4 episodes
Aired between 8th March 1982 and 16th March 1982
Written by Eric Saward
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Peter Grimwade
Synopsis
The Doctor and Adric are having a spat about him going back into E-space.
It gets so bad that the Doctor lands the TARDIS in a cave and storms off . They leave Adric to work out the calculations to take himself home, whilst Tegan and Nyssa go to calm the Doctor down.
As they are looking around, they find fosilised remains of dinosaurs and the Doctor tells Nyssa about what happened to them.
As they are in the cave, they come across a bunch of angry space marines. It turns out this is the future, and the marines had gone down into this cave to find out who killed a bunch of archaeologists who were looking at the fossils (and the marine's believe it's the Doctor and Co who are the culprits.
It doesn't take long however before they are proven innocent as two faceless androids appear and start shooting at the marines. After a heated exchange of fire, the androids are destroyed.
Adric finds them all and explains that the TARDIS picked up part of a signal coming from somewhere and the Doctor speculates that it was the android's masters. They find a hatch in the rock, containing a bomb and the Doctor realises the signal was to start the bomb's timer. He and adric work together to eventually stop the bomb.
The group speculate as to why the androids planted the bomb and the Doctor decides to trace the source of the signal and find out. Despite his misgivings, the marines come with him.
The signal came from a space freighter on its way to earth and again, the Doctor is mistaken for a murderer as he and Adric explore it and are found looking at the dead body of a security guard by the ships Officer, Ringway. He takes them to the bridge to see Captain Briggs who's only interested in making her shipment on time to get a big bonus.
As they debate the Doctor's innocence, they discover the real threat to the ship - Cybermen!!!
Meanwhile, Tegan goes with the marine's led by Sgt Scott as they decide to go and look for the Doctor.
Back on the bridge, the Doctor pleads with Briggs not to put her men against the Cybermen but she refuses. Ringway turns traitor and says he got the Cybermen on the ship, but the Doctor makes short work of him and they block off the bridge with blast doors, buying themselves some time.
Even though the Doctor does a nifty trick with an anti-matter field to keep repairing the door, the Cybermen ultimately gain access to the bridge and capture everyone and the Cyber Leader kills Ringway.
They explain that they are intending to destroy a conference taking place on Earth that will solidify armies against the Cybermen and wipe them out. Now that the Doctor has stopped the bomb in the cave, he will have to turn the freighter into a bomb and crash it into the conference. After a bit of posturing, the Cyber Leader forces the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa to go and give him access to the TARDIS so he can escape the resulting crash. The Cyber Leader leaves everyone else with a couple of Cybermen to die on the ship.
Soon after, Scott manages to kill the Cybermen guards. Adric and the freighter crew work frantically at the locked controls and manage to take the ship though a warp and back in time. With nothing left to do, the freighter crew and Scott aim to leave the ship and urge Adric to do the same, but he's convinced he can break the codes to the ship that the Cybermen have installed and he can save the Earth. He stays behind to try and sort it.
Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, Nyssa, Tegan and the Doctor observe that the ship has gone back in time 65 million years and will effectively cause the ice age as it's now the meteor of legend. Scott manages to signal the TARDIS and tell them that Adric is still on the freighter but they've escaped. The Cyber Leader decides to kill the crew, but the Doctor suffocates him by rubbing Adric's gold mathematics badge into the Cyber Leader's vent (he took it just before they left Adric).
The Leader shoots at them, hitting the console and damaging it, and the Doctor is forced to take the gun and kill the Cyber Leader.
Similarly, Adric has just about found a way to avert disaster, but a Cyberman turns out to just be wounded and shoots the controls as it dies, stopping any chance Adric might have had. He watches as the ship hits the Earth and causes a huge explosion.
The TARDIS crew watch in stunned silence as Adric is killed and history goes on.
Trivia
- The cyberscope that the Cybermen watch the androids progress on was built using parts of the Nostromo set from Alien
- One of the androids would be sprayed silver and used later on for the awesome Raston Warrior Robot in The Five Doctors
- It's not clear why Matthew Waterhouse left the show, but it's entirely likely to have been a decision from John Nathan-Turner.
- The end credit scene is the only one since The War Games to have had rolling credits. The next time would be the new series episode, Rose.
- The part where the various Doctors are seen on the Cyberscope showed clips from The Wheel in Space, whilst talking about events that happened in The Tomb of the Cybermen. This was because Tomb had been wiped from the archives and hadn't been re-discovered yet
- Malcolm Clarke, the guy who did the soundtrack for The Sea Devils also did the soundtrack for this. He was asked to try and mimic the overused music that accompanied the Cybermen in Patrick Troughton's reign, but add his own flair to it
The Review
The Cybermen have been off screen for seven years by this point, and judging by the Revenge of the Cybermen, they were set a pretty low bar of expectation. The haters of this story would point out that there's baffling logic at work for much of this, with the odd way they go about destroying the world being at the forefront.
Whilst I can't deny those faults, I would say this is a story to sit back and enjoy, like the Sea Devils. It's there to show a triumphant return of a major villainous race, and give you a shock factor of them daring to actually kill a companion. Short of Robert Holmes, there's nobody better qualified to write a script like this than Eric Saward. His penchant for death-heavy stories plays very well here, and in the beginning, there's a real sense of the sinister - it's pretty much a copy of Aliens, just made four years earlier than the film! There's hints of the battle of Tantive IV in there too.
Unfortunately, the whole thing gets a bit drab in the middle once Beryl Reed enters the scene. It's not her fault entirely, the marines with useless guns and the pointless waiting around doesn't help at all. It's just something to get through, but there are a few nice highlights including the Doctor's discussion with the Cyber-Leader (even though it's the most emotional Cyberman I've ever seen).
The ending is fabulous, with the Doctor forced to actually take a life, and they witness the death of Adric. It's definitely morose and the silence for the credits is a very nice touch. Earthshock is definitely a Doctor Who story to watch, but go into it just looking for ways to see how awesome and cruel the Cybermen are and you'll have a good time.
Rating
9 out of 10
Re-watchability Factor
7 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- Attack of the Cybermen
- Silver Nemesis
No comments:
Post a Comment