I so bloody love that routine! That and his ]"What is a man thinking" is so bloody true heh

Ed Byrne is a great comedian

No, she's supposed to do what she was told and keep the Silurian alive to be traded for her own missing family. She already knew the Doctor went down to do that, she knew he disapproved of firearms, she heard him say they had to do exactly as he said so no-one would die, and she ignored him, when she must have realised that that his plan was the only hope of getting them back. Whatever the provocation she was stupid and shouldn't have done it.

I was actually commenting on Tingramretro's comment that she was an moron because she thought the Silurian was an alien.

As to her following the Doctor's plan, well we all know how reliable those are don't we

Poor Ambrose, I totally understand her first intial attack, but she shouldn't have killed her no matter what the provocation. Of course we can empathise with her. The justifying of torture & murder because of fear is used by many countries at present. I would not call her a moron but she let her emotions get the better of her.

Was the killing premeditated? I may be wrong – I need to watch the episode again – but it seemed to me that the weapon went of during a struggle between them.

It's quite a weighty subject when you think about it, and i'd applaud the writers for broaching it. It was never really that didactic, or came at the expense of plot.

It all seemed to me to be a comment on the treatment of prisoners, and how that treatment of prisoners of war can give a reflection of the morality within a society. There is a duty of care involved.

In killing (or torturing) the prisoner, it was not only boneheaded due to the hostage being their only bargaining tool; but she also relinquished the moral legitimacy of the human race who she was said to represent. It doesn't matter what the morality of the HomoReptilia was, because the Doctor was asking her to aspire to a ideal sense of morality, not a relative sense.

You can empathise with the situation she was in, but killing the prisoner, it was both practically dumb, and morally very wrong. Hence the Doctor would see this behaviour to be the worst aspects of humanity.

No-she killed the Silurian because she was taunting her.

I'm pretty sure she intended to torture Alaya, but the killing was unintended. Of course, she was just a small village mother and was unlikely to have been trained in torture techniques. She attacked Alaya and accidently killed her in the process.

Not that it let's her off. She did intentionaly torture an intelligent being. If she'd have been thinking at all, it would have been blindingly obvious that Alaya was goading her into attacking her. She'd already said it multiple times - and what the end game of such an action would be.

Ambrose was very stupid to do what she did. She decided that the best way to save her family was to torture the information out of someone who was wanting to be killed. It's like threatening death to a suicide bomber. It's pointless, as you aren't threatening them at all. You are giving them exactly what they want.

She ran completely on emotions and didn't think at all about what she was doing.

Couple of things:

She didn't pick a weapon that would kill...I think we were all surprised that effectively a stun gun killed.

She was torn on how to get her husband and child back and the Doctors plans hadn't exactly born much fruit until then.

The Silurian provoked the attack. She lunged onto the stun gun initially.

All in all, whilst what she did was wrong it wasn't an unrealistic scenario and I thought they did the Ambrose character really well.

Also something else which we've quickly over looked yes sure she killed Alaya with the intention of torturing her for information which while some aspects I could understand, she was scared that she was going to lose everything she loved, and Alaya wasn't the angel as well, she basically taunted her into doing it.

However the one thing which I disagree with was the idea of restarting the Drill and then getting her dying father to take the blame. The way to look at that drill is that it was the Nuclear warhead dropped on Japan during WW2. It was set to commit genocide.

"I want my son!"

What!? even if your actions mean the end of life on Earth in which the humans are wiped out and would probably mean the end of your son too?

Stupid bint, it's a shame no one shot her. Here's me really hoping that 11 would take one of those guns off a Sillurian and shoot her himself. Never mind. 11 was right, she was the worst of humanity.

Yeah, it looks differently from the sofa.

I know you were answering that, I was saying ifshe'd done as the Doctor said, she may have got her husband and son back and not lost her father. She was completely out of her depth and instead of trusting someone who wasn't - the Doctor - she did exactly the opposite as she was told. Never mind what she thought Alaya was, she'd been told the reason the Doctor could get her family back was because they had a hostage.

She just met the Doctor, why should she have trusted him? Just because he can talk persuasively? You are using the knowledge she did not have.

Well apart from shooting all and sundry she didn't have a clue what to do. She didn't know where her son was. Someone came along who said he did and could get her family back. Why not give him the chance, there sure as hell wasn't much other option.

Idle, waiting, doing nothing, being heckled by some green bitch, it was never going to work. In such situations only some people can keep a cold head, it does not make her a failure, it makes the others special.

Okay, have it your way, she should forget the one albeit slim chance she had of getting the kid back and let the hostage get to her. It could have worked, if she'd kept her head, but she didn't.

Yes, it does. It makes her a massive failure. She was told by someone the others (particularly Nasreen) not to touch Alaya. It was Alayas plan to provoke an attack and become a martyr. She wanted to Silurians to avenge her.

It was spelt out by the Doctor. Instead she goes in on her own with a killing weapon and cracks under Alayas taunts. She lets emotions destroy her judgement. It was exactly what others had told her not to do..

And to top it all off she gets her father to start the drill up to start the conflict up again.

I was sad when she wasnt executed. She deserved it.

It's not about my way. This is about seeing the situation through her eyes. You are talking about a perfect, optimal solution, but it seldom works like that and that's what made the story interesting anyway.

So who would have her executed, in the name of what? For not listening to some random dude?

From some of these contributions one might think that it's almost impossible for a human to think and behave in a considered and rational way in emotionally demanding situations.

Silly cow.

Exactly. When you're out of your depth and someone who clearly knows what he's talking about explains the situation to you perfectly clearly and specifically explains why a course of action is ill advised, to ignore him is just stupid.

Oh I don't know, maybe murder?

Duh? That's just a random collection of words.

Pedantic I know but he never called her the worst of humanity, he called her so much less than the best of humanity.