Despite the shock finale, I was once again fairly underwhelmed with this week’s episode (which isn’t that surprising as I hadn’t been that keen on last week’s opener or writer Chris Chibnall’s work on Torchwood either). But rather than have me whinge on and on about it here (I will just say that the appearance of the Silurians in this storyline has confirmed for me that the new Who probably shouldn’t bring back the old monsters any more, other than the first Dalek episode during Christopher Eccleston’s tenure, I don’t think they’ve really worked) I’ll just get on with the episode review for you.

Opening with a big dramatic voice over from a previously unseen character (which was reminiscent of Timothy Dalton’s voice over on David Tennant’s last story The End of Time, which I also didn’t care for much – so perhaps Doctor Who should avoid voice overs too), about how in a thousand years time the earth would come to be shared by two species, the action then picked up where it left off last week with the Doctor and Nasreen under the earth trying to find their way into the Silurian city. Which they managed to do by getting captured, although at least this meant that they quickly met up with Amy and Welsh miner Mo (who were able to escape thanks to Amy’s pick-pocketing skills, although later on it turns out that they didn’t need to as the Silurian scientist Malohkeii was a cuddly human lover, despite his fondness for live dissections).

Meanwhile up on the surface Rory had his hands full with poisoned grandfather Tony Mack, Tony’s whiny daughter Ambrose (to be fair to her she had just had her son and husband kidnapped, but still she wasn’t the most entertaining of characters) and captured Silurian Alaya (apologies for the constant misspelling of her name in the previous review – I think I’ve got it right this time), who was generally being a bit of a cow, going on about ‘apes’ this and ‘vermin’ that, so it was a bit of a relief when Ambrose tasered her to death. Unfortunately this left them all in a sticky situation – they no longer had a hostage to negotiate with and Alaya’s equally bitchy sister Restac was leading the Silurian military in the underground city - I think it’s fair to describe Restac as bitchy as she did cold-bloodedly (unsuprisingly the episode title had multiple meanings) execute Malohkeii.

Communicating with the group above ground via their advanced technology, although it might as well have been magic considering it enabled them to talk to each other through a computer screen despite the lack of cameras or microphones, the Siluarian’s arranged for Rory and co to come down to the city and exchange hostages, meaning that the above ground lot were in a panic considering they had a dead hostage on their hands with Rory deciding that they had to take Alaya’s body back as it was the honourable thing to do.

While this was going on Amy and Nasreen sat down with the Siluarian leader Eldane to negotiate a planet sharing deal – although the Earth was already overcrowded and running out of resources, apparently the Siluarians could very conveniently live in the areas of the planet that humans couldn’t and had energy to spare with their advanced technologies. This was of course all scuppered by the arrival of the above ground group – as if the death of Alaya wasn’t a big enough insult, Ambrose decided to get all defensive and threaten the Silurians by manipulating Tony to set up the destruction of the drill above the Silurian city (again I accept that she was in a desperate situation owing to her family being in danger, but her behaviour still really irritated me, which I guess was the point really). Leading to everyone deciding that the surface wasn’t ready for the Siluarians as yet, but they would return in a thousand years. The Silurians would spend that time in hibernation (as would Tony and Nasreen so Tony would be able to be decontaminated), but not before Eldane started off the toxic cleansing process over the colony to either force Restac and her troops back into hibernation or to kill them off. Unsurprisingly Restac didn’t listen and decided to go on a suicide mission of catching the Doctor and companions before they escaped in the Tardis. Which she just managed to do, shooting at the Doctor before dying, although her blast didn’t hit the Doctor as Rory bravely pushed him out of the way. Leaving Amy to get emotional over his body while the Doctor hurried to get her back into the Tardis (the rush being down to both the impending explosion of the drill up above and the fact that the crack in time was back and already absorbing Rory’s body).

Up on the surface the Doctor had a few words with Ambrose about how important it is that she teaches her son to behave better than she did, and to prepare the world for the coming of the Silurians in a thousand years time, which is all well and good, but in reality if someone started making claims that lizard men are coming to live on earth in a thousand years you’d think they were completely barking, so I’m not sure what good Ambrose and her family going around telling people of the Silurians is going to do, after all David Icke’s already claiming that the lizards are here, and we (rightly) think that he’s a nutter. There was a very sad moment when Amy saw her future self alone in the distance (she’d already forgotten that Rory had been there, but felt for a moment an almost deja vu like sense that someone else had been standing next to the future Amy), before deciding that she was definitely ready for their trip to Rio, and that was pretty much it.

And so we’ve ended up with a dead companion, which as I mentioned in last week’s recap is a very rare occurrence for Dr Who. I’m not entirely convinced that this will be the last we see of Rory though – for one a bit too much significance was made about the engagement ring for them to just leave it there, I expect the device of Rory supposedly being wiped out of history will mean that we get a few post-Rory adventures not hampered by Amy grieving over his death before we re-encounter him at the end of the series in some form or another (even if it is just Amy re-remembering him), perhaps with the Tardis having to go through the crack in time as the Doctor pulling out a piece of its door from the crack suggested. Actually, I’m not entirely convinced by the idea of the crack in time – it supposedly wipes out any trace of something that touches it from history, but how come the Doctor managed to walk right up to it and put his arm in, and for that matter how did Prisoner Zero come out from it in the first episode? And although it sort of makes sense, the fact that Amy remembered the soldiers who were sucked into it during Flesh and Stone, but won’t remember Rory as ‘he’s from her world’ strikes me as a caveat too far. Fingers crossed the writer’s really know what they’re doing and manage to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the story, as at the moment it seems a little like they’re making it up as they go along.

Still next week’s adventure looks like another enjoyable romp, although I’m not entirely convinced by the trailer’s claim that Van Gogh is the greatest artist who ever lived (I like his work but that seems a bit much).

And so it’s over to you…