REMINDER: We will be taking a break from Classic Doctor Who while Good Omens Season 2 airs. We aren't sure when exactly DW reactions will return but there will be a post on the Community Tab when I have a definitive answer. See y'all then!
My memories of these episodes (and I might not have seen every episode) is the striking presence of the female commander and the laser battles, and Adric's death scene at the end. Not the Cybermen, but then I don't think I knew about Cybermen as a classic enemy at that point
(2) The start of Earthshock is the worst of Adric’s temper tantrums. He’s finally had enough of being cast aside and ignored and supposedly wants to go back to E-space. This is despite knowing how dangerous it is and that it’s almost impossible to go back and yet he still works out the calculations anyway just so he can prove to the Doctor that he’s capable and to stop underestimating him. They eventually make up and work quite well together in this story and it was important to show this because we see what could’ve been and the potential the fifth Doctor and Adric had if they had a better relationship before they get separated forever. The understated farewell between the two is deeply moving in retrospect because you know what’s to come. Despite seemingly making up with the Doctor, Adric still never fully moves on and when he’s faced with the challenge of disabling the machine the Cybermen have attached to the spaceship, he can’t accept defeat because he’s desperate to prove his worth and win the Doctor’s approval and this stubbornness is what gets him killed. What makes this work so well is the fact that Adric is totally unaware his meddling with the machine has caused the spaceship to travel back in time some 65 million years and we find out the spaceship is the object that kills off the dinosaurs. Adric’s death is a fixed point in time. If Adric had succeeded in disabling the machine, he would’ve destroyed Earth’s history. The great irony is that Adric dies thinking he failed, but he actually created Earth’s future. Look, I don’t care what you think of Adric, but his death is just…. heartbreaking because of the circumstances surrounding it and the way it’s built up to, especially in this story, and the way it’s executed. It’s brilliantly written. The Doctor doesn’t need to say a word, the expression on his face at the end says it all. He realises he’s partly to blame. The fifth Doctor is crushed because he failed to protect and, unknowingly, caused a boy to behave in a way that led to his untimely and tragic death. All because he was unable to fill his predecessors’ shoes, which is absolutely perfect for further developing the fifth Doctor’s character arc. This won’t be readily apparent, but this is a turning point for this Doctor’s character. Adric’s death will have a long-lasting impact on the fifth Doctor. Just keep that in mind. Wow, I didn’t think I would write that much for Adric of all characters. It makes it seem like I’m a massive fan of his character and that I love him, but that’s not the case. I do like him more than most people though, despite his flaws and I hope I’ve been able to show why and that Adric is more than just the annoying maths kid. At times the writing for Adric and Matthew Waterhouse’s acting did leave a lot to be desired, but I still don’t believe Adric is anywhere near as awful as people say he is. He’s alright overall, at least in my opinion.
13:43 I've only just realised that line was a reference to Captain Scott's journey to the South Pole. It was the final lines of one Scott's men, Oates, before he left the safety of their tent and went out into the blizzard.
Just on the subject of the kids in 1982 who wouldn't remember further back than the Tom Baker years they did have a repeat on the BBC in 1981 something called called "The Five Faces of Doctor Who" which they repeated one Doctor story each week such as "An Unearthly Child", "The Krotons", The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters" and "Logopolis" as repeats for the younger audience to experience before the arrival of Peter Davison.
Earthshock is a great, action packed story. It’s directed with a lot of flair and dynamism by Peter Grimwade, who injects a lot of pace and momentum into the story with the fast cuts and unique camerawork. I really enjoy the way the first episode slowly builds up the mystery and increases the tension throughout until we get the shock reveal of the Cybermen at the end. It’s a highly effective pay off, especially because it’s been seven years since their last appearance and it sets the stage brilliantly for the rest of story, which is quite a brutal affair. Eric Saward wrote this story and this is also the first story to fall under his tenure as script editor and he immediately establishes the new direction he’ll take the show in. Dark, gritty and uncompromisingly harsh. The universe is a merciless and chaotic place under Saward and it’s quite interesting to thrust the mild mannered and gentlemanly fifth Doctor into this. I also really like the new, sleek design for the Cybermen and think they look great walking down the dimly lit corridors on the spaceship. Their shiny bodysuits illuminate and pierce through the dark lighting, they’re very striking. I also think the way we can see the silver painted jaws of the actors moving underneath the masks incredibly unnerving. It’s a constant reminder that these Cybermen used to be people and that those metal suits are carrying around rotting human corpses. I also love the twist ending with the reveal that the spaceship was the object that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, a clever resolution to the TARDIS team coming across dinosaur fossils in the cave at the start of the story. This is just a great story and definitely one of the highlights of the fifth Doctor’s era.
Azmat: Being (of course) a major fan of the Hartnell Era, my take on companions is what I feel was their original purpose, i.e., what they bring to the story. Ian and Barbara, being teachers, were "us," the Earthlings - stand-ins for the audience; Susan was (often) "the damsel in distress". Among all companions to this point, I don't see how Adric was intended to add to the mix. [Just my old-timer's opinion.] ~Dad
@@richardlemin7840 Did you read my other two comments? I went into great detail explaining what I thought Adric added to the story. Again, Adric was far from perfect and he had a lot of flaws, but he certainly had far more to him than most people give credit.
First companion death since Katarina and Sara Kingdom and yes they count as main companions despite their short stint. Despite Adric not being as popular his death was a shock at the time and it did make me cry and i'm sure few otheres in the fandom did as well. John Nathan Turner did the ending in silence Coronation Street style as they did this kind of tribute for characters who died in an episode.
ONE OF THE REASONS ADRIC WAS KILLED WAS NOT ONLY TO CUT DOWN THE CAST BUT TO SHOW MORE VULNERABILITY TO THE DOCTOR AS IT WAS THOUGHT HE WAS BE COMING TOO UNBEATABLE AND PREDICTABLE
Idk i think part of the joy with Doctor Who is when you watch it as a kid sort of midway through the ongoing story (unless you literally started watching in 63) and just hearing little glimpses of past adventures or other exploits of the Doctor. It kinda makes the show and its mythos feel vast and entices you to explore it eventually.
It was the writing. Christopher H Bidmead had a big hand in the creation and fleshing out of Adric, he was script editor for Tom Baker's last season, he ended up having to write both Tom's last story and Peter's first. Then he leaves the show, and with him goes any idea of what to actually *do* with Adric after that. The teacher/pupil relationship with the Fourth Doctor is gone. Some commentors will put Adric's rapid decline in season 19 down to jealousy at having to share the TARDIS with two girls - Four To Doomsday would seem to hint at this but nobody is well served in that story, characterwise - but really, when you examine season 19 it's apparent that Adric is never the same character in two consecutive stories and tends to be the butt of the series' own meta-joke. I don't think anyone that age could have done much better having to play that material, between Castrovalva and Earthshock.
'Earthshock' notes : Part One: Viewing figures = 9.1 million. Chart position = 45. Part Two: Viewing figures = 8.8 million. Chart position = 50. Part Three: Viewing figures = 9.8 million. Chart position = 32. Part Four: Viewing figures = 9.6 million. Chart position = 40. Transmission dates : 8, 9, 15, 16 March 1982. Studio sessions : November 1981 Studio : TC8. Working title : 'Sentinel' Initial plans were for Adric to die in 'The Enemy Within' written by Christopher Priest, but the writer and production team parted company following disagreements over rewrites. Theoretically, Eric Saward as the new Script Editor could not commission himself to write a story, but a short gap in his contract allowed some wiggle room and Anthony Root did some small editing work so that the BBC rules were at least seen to be followed. Matthew Waterhouse was upset at the decision to kill off his character and would not speak to John Nathan-Turner for a couple of weeks. The small amount of location work took place in October at Springwell Quarry, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. In 1964 'Coronation Street' had used silent end captions to mark the death of Martha Longhurst, which inspired Nathan-Turner to do the same on Part Four. The viewing gallery to the studio was (unusually) closed to visitors for recording and a possible 'Radio Times' cover was refused by the production team, both in an attempt to keep secret the return of the Cybermen. However, viewers of 'Larry Grayson's Generation Game' towards the end of 1981 had seen both K9 and an old-style Cyberman (voiced by David Banks) take part in a Robot-themed round... (see your Twitter notifications)
I do say Earthshock is the 2nd Cybermen, serial I saw and it was awesome but since I have since saw Tomb of the Cybermen after it was found and released on vhs and dvd I now place Tomb of the Cybermen as my top alltime favourite Cybermen story.
6:10 - your dad is absolutely correct in saying this for Warriors’ Gate and Kinda. Both serials had very good plots but were very ahead of their time (to their detriment) because they needed repeated rewatching to fully understand the plot, due to their breakaway from the somewhat formulaic way of Who’s storytelling. This isn’t such a problem now as we have endless ways to watch it again, but in 1981/82, VCR ownership was just on the cusp of rising significantly (in 1981/82, maybe one house on every street had a VCR). VCR ownership really wouldn’t begin to take off significantly until 1983/84. And even for those that did have them, blank cassettes to record on were expensive. In the UK, a single 1 hour cassette - for they were always sold in singles early on, never in packs - cost £10. That’s £37 at 2023 prices! So people really recorded these just for time shifting, never for posterity, so even if they could afford to record it and watch it repeatedly, how long could they afford to keep it before it was sacrificed for something else that was deemed more worthy of recording? Probably a few days, maybe a week. And it would be worse for those who didn’t have a VCR, at least in the UK, where a particular serial that needed repeat viewings to understand only *might* be repeated (as the BBC at that time had a cap on the number of hours annually that could be devoted to repeats).
You know what I'd really like to see? A supercut of every side character in the entire run who whined about losing their bonus. It just KEEPS coming up, and I'm 99% sure it's in Modern Doctor who too.
The actress playing the Captain is the great late Beryl Reid. It was one of JNT's "stunt-casting" gimmicks which got worse overtime. There's great BTS material on the Season 19 blu-ray set where it looks like she was really difficult to work with and didn’t want to be there.😅
1) They had toyed with the idea of killing off a companion before, notably with Leela in Invasion of Time, but had always chickened out until this story. 2) You inadvertently left out The Moonbase in your Cybermen story count, this is Cyberman story number seven. 3) In the clips of past Doctors, the Cybermen are talking about the events of Tomb of the Cybermen, but the clip is from The Wheel in Space, because at the time this was made Tomb was still lost and no clips were known to exist. 4) There is an amusing special feature on the Earthshock DVD called Earthshock Episode Five. Done in claymation, it shows Adric surviving the crash, only to be immediately devoured by a T-Rex. 5) There were a lot of complaints about disturbing elements in Terror of the Autons being too scary/traumatic for children, which is presumably why they haven't been brought back.
John Nathan Turner was very keen to avoid spoilers for this story. The Radio Times offered them a cover to promote the return of the Cybermen, but he wanted it to be a surprise. And he put a brief Adric cameo into Time-Flight Episode 2, so that Mathew Waterhouse could be in the cast list, since those listings would be out before Earthshock 4 aired. I re-watched this recently, and the DVD/Blu-Ray's optional CGI effects improve things massively. Not only do they shift the continents in primordial Earth to be more accurate to the era, they actually show the ship crashing, instead of floating in space and exploding. When they talk about the Doctor sealing them in their ice tombs on Telos, the clip they play is from The Wheel in Space, because The Tomb of the Cybermen was missing until 1991. 22:40 Well, they couldn't have shown The Tenth Planet, because part 4 was and is missing! The only complete Cyberman story they had at the time (Since Tomb was still missing) was Revenge of the Cybermen.
I wonder if you gentlemen have ever seen sci-fi series Blake,s Seven, and if not it is worth seeing and reacting to Marie-Clare has seen and reacted to Blake.s Seven so has Alexa Chipman and also Shelma32.
ADRIC WAS WROTE BETTER WITH THE 4TH DOCTOR BUT HIS BEST BITS WITH THE 5TH ARE EARTHSHOCK AND HIS JOY AT NYSSA DANCING IN BLACK ORCHID AS IT WAS OBVIOUS HIS CHARACTER LIKED HER WHICH TODAY WOULD BE A BIGGER THING
This story is the point where the series adopts heavy continuity and feeds on its own history. It only gets worse from here on. The fans are about to take over and whilst I have no problem with fans, they need to be kept under control when it comes to writing stories. Doctor Who was at its best when it was being run by those who had enough emotional distance to produce a decent story without falling back on their own fanboy instincts. New Who is a weekly display of the "wouldn't it be cool if" mentality. No, it wouldn't be cool. That's why we had Daleks slagging off Cybermen in Doomsday. Thanks RTD.
(1) I also need to talk about Adric since this is his last story and he’s such an important part of it, primarily because of the brutal and shocking way he was written out. Listen, I’m not going to try and convince anyone that he’s a great character. He’s very obviously not. First of all, Matthew Waterhouse wasn’t a great actor and his inexperience is very evident quite a lot of the time. The writers also pushed him towards being unlikeable too often and didn’t showcase his more likeable characteristics often enough. The balance simply isn’t there to make Adric a great companion and for people to relate and care about him that much. With all that being said, there still was more to his character than most people give him credit and I’ll do my best to explain why I think Adric is actually a decent companion… We meet Adric on Alzarius and he seems to be an outsider on his own planet (like the Doctor is on Gallifrey) because as we saw over the course of Full Circle, the Alzarians had a very rigid and dogmatic system and form of government and Adric grew up amongst all of that and it clearly had an adverse effect on him. He was taught to think logically and not give into irrational emotions, and given a badge for mathematic excellence. All of this gave him an inflated ego, but also made him terribly confused and conflicted, because despite what he had been taught, he had the exact opposite temperament and couldn’t control his emotions, which is why he became an outsider and why he wants to leave. He’s also estranged from his brother, with no parents to be seen so they’re presumably long dead. The sad thing is, just as Adric and his brother start to get to know each other, the brother dies, leaving Adric alone once more. Adric has nothing left on Alzarius, so he becomes a stowaway aboard the TARDIS. After a bit of conflict, we saw the fourth Doctor and Adric gradually grow closer and develop quite a sweet bond, similar to that of a teacher and student. I honestly think the fourth Doctor and Adric are a pretty good Doctor/companion pairing and that Adric works better with the fourth Doctor than the fifth, at least in terms of being a likeable duo. The fifth Doctor and Adric were meant to be a contrast to that and they work fairly well for what they were going for. Anyway, the fourth Doctor helps Adric and teaches him about life and the universe and Adric gains a father figure, something he clearly never had before. The problem is, the fourth Doctor eventually regenerates and he becomes the completely different and much younger fifth Doctor. Adric unceremoniously loses his friend and father figure because the fifth Doctor simply can’t fill the same role his predecessor did. To make matters worse, the Doctor and Adric are joined by two new girls who seem to occupy the Doctor’s attentions a lot more and Adric goes from being the Doctor’s main focus to the third wheel instead. This is when we see Adric start to become a lot more irritable and rebellious and he’s pushed back into being the kind of person he was before he met the Doctor. I think it’s clear Adric suffers from abandonment issues due to how he was treated back on Alzarius and losing the fourth Doctor. He starts siding with the Doctor’s adversaries instead of the Doctor and just generally gets himself into trouble by trying too hard to be the hero. I think this is because Adric, as a lot of teenagers do, wanted to assert control over his life and prove to the Doctor that he was clever and has a mind of his own. His actions are driven by desires to get the Doctor’s attention, prove him wrong and win his approval all at the same time.
And the 'constantly teased' bit was deliberate; when Janet Fielding learned how Matthew Waterhouse was being written out, she dubbed him the nickname 'Matt Finish'. And Matthew didn't speak to producer JN-T for a whole week.
To correct you Alex it was Tom Baker not Peter Davison who Matthew Waterhouse was giving advice too which really annoyed both Tom and Lalla Ward who played Romana II at the time. I agree Richard that the original theme from 1963-1980 is still as good and the creepiest of the theme but i also disagree with you about the 80's theme i think it is just as good it has more of a beat to it but also it was the 80's the coolest decade but of bad fashion taste the show has to evolve.
I'd guess that the kids in 1982 actually probably didn't dislike Adric that much because you have to remember that they wouldn't have known about the behind the scenes issues and Matthew Waterhouse's acting was no worse than Sarah Sutton's and Doctor Who wasn't exactly known for great acting from the majority of guest actors either. In the early to mid 90s when the VHSs started being released it was Tegan that everyone hated with Adric hate being from let's say a significant minority of fans, the Adric hate seems to have grown over time whilst Tegan seens to have become a favoured companion. With both Adric and Tegan being so polarising and Nyssa getting relegated to the background a lot we don't see much love or hate for Nyssa so it's nice to see you guys championing her BUT again I have to note that Sarah Sutton was quite wooden at times....Especially when she had to react to something terrible on the scanner screen :)
I think most of Who fandom did. I wouldn’t be born for 8 years when this had its first screening. But when I first saw it on the UK Gold weekend morning repeats, I was really happy!
Of course you guys have reacted to this story already but Earthshock is honestly my favourite Cyberman story of all time! Also out of all the designs of the cybermen these are my favourite because these were the ones I first discovered when I got into the show. I really like David Bank’s Cyberleader. Gives me Darth Vader vibes with the voice
@@robalexander8065 Thanks, forgot about him. Waterhouse May have just been unintentionally demonstrating the arrogance and lack of self-awareness that many older teenagers have!
The 2 characters are trying to think of are Katarina and Sharon. I actually looked it up once, and it said they were companions. So yes, you can count them.
I love both the original and 80's theme i didn't like the NuWho themes particulary Murray Gold his greatest one was the Series 4 theme the rest got tired i thought the best one of the NuWho themes and this will come as some what controversial was The Jodie Whittaker theme 2018-2022 because they brought the creepiness back which lacked with Murray Gold.
@@joshuajoshua2732 The theme tune arrangement from series 11-13 might actually be the best part of the Whittaker/Chibnall era. I don't think that's a controversial opinion, except amongst rabid haters who want to pretend every single aspect of that run was the worst thing imaginable - and I say that as someone with an overall mixed-to-negative view of Chibnall's tenure.
REMINDER: We will be taking a break from Classic Doctor Who while Good Omens Season 2 airs. We aren't sure when exactly DW reactions will return but there will be a post on the Community Tab when I have a definitive answer. See y'all then!
That announcement was a bigger bombshell then adric blowing up
Luckily, having a short break will help you to savour the greatness of Tme-Flight all the more.
My memories of these episodes (and I might not have seen every episode) is the striking presence of the female commander and the laser battles, and Adric's death scene at the end. Not the Cybermen, but then I don't think I knew about Cybermen as a classic enemy at that point
(2) The start of Earthshock is the worst of Adric’s temper tantrums. He’s finally had enough of being cast aside and ignored and supposedly wants to go back to E-space. This is despite knowing how dangerous it is and that it’s almost impossible to go back and yet he still works out the calculations anyway just so he can prove to the Doctor that he’s capable and to stop underestimating him. They eventually make up and work quite well together in this story and it was important to show this because we see what could’ve been and the potential the fifth Doctor and Adric had if they had a better relationship before they get separated forever. The understated farewell between the two is deeply moving in retrospect because you know what’s to come. Despite seemingly making up with the Doctor, Adric still never fully moves on and when he’s faced with the challenge of disabling the machine the Cybermen have attached to the spaceship, he can’t accept defeat because he’s desperate to prove his worth and win the Doctor’s approval and this stubbornness is what gets him killed.
What makes this work so well is the fact that Adric is totally unaware his meddling with the machine has caused the spaceship to travel back in time some 65 million years and we find out the spaceship is the object that kills off the dinosaurs. Adric’s death is a fixed point in time. If Adric had succeeded in disabling the machine, he would’ve destroyed Earth’s history. The great irony is that Adric dies thinking he failed, but he actually created Earth’s future. Look, I don’t care what you think of Adric, but his death is just…. heartbreaking because of the circumstances surrounding it and the way it’s built up to, especially in this story, and the way it’s executed. It’s brilliantly written. The Doctor doesn’t need to say a word, the expression on his face at the end says it all. He realises he’s partly to blame. The fifth Doctor is crushed because he failed to protect and, unknowingly, caused a boy to behave in a way that led to his untimely and tragic death. All because he was unable to fill his predecessors’ shoes, which is absolutely perfect for further developing the fifth Doctor’s character arc. This won’t be readily apparent, but this is a turning point for this Doctor’s character. Adric’s death will have a long-lasting impact on the fifth Doctor. Just keep that in mind. Wow, I didn’t think I would write that much for Adric of all characters. It makes it seem like I’m a massive fan of his character and that I love him, but that’s not the case. I do like him more than most people though, despite his flaws and I hope I’ve been able to show why and that Adric is more than just the annoying maths kid. At times the writing for Adric and Matthew Waterhouse’s acting did leave a lot to be desired, but I still don’t believe Adric is anywhere near as awful as people say he is. He’s alright overall, at least in my opinion.
Well said! 👏
Sara Kingdom aged to death in the Dalek Master plan. She did travel in time during the story.
13:43 I've only just realised that line was a reference to Captain Scott's journey to the South Pole. It was the final lines of one Scott's men, Oates, before he left the safety of their tent and went out into the blizzard.
Just on the subject of the kids in 1982 who wouldn't remember further back than the Tom Baker years they did have a repeat on the BBC in 1981 something called called "The Five Faces of Doctor Who" which they repeated one Doctor story each week such as "An Unearthly Child", "The Krotons", The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters" and "Logopolis" as repeats for the younger audience to experience before the arrival of Peter Davison.
Earthshock is a great, action packed story. It’s directed with a lot of flair and dynamism by Peter Grimwade, who injects a lot of pace and momentum into the story with the fast cuts and unique camerawork. I really enjoy the way the first episode slowly builds up the mystery and increases the tension throughout until we get the shock reveal of the Cybermen at the end. It’s a highly effective pay off, especially because it’s been seven years since their last appearance and it sets the stage brilliantly for the rest of story, which is quite a brutal affair. Eric Saward wrote this story and this is also the first story to fall under his tenure as script editor and he immediately establishes the new direction he’ll take the show in. Dark, gritty and uncompromisingly harsh. The universe is a merciless and chaotic place under Saward and it’s quite interesting to thrust the mild mannered and gentlemanly fifth Doctor into this.
I also really like the new, sleek design for the Cybermen and think they look great walking down the dimly lit corridors on the spaceship. Their shiny bodysuits illuminate and pierce through the dark lighting, they’re very striking. I also think the way we can see the silver painted jaws of the actors moving underneath the masks incredibly unnerving. It’s a constant reminder that these Cybermen used to be people and that those metal suits are carrying around rotting human corpses. I also love the twist ending with the reveal that the spaceship was the object that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, a clever resolution to the TARDIS team coming across dinosaur fossils in the cave at the start of the story. This is just a great story and definitely one of the highlights of the fifth Doctor’s era.
Azmat: Being (of course) a major fan of the Hartnell Era, my take on companions is what I feel was their original purpose, i.e., what they bring to the story. Ian and Barbara, being teachers, were "us," the Earthlings - stand-ins for the audience; Susan was (often) "the damsel in distress". Among all companions to this point, I don't see how Adric was intended to add to the mix. [Just my old-timer's opinion.] ~Dad
@@richardlemin7840 Did you read my other two comments? I went into great detail explaining what I thought Adric added to the story. Again, Adric was far from perfect and he had a lot of flaws, but he certainly had far more to him than most people give credit.
@@Mrazmatmahmood: Yes, but I never got those levels from his character. Again, just my opinion. ~Dad
@@richardlemin7840 That's fine.👍
First companion death since Katarina and Sara Kingdom and yes they count as main companions despite their short stint.
Despite Adric not being as popular his death was a shock at the time and it did make me cry and i'm sure few otheres in the fandom did as well.
John Nathan Turner did the ending in silence Coronation Street style as they did this kind of tribute for characters who died in an episode.
ONE OF THE REASONS ADRIC WAS KILLED WAS NOT ONLY TO CUT DOWN THE CAST BUT TO SHOW MORE VULNERABILITY TO THE DOCTOR AS IT WAS THOUGHT HE WAS BE COMING TOO UNBEATABLE AND PREDICTABLE
Idk i think part of the joy with Doctor Who is when you watch it as a kid sort of midway through the ongoing story (unless you literally started watching in 63) and just hearing little glimpses of past adventures or other exploits of the Doctor. It kinda makes the show and its mythos feel vast and entices you to explore it eventually.
The Autons do return in the 9th Doctors first episode.
I say gentlemen Earthshock, is the best Cyberstory in the colour era of Dr Who and Eric Saward did an awesome job writing the scripts for it.
It was the writing. Christopher H Bidmead had a big hand in the creation and fleshing out of Adric, he was script editor for Tom Baker's last season, he ended up having to write both Tom's last story and Peter's first. Then he leaves the show, and with him goes any idea of what to actually *do* with Adric after that. The teacher/pupil relationship with the Fourth Doctor is gone. Some commentors will put Adric's rapid decline in season 19 down to jealousy at having to share the TARDIS with two girls - Four To Doomsday would seem to hint at this but nobody is well served in that story, characterwise - but really, when you examine season 19 it's apparent that Adric is never the same character in two consecutive stories and tends to be the butt of the series' own meta-joke. I don't think anyone that age could have done much better having to play that material, between Castrovalva and Earthshock.
'Earthshock' notes :
Part One: Viewing figures = 9.1 million. Chart position = 45.
Part Two: Viewing figures = 8.8 million. Chart position = 50.
Part Three: Viewing figures = 9.8 million. Chart position = 32.
Part Four: Viewing figures = 9.6 million. Chart position = 40.
Transmission dates : 8, 9, 15, 16 March 1982.
Studio sessions : November 1981
Studio : TC8.
Working title : 'Sentinel'
Initial plans were for Adric to die in 'The Enemy Within' written by Christopher Priest, but the writer and production team parted company following disagreements over rewrites.
Theoretically, Eric Saward as the new Script Editor could not commission himself to write a story, but a short gap in his contract allowed some wiggle room and Anthony Root did some small editing work so that the BBC rules were at least seen to be followed.
Matthew Waterhouse was upset at the decision to kill off his character and would not speak to John Nathan-Turner for a couple of weeks.
The small amount of location work took place in October at Springwell Quarry, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.
In 1964 'Coronation Street' had used silent end captions to mark the death of Martha Longhurst, which inspired Nathan-Turner to do the same on Part Four.
The viewing gallery to the studio was (unusually) closed to visitors for recording and a possible 'Radio Times' cover was refused by the production team, both in an attempt to keep secret the return of the Cybermen.
However, viewers of 'Larry Grayson's Generation Game' towards the end of 1981 had seen both K9 and an old-style Cyberman (voiced by David Banks) take part in a Robot-themed round... (see your Twitter notifications)
Oh my god, you've worked out there is another story in the season after this one. Wonders will never cease.
I do say Earthshock is the 2nd Cybermen, serial I saw and it was awesome but since I have since saw Tomb of the Cybermen after it was found and released on vhs and dvd I now place Tomb of the Cybermen as my top alltime favourite Cybermen story.
Richard Todd in Kinda, not Peter Davison. Yes that happened. :)
Regardless of my thoughts on Adric as a character (and how he was written), the silence with the scrolling credits still gets me to this day Q.Q
Actually Alex this was the seventh Cyberman story there was "The Moonbase" between "The Tenth Planet" and "The Tomb of the Cybermen".
6:10 - your dad is absolutely correct in saying this for Warriors’ Gate and Kinda.
Both serials had very good plots but were very ahead of their time (to their detriment) because they needed repeated rewatching to fully understand the plot, due to their breakaway from the somewhat formulaic way of Who’s storytelling. This isn’t such a problem now as we have endless ways to watch it again, but in 1981/82, VCR ownership was just on the cusp of rising significantly (in 1981/82, maybe one house on every street had a VCR). VCR ownership really wouldn’t begin to take off significantly until 1983/84. And even for those that did have them, blank cassettes to record on were expensive. In the UK, a single 1 hour cassette - for they were always sold in singles early on, never in packs - cost £10. That’s £37 at 2023 prices! So people really recorded these just for time shifting, never for posterity, so even if they could afford to record it and watch it repeatedly, how long could they afford to keep it before it was sacrificed for something else that was deemed more worthy of recording? Probably a few days, maybe a week.
And it would be worse for those who didn’t have a VCR, at least in the UK, where a particular serial that needed repeat viewings to understand only *might* be repeated (as the BBC at that time had a cap on the number of hours annually that could be devoted to repeats).
You know what I'd really like to see? A supercut of every side character in the entire run who whined about losing their bonus. It just KEEPS coming up, and I'm 99% sure it's in Modern Doctor who too.
Not Earthshock but Alexshock Doctor Who on Hiatus oh no it's the Mid 80s allover again 😁
RIP Adric, you're with Varsh now. No wait, he won't have gone to hell. Mwa ha ha haaa!😈☠👻
The actress playing the Captain is the great late Beryl Reid. It was one of JNT's "stunt-casting" gimmicks which got worse overtime. There's great BTS material on the Season 19 blu-ray set where it looks like she was really difficult to work with and didn’t want to be there.😅
1) They had toyed with the idea of killing off a companion before, notably with Leela in Invasion of Time, but had always chickened out until this story.
2) You inadvertently left out The Moonbase in your Cybermen story count, this is Cyberman story number seven.
3) In the clips of past Doctors, the Cybermen are talking about the events of Tomb of the Cybermen, but the clip is from The Wheel in Space, because at the time this was made Tomb was still lost and no clips were known to exist.
4) There is an amusing special feature on the Earthshock DVD called Earthshock Episode Five. Done in claymation, it shows Adric surviving the crash, only to be immediately devoured by a T-Rex.
5) There were a lot of complaints about disturbing elements in Terror of the Autons being too scary/traumatic for children, which is presumably why they haven't been brought back.
18:53 Matthew Waterhouse gave acting advice to Golden Globe winner and Oscar-nominee Richard Todd when he guest-starred in "Kinda".
John Nathan Turner was very keen to avoid spoilers for this story. The Radio Times offered them a cover to promote the return of the Cybermen, but he wanted it to be a surprise. And he put a brief Adric cameo into Time-Flight Episode 2, so that Mathew Waterhouse could be in the cast list, since those listings would be out before Earthshock 4 aired.
I re-watched this recently, and the DVD/Blu-Ray's optional CGI effects improve things massively. Not only do they shift the continents in primordial Earth to be more accurate to the era, they actually show the ship crashing, instead of floating in space and exploding.
When they talk about the Doctor sealing them in their ice tombs on Telos, the clip they play is from The Wheel in Space, because The Tomb of the Cybermen was missing until 1991.
22:40 Well, they couldn't have shown The Tenth Planet, because part 4 was and is missing! The only complete Cyberman story they had at the time (Since Tomb was still missing) was Revenge of the Cybermen.
I wonder if you gentlemen have ever seen sci-fi series Blake,s Seven, and if not it is worth seeing and reacting to Marie-Clare has seen and reacted to Blake.s Seven so has Alexa Chipman and also Shelma32.
ADRIC WAS WROTE BETTER WITH THE 4TH DOCTOR BUT HIS BEST BITS WITH THE 5TH ARE EARTHSHOCK AND HIS JOY AT NYSSA DANCING IN BLACK ORCHID AS IT WAS OBVIOUS HIS CHARACTER LIKED HER WHICH TODAY WOULD BE A BIGGER THING
Adric knows nothinf about Earth history.
Adrics death was huge news at the time in the UK. Everyone was shocked.
This story is the point where the series adopts heavy continuity and feeds on its own history. It only gets worse from here on. The fans are about to take over and whilst I have no problem with fans, they need to be kept under control when it comes to writing stories. Doctor Who was at its best when it was being run by those who had enough emotional distance to produce a decent story without falling back on their own fanboy instincts. New Who is a weekly display of the "wouldn't it be cool if" mentality. No, it wouldn't be cool. That's why we had Daleks slagging off Cybermen in Doomsday. Thanks RTD.
Sarah Kingdom was killed by Daleks
Hey Alex, what’s your opinion on the latest 14th Dr. sonic screwdriver?
Another reason for stopping for a while is that the season 20 boxset is due out probably September
(1) I also need to talk about Adric since this is his last story and he’s such an important part of it, primarily because of the brutal and shocking way he was written out. Listen, I’m not going to try and convince anyone that he’s a great character. He’s very obviously not. First of all, Matthew Waterhouse wasn’t a great actor and his inexperience is very evident quite a lot of the time. The writers also pushed him towards being unlikeable too often and didn’t showcase his more likeable characteristics often enough. The balance simply isn’t there to make Adric a great companion and for people to relate and care about him that much. With all that being said, there still was more to his character than most people give him credit and I’ll do my best to explain why I think Adric is actually a decent companion…
We meet Adric on Alzarius and he seems to be an outsider on his own planet (like the Doctor is on Gallifrey) because as we saw over the course of Full Circle, the Alzarians had a very rigid and dogmatic system and form of government and Adric grew up amongst all of that and it clearly had an adverse effect on him. He was taught to think logically and not give into irrational emotions, and given a badge for mathematic excellence. All of this gave him an inflated ego, but also made him terribly confused and conflicted, because despite what he had been taught, he had the exact opposite temperament and couldn’t control his emotions, which is why he became an outsider and why he wants to leave. He’s also estranged from his brother, with no parents to be seen so they’re presumably long dead. The sad thing is, just as Adric and his brother start to get to know each other, the brother dies, leaving Adric alone once more. Adric has nothing left on Alzarius, so he becomes a stowaway aboard the TARDIS.
After a bit of conflict, we saw the fourth Doctor and Adric gradually grow closer and develop quite a sweet bond, similar to that of a teacher and student. I honestly think the fourth Doctor and Adric are a pretty good Doctor/companion pairing and that Adric works better with the fourth Doctor than the fifth, at least in terms of being a likeable duo. The fifth Doctor and Adric were meant to be a contrast to that and they work fairly well for what they were going for. Anyway, the fourth Doctor helps Adric and teaches him about life and the universe and Adric gains a father figure, something he clearly never had before. The problem is, the fourth Doctor eventually regenerates and he becomes the completely different and much younger fifth Doctor. Adric unceremoniously loses his friend and father figure because the fifth Doctor simply can’t fill the same role his predecessor did. To make matters worse, the Doctor and Adric are joined by two new girls who seem to occupy the Doctor’s attentions a lot more and Adric goes from being the Doctor’s main focus to the third wheel instead. This is when we see Adric start to become a lot more irritable and rebellious and he’s pushed back into being the kind of person he was before he met the Doctor. I think it’s clear Adric suffers from abandonment issues due to how he was treated back on Alzarius and losing the fourth Doctor. He starts siding with the Doctor’s adversaries instead of the Doctor and just generally gets himself into trouble by trying too hard to be the hero. I think this is because Adric, as a lot of teenagers do, wanted to assert control over his life and prove to the Doctor that he was clever and has a mind of his own. His actions are driven by desires to get the Doctor’s attention, prove him wrong and win his approval all at the same time.
Apparently Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton had to keep themselves from smiling during Adrics death
And the 'constantly teased' bit was deliberate; when Janet Fielding learned how Matthew Waterhouse was being written out, she dubbed him the nickname 'Matt Finish'. And Matthew didn't speak to producer JN-T for a whole week.
16:30 it’s because the BBC underestimated the amount of obsession over the show’s history that goes with the territory in Doctor Who fandom.
Surprisingly enough both Hartnell and Troughton were 5’8”
Why not just continue with Who after whichever other series you’re reacting to ends? Would mean Who changing days of course.
The depression won't last long. It's not NuWho emoing. 😊😂
British sci-fi is dystopian not just Dr Who.
To correct you Alex it was Tom Baker not Peter Davison who Matthew Waterhouse was giving advice too which really annoyed both Tom and Lalla Ward who played Romana II at the time.
I agree Richard that the original theme from 1963-1980 is still as good and the creepiest of the theme but i also disagree with you about the 80's theme i think it is just as good it has more of a beat to it but also it was the 80's the coolest decade but of bad fashion taste the show has to evolve.
I'd guess that the kids in 1982 actually probably didn't dislike Adric that much because you have to remember that they wouldn't have known about the behind the scenes issues and Matthew Waterhouse's acting was no worse than Sarah Sutton's and Doctor Who wasn't exactly known for great acting from the majority of guest actors either.
In the early to mid 90s when the VHSs started being released it was Tegan that everyone hated with Adric hate being from let's say a significant minority of fans, the Adric hate seems to have grown over time whilst Tegan seens to have become a favoured companion.
With both Adric and Tegan being so polarising and Nyssa getting relegated to the background a lot we don't see much love or hate for Nyssa so it's nice to see you guys championing her BUT again I have to note that Sarah Sutton was quite wooden at times....Especially when she had to react to something terrible on the scanner screen :)
Good time for a break. Enjoy yourselves.
I know it was supposed to be meant as a shock and stuff, but at the time I actually clapped when Adric blew up.
I think most of Who fandom did.
I wouldn’t be born for 8 years when this had its first screening. But when I first saw it on the UK Gold weekend morning repeats, I was really happy!
Time flight might put you off ever returning to classic who. It really is a steaming mound of horse manure.
Of course you guys have reacted to this story already but Earthshock is honestly my favourite Cyberman story of all time! Also out of all the designs of the cybermen these are my favourite because these were the ones I first discovered when I got into the show. I really like David Bank’s Cyberleader. Gives me Darth Vader vibes with the voice
18:55 - it wasn’t Davison that Waterhouse tried to give acting advice to (which is bad enough), it was Tom Baker (which is much worse!)
And Richard Todd!
@@robalexander8065 Thanks, forgot about him.
Waterhouse May have just been unintentionally demonstrating the arrogance and lack of self-awareness that many older teenagers have!
"We have two endings written for this story and we want you to tell us which is best. The first is that Adric dies on a..."
"We choose the first"
The 2 characters are trying to think of are Katarina and Sharon. I actually looked it up once, and it said they were companions. So yes, you can count them.
Katarina and Sara Kingdom. They are companions, but very short term. Adric is the first long term companion to die.
Katarina and Sara both actually died in very quick succession. Within the same serial and therefore within weeks of each other!
Twitter is now X.
And I have Instagram you can follow instead!
😭😭😭
I know you won't ever change your mind, but I respectfully disagree with you about the music. I prefer this one to the original.
This theme is right behind the original and RTD era Murray Gold themes as one of the most popular versions of the theme.
I love both the original and 80's theme i didn't like the NuWho themes particulary Murray Gold his greatest one was the Series 4 theme the rest got tired i thought the best one of the NuWho themes and this will come as some what controversial was The Jodie Whittaker theme 2018-2022 because they brought the creepiness back which lacked with Murray Gold.
@@joshuajoshua2732 The theme tune arrangement from series 11-13 might actually be the best part of the Whittaker/Chibnall era. I don't think that's a controversial opinion, except amongst rabid haters who want to pretend every single aspect of that run was the worst thing imaginable - and I say that as someone with an overall mixed-to-negative view of Chibnall's tenure.
Not a fan of good omens ,hated the first series so I won't be watching the second batch