Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Doctor's Greatest Adventures : Earthshock

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to Day 4 of The Doctor's Greatest Adventures and this particular 4 part episode had more than a few fans in tears, baffled and startled across the pond.  Join with the Doctor (fifth incarnation), Tegan, Nyssa and Adric for the year 2526 as paleontologists and a geologist have gone missing after discovering a fossil in a fairly recent cave.  Will the Doctor and companions be able to keep their wits about them?  This is Earthshock.


Who's a grumpy boy genius then, eh?










The Doctor: You do not have the monitor skill Adric! And even if you did, I am not taking you back into E-space!
Adric: Then I'll find someone who will spoil me!
The Doctor: E-space is another universe!  There isn't a taxi service that goes back and forth!

The Doctor (Peter Davison of Doctor Who, A Very Peculiar Practice, Mystery!: Campion, All Creatures Great and Small, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries and Law & Order: UK) attempts to explain to homesick Adric (Matthew Waterhouse of To Serve Them All My Days, Doctor Who and The Killing Edge)  that he cannot risk flying back through E-Space (a smaller universe co-existing alongside the prime universe, N-Space) so he can deposit him back on his home planet of Terradon without proper coordinates.  Adric is annoyed at this information and proceeds to sulk about it while doing the calculations to head home.

Rocking that Reynolds stache well, sir!













Meanwhile on Earth, in the year 2526, a crack squad led by Lieutenant Scott (James Warwick of The Nightmare Man, The Bell, Doctor Who, Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime, Iron Man animated series and Babylon 5) escorting the lead scientific advisor Professor Kyle (Claire Clifford of Angels, Doctor Who, Emmerdale, Wish Your Were Here, Aliens in the Family, This Life and Miss Potter) to find the rest of the exploration team when they come across the Doctor and his companions and naturally our brilliant military mind comes the rather rash conclusion that the TARDIS team are responsible for the deaths of the explorers.  

Through the diplomacy the fifth Doctor is known for, he convinces Scott that they can help and points them to a large debris of rock where the prone bodies lay alongside a large metal hatch.  Out of nowhere a substantial force of androids get the drop on Scott's forces and are slain by them.  The Doctor manages to stop the androids with his trusty sonic screwdriver but not before the androids beam images  of the lot of them to their controllers, the Cybermen.   Yes, them again!  


Opening the hatch, the Doctor and Adric discover a bomb of awesome might and he orders Nyssa (Sarah Sutton of Late Call, Westway, The Moon Stallion, The Crucible and Unnatural Pursuits), Tegan (Janet Fielding of Hammer House of Horror, Shelly, Minder, Doctor Who and Parnell & the Englishwoman) and the rest of Scott's team back to the TARDIS for safety's sake.      
Can the Doctor and Adric stop the bomb in time?  What of the Cybermen and their plans?  Will Tegan make another series of ear bleeding whines and shrills?

Just a small gathering of interesting tidbits about this four parter.
The episodes voted by member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society as the best Story of Season 19 in their Season Poll as well as winner of the Doctor Who magazine for Best Story.
This episode was watched by 9.1 million viewers in 1982.  The working title of this story was Sentinel.   This was the first Cyberman story since Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975.  The producer John Nathan-Turner wanted to bring an old enemy back but did not want to resort to using the Daleks.

You're such a wanker, Adric.


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