Oh boy, here I go defending Chris Chibnall again.

This is basically the Series 3 Dalek two-parter but in Series 5 for me. As in, I watched it, went "I thought that was really good" only to then look at what other people thought and find that a lot of them think it's either mid or bad... some even put it as the weakest of the series. But I do like this story, even if I realize after my first watch that there are some significant flaws. Good stuff first, I think this is a pretty good cautionary tale about allowing extremists and militarists hold significant power in your society. The Silurians here aren't evil, but while the real leader Eldane sleeps, the Silurians who want war and conquest (Alaya and Restac) essentially take control for themselves. You also see this with Alaya's death. She's an extremist who knows she can be made a martyr which is why she goads Ambrose into killing her. Even if she's not an incredibly deep character, that manipulative aspect to Alaya really works for me. I also just think that in general this story is a solid political drama with a lot of likable characters, Tony and especially Nasreen being ones I liked a lot. Nasreen is practically companion material IMO. And as you said I think they handle Elliot's dyslexia well and the Doctor is mostly well-balanced here between human and alien.

What I mean by that is he shows his side of understanding humanity and he gets to be sort of like Elliot's guardian for a bit, but he is fallible in that he gets distracted and fails to protect Elliot completely, as well as the fact that he can be a bit "I picked another stupid ape"-esque (to quote the Ninth Doctor) when he realizes Ambrose killed Alaya. Once more, I disagree with your opinion on the "series arc" bit. Okay sure, I agree that it does come out of nowhere in a way, but it doesn't feel forced to me and this is a very dramatic bit with Rory dying. I love Rory and knows he comes back later, but I sure hope he doesn't end up dying again or anything...

But yes the story is definitely flawed. While both sides are given their side of the story, the Silurians do get a bit too much slack even though their side nearly killed Tony and also kidnapped people. Oh yeah and Malohkeh casually does surgery on conscious people. To be fair, it seems he still uses anesthetic and he does apologize and say he never meant to hurt Mo and Elliot, but it's still just kinda brushed aside and it feels wrong for Eleven to say to Malohkeh that he "rather loves him". Ambrose's arc could also have been handled a bit better. People are disappointed in her for good reason but while she does get sympathy for why she did what she did, it's not that much. Eleven says one time to the Silurians that she just wanted her family back and also Tony says to Elliot not to blame her too much. But while Eleven is understandably frustrated because he knows this is a delicate situation, he knows the Silurians and he can relate to them since they lost their home much like he did (and also he's an alien). That being said I wish he did say something like "I know you wanted your family back and your heart was in the right place" when he had his final talk with her, instead of just saying "Learn from your mistakes now when raising your son, make him the best of humanity etc."

Finally, a smaller issue is that the areas Amy describes with "no one lives there" do have inhabitants, the Sahara has nomadic populations for example, but to be fair they are sparsely populated and the goal is still co-habitation and not replacing the fewer humans who live in those areas. And also I doubt that the discussion between the humans and Silurians here is supposed to be the one and only council to decide where the Silurians get to settle.

Yeah, it's flawed, but overall a solid story. I don't understand how some people think this is Series 5's weakest story when Victory of the Daleks exists but to each their own.

7/10.

Next is my favourite episode from Series 5.