The Doctor and Vastra's friendship?

The Brigader has the defense of protecting his world, though and tempered his approach overtime and that's when they started to become friends. (Yes, The Silurians is the biggest blip on that.)   It's a wartime environment - it's not something The Doctor of old neccessairly likes, but understands. The same can be said of Vastra, but it's something she's seen she actively enjoys doing which to me is a big difference and given that Jenny is open about it in conversation when talking about it to Clara, it seems to me that he does know.

As much as I love River, Moffatt dropped the ball on The Doctor's charcisation big time in The Day of The Moon.

What of Leela? She rather seems to enjoy slaughter.

Oooh, yeah... Even the ending to Attack of the Cybermen didn't go that far.

The Doctor and Vastra's friendship is an odd one because we never see what initially brought them together and made that relationship last. Sure we hear about how she was killing workers in the London Underground and the Doctor stopped her, but there must have been far more to it in order for the two of them to be on speaking terms. The best rationalisation that I can think of is that the Eleventh Doctor while desperate to belong anywhere that will have him, he still acknowledges that people aren't perfect.

It's probably something that should have been written into those stories though, it'd been interesting and perfectly in keeping to the Doctor's character if he kept trying to wean her off her sadistic tendencies. Actually... Considering we know almost nothing about Vastra's past before she and her brood (who are most likely all dead following the Underground affair, judging from the fact we never see them) were revived from the shelter, does anyone think that she might've been a hunter, tracker or trapper during the prehistoric period? It'd fit with her decision to become one of England's many private detectives and square away her behaviour without making her seem indiscriminately malicious.

Fortunately, that's a story with a happy ending. By the twenty-sixth century, the Silurians have been integrated into Earth society as official citizens with initial attempts at détente implied to have originated from the Triad shelter way up in Smallmarshes that the Doctor uncovered and the Brigadier elected to keep intact. In fact, that event was most likely what lead to several members of their species joining UNIT operations in the twenty-first century. It took six-hundred years, but eventually humanity and its prehistoric cousins reconciled their differences.

The 2010 Big Book of Doctor Who has it as The Fourth Doctor. Nice idea, though

Maybe

I always assumed that the Eleventh Doctor was the first to meet her, since he implied that The Hungry Earth was the first time he met the new Silurian design. Also, has anyone ever wondered where the other Silurians in A Good Man Goes to War came from?

If I recall correctly, during the bit where the Doctor goes "Oi, I think I know what these guys are!" the Silurians are all wearing masks.

And let's not forget about the ones at the Pandorica. Moffat is particularly keen on the use of narrative hyperbole, which conjures up deliberately exaggerated scenarios for the sake of tension or drama. I think Moffat knew full well that the Draconians and Silurians weren't adversaries of the Doctor, in the same way he knew that namechecking the Drahvins was funny. He invokes a particular kind of suspension of disbelief, which is fully consistent with the story/fairy-tale motif of Series 5.