Product Details

• Actors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: June 27, 1995
• Run Time: 167 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630348266X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,509 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jon Pertwee at His "Doctor Who" Best, May 28, 2001

By 

Laura M. Dean (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Silurians [VHS] (VHS Tape)

When UNIT begins its investigation into strange happenings at a secret atomic research center on Wenley Moor in Derbyshire, the Brigadier sends for the Doctor and Liz. With mysterious leakages in the power supplied by the nuclear generator, the stability of the reactor itself is under threat. A major atomic explosion is imminent! The Doctor suspects internal sabotage, until an attack by a prehistoric monster while he is visiting the nearby caves leads him twoards a more sinister conclusion. What is really lurking there in the shadowy depths? Who or what is controlling the monsetr? And to what end?

The Doctor must move quickly to arrest a devistating power, active once more after millions of years of hibernation...

Another GREAT Jon Pertwee story! If you liked "The Green Death", "Inferno" and "The Sea Devils", you will thoroughly enjoy "The Silurians". This is another great Doctor Who classic that can be enjoyed by the whole family!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clash of two civilizations, man vs. reptile, November 30, 2002

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Silurians [VHS] (VHS Tape)

At Wenley Moor, an atomic research center built into a network of caves is experiencing an abnormally high rate of personnel absenteeism and unexplained power losses that force the crew to hastily shut down the reactor. Then, two junior technicians who are out potholing (Brit. term for spelunking) are attacked, one is killed by some kind of creature with an ominous roar, the other is driven mad and scribbles drawings on his hospital room wall, including some bipedal reptilian creatures.

Director Charles Lawrence has personalized the project to the point that shutting it down would mean the end of his career, and he reluctantly has UNIT to help him get things back to normal ASAP. However, Dr. John Quinn, Lawrence's number two, seems to be involved in something with his assistant Ms. Dawson. A potholer himself, he is in contact with certain beings who have promised him a higher form of scientific knowledge. Could they be the party involved?

The Doctor and Liz discover that the neuroses rate is 200% above the normal and involves humans who worked at one time in the cyclotron room, which is the deepest part of the caves. The caves are the key to the mystery.

Certain episodes have a theme. Episode 3 has a military theme, with a military search operation filled with choppers, dogs, soldiers, flares being fired. It ends with the object of that search, a Silurian, making its first detailed appearance. Episode 6 is the frenzied crisis episode, with people succumbing to a Silurian virus, collapsing with facial discolourations, ambulances and police appearing in the streets, and the Doctor and Liz working to make an antidote from various medicines.

Big goof: in Episode 7, Liz says "Van Allen Belt" when she should have said "ozone layer." And she's a doctor of science to boot! Shame on you, Liz!

Of the guest stars, Fulton MacKay plays the charmingly smooth Dr. Quinn, effectively showing him as someone who is driven by wanting to attain superior scientific knowledge to the point of personal greed. However, his palaeontology and geology leaves much to be desired. He makes references to the Silurian era, yet the Allosaurus is clearly from the Jurassic Period. The Doctor later goofs things up when encountering their cousins the Sea Devils in the story of the same name, naming the Eocene epoch as their time of origin, at which time Allosaurus were extinct.

Peter Miles plays Dr. Lawrence as a career-driven adminstrator. He is best known as Nyder in the Who story Genesis Of The Daleks. Norman Jones (Major Baker) later played Hieronymous in The Masque Of Mandragora. And a young Geoffrey Palmer (As Time Goes By series) plays Permanent Undersecretary Masters.

The second televised Jon Pertwee story demonstrates that 7-episode stories work if they are effectively utilized, and The Silurians is a prime example of that. There's suspense, a good story, the conflict between peace and diplomacy versus military power, factionalism within a civilization (peaceful versus racist as seen in the Old Silurian and New Silurian), and the dangers of nuclear power, especially at a time when it was seen as a cheap way to make electric power. A strong story to follow the classic Spearhead From Space.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best shall be first..., October 9, 2002

By 

Junglies (Morrisville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Silurians [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Also known as Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, this story is one of the better ones of the Pertwee years. The second story involving the third Doctor takes place in the peak district of Derbyshire where a secret atomic research power station is experiencing dramatic and sudden power losses.

Some unexplained deaths in the underground caverns seem unconnected but soon it becomes clear that a dormant race of reptilian creatures who were part of an advanced society before the onset of the Ice Age have been awakened and are intent on reclaiming what is rightfully theirs, the earth.

The story is set in the still continuing cold war background at a time when there was also an energy crisis. Both of these themes are strongly in evidence in the script. The new Doctor is seen to be an opponent of force as his previous incarnations have also been but in this Doctor, the role of peacemaker is much more prominent. He is determined to seek peace between the Silurians and the warm bloods but is twarted in this by the machinations of the military among UNIT, the security staff at the research station and among the Silurians themselves.

His attempts to secure peace fail and he is deceived into believing that the Silurians will merely be sealed off in their caves only to find that the caves themselves are destroyed.

These early depictions of the Pertwee Doctor point to a more principled, outspoken Doctor than in the past who is not prepared to put up with the jingoistic claptrap that comes from the Brigadies. This eventually changes which is why I admit to preferring the early Pertwee espisodes to the later.