Things I've Learnt from Watching My Favourite Doctor Who Stories: Part 12 - Earthshock

12. Earthshock

Being good at maths isn't everything!.

Poor Adric, always the unpopular one, always the butt of the jokes, both on screen and off! But here's a confession

I like Adric. I liked him when I was a child, watching this story at the age of eight and being absolutely astounded by the ending. I can't say I cried. In a way I'd been prepared for a companion dying ever since Doctor Who Monthly did an article on the companions and I read about Katarina and Sara Kingdom. Certainly it was the talk of the playground the day after and my friend Darren and I talked of nothing else. You see he and I played Dr Who in the playground (this was in the days before it was obligatory to type out the word Doctor in full!) and I was Adric to his Dr, him being two years older than me. So who on earth was I going to be now?

I like Adric as a character now, and when I spoke about Logopolis I mentioned that I think he's better with the fourth than the fifth and I stick by that but I also think this is his best story and best performance. Matthew Waterhouse gets unfairly maligned by fandom, I can't imagine what it would have been like to being eighteen and shoved into your favourite TV show as a regular character. The poor guy was bullied by certain actors and directors (especially from what we've heard, the director of this story!) and fighting for the limelight with two other companions, I think he's fine. Yes there's that reading of the word "want" in the Visitation, but that's Peter Moffat's fault for not doing a retake! 

I also think the character comes in for criticism because Adric is us. He's a fan of the Doctor, just like us! Honestly, listen to him yakking on about Rassilon and Artron energy in Four to Doomsday! It's embarrassing! And perhaps we don't want to be reminded we can be like this sometimes... 

It's interesting in this story he decides he wants to go home. I can't imagine he would have said that if the fourth Doctor had still been around, he's very referential to him. With the fifth though he's ill at ease and argumentative. But he gets a memorable send off although if I was Matthew Waterhouse I'd have been a bit miffed I didn't get to shoot a Cyberman like Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton did! 

I can't talk about Earthshock without mentioning Beryl Reid, it's a rule of fandom. There are those who think she'd great and those who are wrong. Yes, she's maybe not quite au fait with the technical jargon but who cares? She says the line "Get that transponder code fed into the navigational computer at once" with as much conviction as any other actor could. Fans forget she was a good actress, who had at the time had been nominated as best actress at the Baftas, for her performance in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an award she would go on to win for her appearance in the sequel, Smileys People. There was more to Beryl Reid than sitting between Barry Cryer and Patrick Moore on Blankety Blank. 

I have a theory that JNT probably used that show for casting ideas more than Spotlight, especially when it came to the ladies! Not just Beryl, Kate O'Mara, Faith Brown, Nerys Hughes, Liza Goddard, Judy Cornwell, Wanda Ventham... All very good actresses mind you and both Who and Blankety Blank were big shows of my childhood. (oh, stop judging me!) 

I haven't even mentioned the Cybermen returning. They were amazing; looking modern in their redesign but recognisable enough to know what they were. Again that's thanks to Doctor Who Monthly, as I don't remember watching Revenge of the Cybermen. No one at school has seen that either but we knew the Cybermen were only second to the Daleks and it seemed like the best thing ever! 

The opening and closing episodes are masterpieces in tension and the scenes in the cave with the Androids picking off the troopers is a carefully controlled exercise in gore that's suitable for children. The bit where you see Snyder's badge in all the goo was horrific but in a good way although I imagine it gave Mary Whitehouse the vapours. And just when you think the Doctor will rescue Adric, he doesn't. It's Boom Boom Waterhouse and no end music over the credits watched by ten million stunned viewers. 

So Earthshock is a classic, perhaps the first Doctor Who story to be influenced by the influx of early 80s Hollywood sci-fi movies like Alien, but still recognisably Doctor Who. Great stuff, now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enjoy a well prepared meal... 

Next Time: If you think that Stag on the wall is watching you, it probably is...