10 Doctor Who "Plot Holes" That Really Aren't
9. Why Weren’t The Silurians Disturbed In The Runaway Bride?
The Empress of the Racnoss proved a worthy opponent for the Doctor in The Runaway Bride, with Sarah Parish putting in a memorable performance.
But should another, older adversary of the Doctor’s have taken centre stage instead?
The story revealed that a spacecraft containing the last of the Racnoss rests at the centre of the Earth, and has done since the planet was formed 4.6 billion years ago. Elsewhere in Doctor Who canon, it’s been established that the Silurians – a race of intelligent reptiles who inhabited Earth before humans – remain in hibernation beneath the planet’s crust.
In The Runaway Bride, we learn of a Torchwood drilling project that managed to reach the Earth’s core. It unwittingly uncovered the Racnoss ship, but completely bypassed the Silurians. How come?
It’s an interesting point, but can be explained away easily.
We’ve seen in various Silurian stories that they're split into different colonies and sub-species, with some parts of the planet more densely populated than others. So, the site Torchwood chose to drill at could easily have been a Silurian blind spot, hence why none were awoken.
That aside, could the Silurians and the Racnoss have ever met? It seems unlikely, but Big Finish have probably done a boxset about it.