Silurians & Sea Devils @ Peterborough

As threatened, I'm going to inflict a number of my holiday snaps on you over the next few weeks. Luckily for you, these are of the exhibits currently on display at the excellent Doctor Who exhibition at Peterborough Museum, situated on the city's Priestgate.

This first collection centres on Homo Reptilia as seen over the years - from The Silurians in 1970 to The Legend of the Sea Devils in 2022.

Naturally, a lot of these costumes are reproductions as many of the originals simply no longer exist (mainly because the materials employed to make them rot and disintegrate over time). Chronologically we start with the original (and best) version of the Silurian from Season 7... 

Next to him stands an original Sea Devil design from Season 9. Again I'd say it's my favourite of the three versions we've seen to date. It'll be interesting to see what they do with them in The War Between the Land and the Sea...

We then move onto the JNT era and the versions seen in 1984's Warriors of the Deep.

I didn't mind the Silurian redesign (apart from the way the third eye lit up when they spoke), but I never liked the Samurai look for their marine cousins. They proved to be quite impractical, with their big feet and the heads often flopping over to the side. Both these costumes also suffered from rather loose fittings, with the actors' white T-shirts showing underneath.

The weakest Silurian design is the one inflicted upon us by Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall, introduced from The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood. I have never rated these as they took away everything that was distinctive about them - turning them into generic lizard people of the sort you saw every other week in Star Trek spin-offs and their like. The regular female Silurians we saw in the Matt Smith / Peter Capaldi episodes are not represented here, however, but we do get leader Eldane.

Last in the line-up is the most recent Sea Devil, which I was glad to see proved faithful to the original design, albeit with a more practical outfit than the baggy string vest. They were obviously aiming for a pirate vibe.

It's not just costumes on show at the exhibition. There are also models and props. Two models relevant to this post were loaned by Mat Irvine and hail from Warriors of the Deep - Sea Base 4, and the Silurian battlecruiser...

Next batch - some '60's Cybermen.