Working under producer Terrance Dicks, Hulke came up with the idea of the Silurians to accommodate the show's need for more imaginative science fiction storylines during a period when its title character, the Doctor, was confined to present-day Earth.

This was necessitated by BBC budget cuts and the growing expense of producing expansive futuristic and alien sets after the show began airing in colour.

[note 3] In 2018, the notion of a pre-human intelligent reptilian or amphibious species was explored by the real-life scientists Adam Frank and Gavin Schmidt, who dubbed the concept the "Silurian hypothesis".

[11] Drawing on the ideas of the Quatermass serials, producer Peter Bryant and producer and script editor Derrick Sherwin decided that for the series' seventh season, the show's protagonist the Doctor should be restricted to contemporary Earth and work alongside the UNIT organisation, featured prominently in the sixth season's serial The Invasion.

Producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks, inheriting this new vision for the series, also wanted their stories for the seventh season to have a serious, deeper subtext.

Despite the Doctor's best efforts to broker a peaceful solution, the Silurians are still determined to exterminate humanity, only to have their base destroyed by UNIT on the orders of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) to preempt this open threat.

[15] In The Sea Devils (1972), an amphibious variety of Silurians are awakened from their hibernation by a renegade Time Lord known as the Master (Roger Delgado), who persuades them to reclaim the planet from the human race.

Set in the year 2084 during a prolonged "cold war" between factions of humanity, the serial describes the Sea Devils as being elite warriors; they sport bulletproof samurai-style armour.

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) tries in vain to prevent any bloodshed against either species; he tells companions Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) and Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson) to give the Silurians oxygen to keep them safe from the hexachromite gas he released into the base's atmosphere.

[17] Recurring character Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) is then introduced in "A Good Man Goes to War" (2011) as a Silurian detective in the Victorian era, who befriended the Doctor after a brief rampage on the London Underground.

She lives with her human wife Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart),[18] and after "A Good Man", also employs the Sontaran Strax (Dan Starkey) as her butler.

A Silurian doctor named Malohkeh (Richard Hope) is seen attending to Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) in "The Wedding of River Song" (2011) in an aborted timeline.

[33] The comic book "City of Devils" (1983) features two Doctor Who companions, journalist Sarah Jane Smith and robot dog K-9 uncover a hidden city of Silurians (here, 'Eocenes') in an Egyptian archaeological dig, who seek peaceful coexistence with humans; this comic strip is based on the premise of the television spin-off special K9 and Company.

The strip also portrays Golgoth, a primordial humanoid reptile god-figure, who resembles a Sea Devil and may have some link to the Silurians.

The audio drama reveals that the leader of this group had been responsible for creating humanity's prehistoric ancestors via a forbidden breeding program, sabotaging the Silurian stasis chambers to escape punishment for his actions.

In UNIT: The Coup (2004), the Silurians attempt to finally make peace with the humans, though the general public believes it to be a stunt involving men in rubber suits.