Earthshock

Dear Gary—

The return of the Cybermen; Adric’s death; Earthshock is a landmark serial based on these two momentous plot elements. For me, however, I will always remember Earthshock as the serial for which I finally and fully accept Peter Davison as the Doctor.

Until now the Fifth Doctor has been little more than a playground monitor to his companions; for the first time in Earthshock I sense some real emotion behind the clashing personalities, and as the Doctor’s and Adric’s conflict comes to a head I feel the anguish of previous partings from past generations bubbling to the surface.

I have to give credit to Adric for much of this. “I’m tired of being considered a joke,” Adric tells the Doctor. Adric is fed up with the constant teasing and is feeling neglected by the Doctor. He wants to go home, back to E-Space. He rebuffs the Doctor’s attempts at conciliation and the argument heats up. For once Adric’s performance is more than mere petulance; there is genuine hurt behind his remarks.

The Doctor is aware of this as well and becomes angrier as Adric grows more serious. Nyssa and Tegan, too, realize that this is more than a minor dust-up and try to inject some calm and reason back into the mix. But the Doctor is beyond reason. “Do you really think I’d be making all this fuss if it weren’t,” the Doctor demands when Tegan asks if it would be so dangerous to return to E-Space. He is making a fuss, and I think back to the First Doctor when confronted with Barbara’s and Ian’s desire to leave. “I will not aid and abet suicide,” he said in that long ago time, and continued, “You’ll end up as a couple of burnt cinders flying around in space.” Now, faced with another companion raising an abrupt desire to leave, he declares, “I’m not waiting around while you plot the course to your own destruction.”

The Doctor exits the TARDIS to cool off, Adric plots his course home, and then the adventure begins allowing the context for the Doctor and Adric to admit their faults and make up. It is an affecting moment as Adric confesses he doesn’t really want to go home (“There’s nothing there for me anymore”) and the Doctor gently ribs him, “So, you’ve done all these calculations for nothing.” A display of warmth, and I almost wish Adric had more life to live to explore this budding father/son relationship that is long overdue.

But Earthshock has other things in store.

Adric: “It’s not our problem, Doctor.” (Having made his point, Adric now seems more concerned with eating than with adventure.)

Doctor: “Oh . . . isn’t it?” (The Doctor is always ready for adventure.)

The adventure of Earthshock starts with a bang (more figuratively than literally since the bomb is defused). The opening sequences as the military expedition explores the tunnels are some of the best in all of Doctor Who. The tension mounts as one by one the blips representing life forms on the screen go out, with Walters sitting helpless in silent witness to the obliteration of his colleagues; and suspense builds with glimpses of shadowy sleek silhouettes against the cave walls stalking the remaining party. The shot of Snyder’s name tag dripping with the slime green remains of her body is truly gruesome as it gets trod underfoot.

Then the Cybermen appear and the spell of the taut drama is broken and we are launched into the realm of Doctor Who sci-fi. That is not to say that the Cybermen are a disappointment or that Doctor Who sci-fi is not any good, or even that Doctor Who sci-fi and taut drama are mutually exclusive. It is only that your typical Doctor Who serial cannot sustain the taut drama to that high degree over a full four episodes, nor would I necessarily want it to. In fact those opening scenes are interspersed with the Doctor/Adric spat and are therefore somewhat blunted to begin with; and while I have to admit, Gary, that I therefore resented the Doctor/Adric intrusion upon first viewing, I have since come to appreciate both aspects of this opening episode of Earthshock.

I also have to say that both aspects are skillfully drawn together and eventually knit into one cohesive unit. As the Doctor cools his heals outside the TARDIS, Nyssa and Tegan begin to explore the fossils in the cave and draw the Doctor into a conversation about dinosaurs and their mysterious demise millions of years ago. “I’ve always meant to slip back and find out,” the Doctor says of the cause of this catastrophe. Meanwhile the surviving military expedition tracks the trio in the belief that they are responsible for all of the killings while Adric looks on from the TARDIS console room and provides running commentary. The expedition confronts the Doctor and company just as the androids attack and Adric plays the hero. The Cybermen are revealed, the bomb exposed, and the Doctor and Adric work together to defuse it.

Doctor: “I think drastic action is called for.”

Adric: “But there can’t be much time left. What can we do?”

Doctor: “Abandon methodical procedure for blind instinct.”

That is more like the Doctor I know and love.

Blind instinct not only aids him in neutralizing the bomb but leads him to follow the signal back to its originating source and straight to the Cybermen. Lieutenant Scott and his remaining team tag along.

“Don’t call me ma’am on the bridge.” “Why is she always running me down?” Captain Briggs and Security Officer Ringway are playing out their own mother/son scenario parallel to the Doctor/Adric version, but without the happy ending. Ringway has secreted 15,000 Cybermen aboard the freighter headed to Earth, presumably in a pique against the deprecating Captain. However, believing that Ringway has double crossed him, the Cyber Leader has him killed early on in the proceedings.

Now some of our taut drama elements seep through as Scott’s squad, accompanied by a newly jump-suited Tegan, search through the freighter for the Doctor while Cybermen break free from their cellophane bindings and patrol the corridors. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Adric are on the bridge with Briggs and her First Officer Berger, and through some technobable wizardry involving antimatter they manage to momentarily shield themselves from the Cyber onslaught, with a nod to special effects for the great shot of the Cyberman melding into the doorway.

Cybermen are not so easily dissuaded, however, and soon the Cyber Leader breaks through and reveals his plans. Since the Doctor has foiled Plan A (which was the bomb), he is turning the freighter into a bomb on a crash course with Earth where an interstellar conference is taking place to form an alliance against the Cyber forces. “It will be a great psychological victory,” he states. Cyber psychology—what a concept.

Cybermen have had their emotions removed, but they were once humanoid and this Cyber Leader displays vestiges of lost passions. “Compared to some,” the Doctor says of him, “this one is positively flippant.”

“When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal,” the Doctor asks the Leader. “These things are irrelevant,” the Leader replies. But the Doctor knows better. He knows that emotions are not a weakness as the Cyber Leader claims. “For some people,” the Doctor says, “small, beautiful events is what life is all about.”

And what of friendship? “You do not consider friendship a weakness,” the Leader enquires as he discerns the Doctor’s affection for Tegan. A simple “No” is the Doctor’s answer. And even though the Cyber Leader can now hold the threat of Tegan’s death over the Doctor’s head, it is the Doctor who emerges as the better man and the stronger.

Friendship. Through all of the bickering and teasing and complaining, the Doctor has at last uncovered the underlying friendship of his companions. Alas, too late for the ill fated Adric. The Doctor’s last farewell of the boy wonder is moving as the Cyber Leader escorts the Doctor and Tegan back to the TARDIS leaving Adric, Briggs, and Berger behind on the doomed freighter.

Tegan: “Can’t you do something?”

Doctor: “Not at the moment.”

The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa on the TARDIS watching hopelessly as the freighter approaches ever nearer to Earth. As helpless as Walters from our opening sequence, all the Doctor can do is stand by and offer slight comfort to his friends: “Gently, Tegan.” (Of course Tegan is anything but gentle.) And then, thanks to Adric, the freighter jumps time warps and starts hurtling backwards in time. “It may be of some small consequence,” the Doctor says, “to know we’ve travelled backwards in time some sixty five million years.” Back to the demise of the dinosaurs; so the Doctor has slipped back to find out after all.

“You’ve failed, Leader,” the Doctor triumphs. But it is of little comfort, knowing that Adric is still aboard the flying bomb. Perhaps that accounts for the Doctor’s relish as he guns down the Cyber Leader after first having used Adric’s badge of gold to disable him.

Adric.

“Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

Adric, so desperate to prove himself, so proud of his badge of mathematical excellence, so young and so vulnerable. Adric, intent on solving the logic puzzles to override the Cyberman technology and save the Earth. Adric, dragged away to safety just when he was so close to the solution. Adric, hit with sudden inspiration and darting back into danger only to be thwarted by a Cyberman’s sabotage. Adric, facing his mortality, clutching his brother’s belt like a security blanket.

“Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

Doctor: “I must save Adric!”

But it is too late.

Nyssa: “Adric!”

Tegan: “Adric? Doctor! Oh, no.”

Adric.

The Doctor stands helpless. His friend. His surrogate son. Dead. Adric’s broken badge at his feet.

A moment of heartbreak. And in that moment I know; Peter Davison is the Doctor.