in the Tardis for safe keeping, and subsequently got mistaken for a police officer and taken to the local church to investigate the mysterious case of bodies disappearing from graves, and Amy soon got sucked into a hole in the earth and held captive. Although she’s been a divisive figure with audiences, this episode proved what a vital part of the series she has been for me, as without her there was very little energy or amusement. Which left the Doctor to be the sole point of interest this episode, as it’s not like the local characters introduced were that compelling – numbering amongst them, an annoying child who listened to a lot of audio books because of his dyslexia (I wonder how they’re going to find a way of him using this to his advantage in the next episode, as I’m sure it’s bound to happen), his mum who did absolutely nothing, his dad who was also sucked into the earth at the start of the episode, his granddad who was involved in an operation to drill deep into the earth which is what started the catastrophe off and a co-worker who the granddad clearly had the hots for.

What followed involved the angry creatures who had been disturbed by the drilling emerging to the surface and capturing the boy (which serves him right really for wandering off from the rest of the group as they were hiding in the church for protection in order to get his bloody headphones, I say leave him down there to teach him a lesson), the Doctor and Rory kidnapping one of the creatures so they have their own hostage for negotiating the release of Amy and the father and son, and the Doctor once again instantly knowing what they were up against (it would be very much appreciated if at some point they could throw in an episode where the Doctor doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and hasn’t met the monsters before) – the creatures being homo-reptilia, which as the name suggests are a race of humanoid lizards who inhabited the earth long before humans. The costume design on the creatures was quite pretty, but really needed the actress to be wearing contact lenses I thought as seeing her eyes didn’t really work, the same could be said for her Scottish accent actually.

Other than mentioning that the design for the homo-reptilia’s underground city seen in the preview for the next episode looks quite interesting and elaborate (certainly more so than what was seen in this episode – why was Amy kept behind a frosted glass screen for one, it made it look like she had been locked up in an abandoned shower cubicle), I honestly think that’s all I have to say about this week’s episode. Hopefully you all felt a bit more inspired or interested by it than I was – the comments section is there as always for you to tell us your thoughts and chat about the episode.