I agree, Hitler, Pol Pot, Fred West would seem to me to be more deserving of that title.

Personally, I felt the Doctor wasn't using "Worst of humanity" as indicating a person, but a trait that distinguishes humans from animals. Everyone showing those traits is "worst of humanity"

I found it quite irritating that mankind were made out to be "the worst" when the reptilia had been talking war and killing, had taken people, stolen the dead....etc whilst mankind had been happily going about their own business

the "and now you reveal yourself" but was a bit rich considering the lizard lady had attacked the woman's father and taken her child etc

And the lizard thing wasn't above murdering her own kind (the scientist) to get her own way.

damn right!

so why were mankind the baddies ?

Tis current fashion

Why do people kill snakes/insects, "inferior tribes" etc? Miscomprehension, perhaps ...

The Doc wanted to clear this up, but Ambrose got in the way ...

no one said she was the worst of humanity. He asked them to act like the best of humanity which is what she failed to do.

I saw a documatary once about a man who lived with polar bears, without being armed. He forund out that if you surprised them with a sudden act of agression it would kick in their flight instinct.

Once any instinct is aroused it is impossible for animals to resist it. Even in the face the fact they they are running from something that can't hurt them. It's the same as if you run, you will kick in their instinct to give chase.


Humans are unique in that we can, if needs be, ignore base insticts. We don't do it as often as we like to think, but we can do it.

And that is what the Doctor was asking from them. It will not make you the worse person in the world, but it is something where you will have let yourself down.

Even the child was brainwashed, Mother how could you When all they wanted was to kill them all.

Nonsense, even if Ambrose hadn't killed the lizard, the lizard's sister would never have agreed to anything other than war.

The lizards were clearly at fault here.

How many times were they about the be executed?

We humans do that a lot too.

We saw two lizards from the same family behaving badly. We saw a whole lot of them just obeying orders and two who seemed perfectly resonable.

yes but this was a moral "faery"tale in which the lizards were presented as the wronged and we the wrongdoers...I dont think we can compare to real life human history tbh

The point of the story was that both races were very similar and that small faction of both sides are letting each other down.

We still have a lot of intolerence in our world. if you look at the Silurians, we have seen 3 different races from that period and each has any army, so they are far from perfect as well.

Any way I thought it was a good thought provoking episode. Look at the moral discussion it has generated.

I thought when the Doctor said she was the worst of humanity, it was because he was trying to simmer the Silurians down as quickly as possible. He didn't have time to go into all these ins and outs at that particular point.

He left her in part 1 with a promise to bring son and father back and not to harm the prisoner. He didn't know that another factor was going to come into play (Dad poisoned. Cure needed.). And he didn't know about that when he reacted in the conference hall. (don't think so from memory)

Overall I thought they dealt with it all very well. I absolutely empathised with (not the same as "agreed with") Ambrose, and I also got what the Doctor was saying. They showed she had believable reasons to behave as she did, and many of us could see ourselves descending to that level. But let's not start thinking just because you've had wrong done to you it absolves you of the need for restraint etc. What's wrong with that message? They weren't exactly painting her as evil.

Sorry you felt it a bit black and white and preachy, but it's a family show and they've got to cram this stuff in. I'm ok with kids being preached not to torture people.

I thought they showed the fact that the extremist Silurians were bad and wrong. Nobody thought Ambrose was just an unprovoked nutter. But also showed us that the human drill was on the verge of destroying their civilisation. From their point of view things looked different. So, we have on both sides people doing things I'm sure we can all agree aren't exactly pleasant, but there are shades of grey. They absolutely did show that the bad Silurian was most baddest of all - they weren't let off the hook.

I don't want to politicise the thread, but we've had lots of real world events over the last 10 years where the use of torture and revenge by an injured party has happened and been debated. Morality vs pragmatic necessity; and even if we accept pragmatic reasons, does it ever end up improving the situation? And is restraining yourself the same as doing nothing about or approving of the baddie? I'm not telling anyone what opinion they should have about the real world things here - just highlighting that the episode was about that kind of thing. Pretty good I thought.

Or to put it another way: the stupid cow let her anger get the better of her and now people are making excuses for her. Yes, I know you said it more cleverly, but I felt it was worth reinforcing.

I thought it was a real 'Harriet Jones' moment. The Doctor wasn't happy - but lots of viewers actually disagree with the Doctor's point of view.

i'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense. 98% the same as ape and it's the last 2% that makes us human?????
we are 75% genetically the same as daffodils so is it 23% ape and 2% human on top???
this kind of thinking is along the lines of eugenics and perpetuated centuries of injustice and inequality due to psuedo-scientific notions of intellect and worth based on so called biological basis of behaviour!!!
have you ever heard of social constructionism?????
think i know where the doctor was comin from now,,, the best of humanity....pah!

Apes and humans are classified under the same heading as Primates. We are also both mamals.

I don't think you will like thet other stuff I posted

And the label 'primate' is a social construction stemming from modernity, the social implications of this a huge! it's much like calling rats and pidgeons vermin...human constructs..... just because we are classed (by humans) into the same category as apes and other mammals does not infer that we have the same behaviour.

that is the birth of rascism and other forms of oppression and stereotyping!

and i'll probably like your other posts more than you or I think.... because without dark how can you recognise light and if nothing else it fills my sunday up

Yes, I saw that too. Ambrose was unfairly treated by the Doctor, although not necessarily by the plot. With your father dying, and your husband and son kidnapped, I think that she acted accordingly. Yes, murder obviously isn't acceptable, but Ambrose is looking at an alien- she has probably never even seen one before (especially if the crack has gotten its way and erased the dalek invasion of 2008 as well as other RTD invasions) and her reaction is probably out of fear and terror, and I feel that she can be justified here. She knows nothing about the aliens like the Doctor does, knows nothing of the Homo-Reptilia's capabilities. All she knows is that an alien population has kidnapped and threatened her family and to her, these aliens are monsters (as put across by Alaya who certainly isn't being the best of her people).

The boy probably wouldn't grasp the reason why his Mum murdered Alaya, especially seeing as he now has a positive view of the Homo-Reptilia, so his brief withdrawal from her is understandable.

silurians are not aliens.... they're earth-lians...remember

An alien is classed as someone not from the same country as yourself (for example "illegal alien") and as the silurians could not in anyway be classed as living "in" a particular country, I think the term alien is suitable here.

yeah the Sting song has just come to mind!

point conceded!

The labels like primate is merely a classification of common traits. The diversity is still unimaginable withthin the classification. Your television is only made of three primary colours yet look at the almost unlimited amount of images that can be made from them.