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.

The Doctor's Greatest Adventures Week: Attack of the Cybermen

Welcome one and all back to Day 3 of The Doctor's Greatest Adventures Week and we really haven't focused on Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor) aside from his regeneration cycle and there are more than a few fun adventures but a bit of the dark follows him as well.  Travelling with him is his companion the ample and ever perky Peri, a girl that manages to keep the Doctor in his place and not let him snark at the entire universe.  This is Attack of the Cybermen.

Colin in the sky... with diamonds??

Russell: Who are you?
The Doctor: I've already told you. I am known as the Doctor. I'm also a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous.
Russell: You're spoiled.
The Doctor: That's debatable.


 Deep underground the streets of London, two workers go about their jobs only to be attacked by some unknown force.  The Doctor (Colin Baker of Swallows and Amazons Forever!: Coot Club, Swallows and Amazons Forever!: The Big Six, Doctor Who, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The Airzone Solution and Breach of the Peace) is tearing through the TARDIS's systems in order to repair it, including the chameleon circuit which alters the ship's appearance to blend in to its surroundings and it might be a damn sight better than appearing as a 1960's public police box when the ship behaves rather erratically in-flight.  Wrestling the controls the Doctor manages to pilot the TARDIS once more heading to the year 1985 to show Peri (Nicola Bryant of Doctor Who, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, The Stranger: In Memory Alone, The Biz, Parting Shots and Doctors) Haley's Comet at a close enough proximity that Peri is terrified of them crashing into it.

Peri, what are these round things anyway?

Meanwhile on Earth former mercenary Lytton (Maurice Colbourne of The Duelists, Gangsters, The Littlest Horse Thieves and Howards' Way)  is now a top level gangster plotting a 10 million pound heist by taking the sewers directly under the Bank of London while the Doctor lands the TARDIS in 76 Totter's Lane which is now for some reason a wood stove, following a transmission.  Lytton holds a transmitter that seems to have an effect on the human brain as he steers two coppers under his thumb.  The plan goes askew when entering the heist is a Cyberman,  One of Lytton's cronies takes a pot shot at the Cyberman when they are completely surrounded by at least 5 Cybermen.

The Doctor and Peri encounter one of Lytton's men who turns out to be undercover getting the goods on a bank heist when the Cybermen came into play.  Naturally curious to what the Cybermen would be doing here and let alone in this timeline the Doctor immediately strolls out into danger and dives into the legwork at hand.

Will the Doctor be able to stop the Cybermen before it is too late?  Will Peri let out a blood curdling scream that will cause your brain to ooze out of the side of your ear?  Will Russell demand a reassignment if he lives??

Now a few fun facts about this 2 part story.  This is the first time Doctor Who episodes were 45 minutes long versus the 22 minute  4 to 6 parters.  7.2 million folks saw this particular episode in 1985.  Actress/model/photographer Koo Stark was cast as Varne but she apparently did not care for the costume she had to wear and decided a pass.  76 Totter's Lane is the same junkyard William Hartnell had parked his TARDIS in An Unearthly Child in 1963 so it was nice to have a little hat tip to.

Cybermen's vacation in Atlantic City go awry.

Doctor Who Week!

Go around me then!

Bilbo Baggins! I have need of thee!!

My God, what a horrendous haircut she chose.

Good day ladies and gents.  Thought we could use a break from film genre and go right into some good old fashioned Science Fiction.  Oh don't worry we will not be seeing the likes of Lloyd Bridges nor Burt I Gordon or heaven forfend Roger Corman.  No I thought we would look at the humble beginnings of the UK's greatest sci-fi triumph, The Doctor.  So this week I will be filling some of the younger readers in on this phenomenal character and his many lives and our mature readers can reminisce over days of yesteryear.  So grab some decent running shoes, beware of rock quarries and for God's sake get the time spacial coordinates set.  It is time for Doctor Who!

Oh dear, I seem to forgotten my next line.

Yes Brigadier that is very common for a man your age.