Silver Nemesis

Three Episodes
Aired between 23rd November 1988 and 7th December 1988

Written by Kevin Clarke
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough

Synopsis

Two groups of people are interested in a comet that is crash landing on Earth at Windsor on 23rd November, 1988: the first is a bunch of Nazi's who have been residing in South America, led by an Aryan man called De Flores.  The second is a Jacobean woman - Lady Peinforte, and her assistant, Richard.  They have employed the use of a mathematician to calculate the comet's exact angle of descent. Once they know it, they kill him and take potions to travel in time to 1988.

Elsewhere, the Doctor and Ace are in Windsor, enjoying a nice bit of Jazz when his pocket watch bleeps. It's an alarm set to remind the Doctor of something important, but he can't remember what.  It seems it's to do with here and now however, as gunmen open fire on them and they narrowly escape by jumping in the river. After fishing themselves out, they go back to the TARDIS and the Doctor uses Ace's modified tape deck to discover that indeed, the Earth is in danger of destruction. 

He takes Ace and they travel to the bowels of Windsor Castle where he says he's looking for a silver bow which he suspects is part of it. 

Now in 1988, Lady Peinforte and Richard have brought with them a silver arrow which begins to glow as the comet hits Earth. 

In Windsor's basement, the Doctor feels the impact of the comet and determines it's to do with the nemesis- a piece of living metal that he brought with him from Gallifrey and sent out into space to keep it out of the hands of enemies. It crashes down every 25 years, and he sends it back up again, but it brings with it destruction, heralding significant events with it, such as the assassination of Kennedy, the start of WWII and so on. Thankfully, the nemesis is useless without two other bits of living metal - the bow and the arrow - both made of this living silver and hidden by him. Unfortunately for the Doctor, the bow went missing in 1788.

The Doctor and Ace go back to 1638 and discover Lady Peinforte's home (he knows her well as she was involved in an altercation with him when he launched it into space then).  He finds her gone, and the Mathmaticians calculations that point them back to the exact spot of Nemesis' return. They return to present day windsor, and after nearly bumping into the Queen, they are arrested by security guards.  

They try the honest approach and ask for guards to help them, but they're not believed and the Doctor resorts to distracting them with hypnotism so they can escape.

At the crash site of nemesis, Police arrive, but are knocked unconscious by a mysterious gas that comes from tubes in the ground.  All three parties - De Flores, Peinforte and the Doctor turn up there and are met by a fourth interested party - the Cybermen.  

A firefight ensues and the Nazi's are mostly killed, but a few Cybermen are taken down with Peinforte's golden arrows.  

The Doctor and Ace make a run for it, taking the silver bow. Peinforte and Richard also withdraw and the Nazi's are fought off, leaving the Cybermen with the Nemesis.

After another quick visit to Peinforte's home and making a mysterious chess move on the board there, he takes the TARDIS back to present day.  He explains that Nemesis is made from Validium and needs the critical mass of all its parts to work. It was created by Omega and Rassilon in the old times as a defence for Gallifrey but can be misused and so it's why he keeps it at arms reach. The bow glows and can lead them in the direction of the Nemesis.

Deflores and Richard use the arrow to also find the Nemesis. It turns out the Cybermen took it to her burial place. Together, they drive the Cybermen away with the gold arrows. They discover that the Nemesis looks just like Peinforte and that her own bones are not there.

As Peinforte is in her own tomb, and Ace and the Doctor blow up the cyber shuttle with her canisters of Nitro-9, De Flores tracks down the Cybermen and strikes a deal with them to kill Peinforte on their behalf in return for having part of the Earth when it's conquered by the Cybermen. 

They attack and Richard trades the silver arrow for their lives, taking Lady Peinforte against her will and escaping.

Believing he's got all three parts of the Nemesis, De Flores betrays the Cybermen, but soon realises the bow case is empty as it's with the Doctor.  He only just manages to escape by blowing gold dust at the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, the Doctor uses Ace's tape deck to discover that a huge Cyber-Fleet is waiting in orbit.  

He uses the Jazz tape they bought to jam the signals between them. The Doctor decides in light of the amount of ships, it's probably better for him to activate the Nemesis and order it to destroy them all.  They get to the crypt, bluff their way amongst the Cybermen and through throwing the bow between them, get it close enough to the Nemesis statue to animate it.  They run and it begins to follow.

The Doctor makes another quick trip to 1638 to make another chess move against an unknown opponent, then grabs some gold coins before coming back to 1988, materialising in a warehouse.

The Nemesis finds them and can speak. It takes the bow and is willing to be ordered by the Doctor.  The Cybermen however turn up, and it's down to Ace firing the gold coins in a slingshot to save them.  The Doctor manages to set a new trajectory in the rocket sled of the Nemesis and orders it to destroy all the Cyber ships.  The Cybermen corner Ace and the Doctor. The Doctor bargains for their lives by threatening to destroy the bow using the sled's thrusters.  They go to retrieve it, but the sled activates, killing the Cybermen.  

De Flores turn up and takes the bow. He speaks to Nemesis, but she will not answer.  A once thought dead Cyber-Leader, shoots De Flores and kills him.  He then takes the bow.  Peinforte and Richard also arrive, and she threatens to uncover the Doctor's supposed big secret unless he gives her the Nemesis. He decides that the bow is better in the hands of the Cybermen and offers it to them.  Peinforte says she will let them know all about the Doctor and old Gallifrey's secrets if the Cyber-Leader gives the bow to her, but he say's he doesn't care about any of that. 

The Cyber-Leader then makes the Doctor cancel it's destructive capabilities to which the Doctor knowingly asks it if it understood. It says it does.  He is then ordered to make the rocket sled rendezvous with the Cyber-fleet, which the Doctor is more than happy to send it up there.  As it sets off, Peinforte dives into the sled. becoming part of the Nemesis.

The nemesis goes into the midst of the fleet, blows up and destroys them all. The Cyber-leader aghast, asks how. The Doctor said Nemesis understood, but it didn't have to comply with the order.  The enraged Cyber-leader is about to kill the Doctor, but Richard saves him, killing the Cyberman with a gold tipped arrow.

The Doctor takes them all back to 1638, where a grateful Richard entertains them with music and food and a game of chess.  Ace asks the Doctor what secret Peinforte had, who actually is he? 

 He puts a finger to his lips and listens to the music.  

Trivia

• The story was always to have the word "silver" in it, as it was there to mark the 25th Anniversary of the show. It was a natural conclusion therefore to also include the Cybermen as the villains, even though the writer asked for the Daleks.

• When Kevin Clarke was asked what idea he had for the script, he didn't have a single clue, but he bluffed his way through a meeting, suggesting that Doctor Who is actually God himself.  John Nathan-Turner liked the idea and said Kevin Clarke could go with it, but he could never reveal it explicitly. 

• When Clarke was writing the script, he went to lengths to avoid naming De Flores' men as Nazi's, especially as Germany had just begun to watch the show.  However, the Director had other ideas and put swastika's everywhere.

• Anton Diffring who played De Flores was not impressed with the part at all.  It seems he'd played stereotypical Nazi's like this for most of his career and hated it.  He only agreed to do the part because he could come to the UK and watch Wimbledon.  He sadly died a year after this was made

• The production company asked permission to both film at Windsor Castle, and for Prince Edward to be in the story, but both were declined

• The crowd that's getting a tour of the castle actually contained lots of past show directors and actors, including Nicholas Courtney, the Brigadier himself.  He was approached by John Nathan-Turner during this and the result of their conversation can be seen in two stories time.

• The waste ground and the gasworks site that was used for this story was the site where the Millennium Dome was eventually built

The Review

Silver Nemesis is one of the rare Doctor Who shows for me that I remember fondly from being a child, and when you watch it as an adult is particularly cringe worthy.  The bits that allured me to it are still relatively good now, and are no doubt the best parts of the story- Ace fighting the Cybermen with a catapult- the Cybermen emerging from their ship in all their chrome plated glory.

If it was an action film, then it would have had a halfway decent attempt at it.  The scenes are fast paced and exciting. The three way showdown in episode two is surprisingly good. The problem comes when you have to make sense of it all.  A lot of the plot is just nonsense e.g. why did the Doctor keep allowing the nemesis to return to earth if it instigates all the bad stuff? Where is the bad stuff that HAPPENED in 1988?  How did the Germans get to the UK from South America so quickly?  

It's interspersed with comedy also (the skinheads and llama's), which is a bit meh, and ultimately just wastes time, as does the repeated trips to 1638, although that is a nice hint that something bigger is going on.

One thing that you could say is that this is effectively the exact same plot as Remembrance of the Daleks, but done worse. Neither plot is glorious, but it's the components in it that make up the enjoyment.  Unfortunately for this story, there was less character development, less intrigue and a lot more nonsense going on for it to be an equal.

Rating

4 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• Remembrance of the Daleks

• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Attack of the Cybermen

Two Episodes (45mins each)
Aired between 5th January 1985 and 12th January 1985

Written by Paula Moore
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Matthew Robinson

Synopsis

Perri is still unsure about the Doctor's mental condition as he is currently frustrated at his attempts to repair the TARDIS' chameleon circuit. 

After a bit of persuading, he agrees to take Perri somewhere relaxing on Earth, but as he makes the adjustments, something pulls him to a specific location on the planet.

On Earth, Lytton, the stranded mercenary who fought with the Daleks has acquired himself a new job. He's now a bank robber, and has got a team together - Russel (an explosives expert), as well as Payne and Griffiths (hired muscle).  Together, they plan to steal 10 million pounds worth of diamonds, and Lytton orders Russel to get the explosives that day as the schedule has moved.

Russel goes to make the arrangements, but informs someone on the other end of the phone what the plan is.

The Doctor meanwhile decides to land and investigate a strange distress beacon, that seemingly pulled them off course.  The Chameleon circuit isn't working 100% and as they land at 76 Totters Lane scrapyard (See An Unearthly Child), it transforms into a french dresser. 

The Doctor starts wandering the streets with a tracker and Perri tries her best to keep up, all the while, they're unaware of two Policemen following them.

Lytton and his men meanwhile go into the sewers from an old access hatch at a garage site and move through the sewers, intending to blow the diamond vault from beneath.  It becomes obvious that they're being followed too, so Payne hangs back to kill whoever it is.  As the group get to the spot, they're surprised and captured by none other than a group of Cybermen (Payne is killed by a black stealth Cyberman in the process).  Russel however manages to slip away.

The Doctor traces the signal to the garage site and is confronted by the Policemen. They are Lytton's goons and are soon disarmed and cuffed. The Doctor and Perri go into the sewers to investigate and find Russel who after also being disarmed, tells them about Lytton's plan. It turns out that Russel is an undercover cop and was going to have them arrested but things went crazy with the arrival of the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, Lytton explains to the Cybermen that he's been looking for them (that was his real plan) and he wants to serve them. They tell him that the Cyber-Controller on Telos will decide his fate.

On Telos, the desert / ice planet, a group of captives work in the desolate landscape, digging rocks.  Three of the prisoners try to escape but one is killed, leaving only two - Bates and Stratton - to get away. Bates is angry and explains that they need 3 men to pilot a ship he knows is close by and they also need the head of a Cyberman to hollow out and use as a disguise. 

Back on Earth, the Doctor takes Russel back to the TARDIS but finds that the Policemen have been taken.  He's confronted in the sewers by a Cyber-Scout (black Cyberman) and kills it with his sonic lance.  Once they get inside the TARDIS, they see that it's overrun by Cybermen.  Russel is eventually killed and the Cyber-Leader orders Perri to be killed too. They are all spared however when the Doctor bargains to take the Cybermen to Telos if they let them live. 

The Doctor, Perri, Griffiths and Lytton are all closed inside an internal room off the console room and the TARDIS gets underway.

The Doctor leans from Lytton that the Cybermen have crude time travel thanks to a ship that crash-landed on Telos (and now the TARDIS). They have big plans for it, but Lytton won't say how he knows so much. 

The Doctor sabotages the trip, and they land in the catacombs of Telos instead of the main control room. 

The Cybermen lead them out, but they're attacked by crazed, diseased Cybermen from the tombs. The attack allows everyone to escape except the Doctor.  The humans run into the Cryons, ancient people of Telos who's cities the Cybermen took over for themselves. 

It turns out that Lytton was hired by the Cryons to help them stop the Cybermen and free their cities.  The Cybermen's plans involve going back in time to 1986 when Mondas arrived at Earth (see The Tenth Planet), and stopping its destruction.  They will then leave Telos and destroy it.

The Doctor meanwhile is placed in a cold room and meets the Cryon leader, Flast. 

She explains that the Cybermen will stop Mondas' destruction by diverting Halley's comet into Earth before Mondas can absorb too much of its energy. 

Lytton and Griffiths go out to find the crashed time-ship and meet Bates and Stratton, joining forces. Lytton is re-captured by the Cybermen along the way though. Ultimately, they do make it to the ship, but Cybermen are inside and they're all gunned down mercilessly.  Lytton is tortured and put into a conversion chamber.

The Doctor escapes his icy prison by using his sonic lance to warm up Vastial, an explosive mineral.  It blows the door and allows him to escape.  He gives his lance to Flast for her to blow up cyber control with the rest of the mineral.

The Doctor then finds Perri and they go to the TARDIS. The remaining Cryons urge them to go, but Perri convinces The Doctor to go back for Lytton, revealing his good intentions all along.  He takes the TARDIS to the conversion centre and finds Lytton but the Cyber-Controller finds him.

The Doctor palms a scalpel to Lytton who stabs the Controller when he reaches him. This is enough of a distraction for the Doctor to grab a gun and kill them, but not before Lytton himself is destroyed.

The Doctor mourns the loss of Lytton and escapes just in time for the Vastial to blow up and taking the time ship and the Cybermen of Telos with it.

Trivia

• The main thing to say about this story is that there's a lot of contention about who actually wrote it.  The simple answer is that Eric Saward wrote it.  The longer answer is that he wrote it, but Script Editor's couldn't usually commission their own work, so he got his ex-partner - Paula Woolsey to put her name to it (but called herself Paula Moore).  Not contentious so far, but... Ian Levine, continuity advisor to the show claims to this day that he had a lot of input into the story but goes un-credited.  Eric Saward strongly disagrees and says he had very minor things to contribute to the story.

• This is the first story of this season that intentionally shifted to using the 2x 45min format for episodes. The production team liked this format as the 25min format didn't allow much time for character or plot development.  

• The keen eyed of you will have spotted Terry Molloy playing the part of Russel. For those of you who don't know, he is the 1980's Davros. He got the part after the Director promised to find him a non-costume roll in one of his productions. 

•  Interestingly enough, Donald Plessence was down to play the part of Griffiths, but that fell through and Brian Glover got the part instead. He was supposed to play it cockney, but after two days of rehearsals, he managed to convince the Director to let him play it northern instead.

• The scene with Lytton getting his hands crushed was actually gorier, but was cut as a result

The Review

Being written by Eric Saward, the Attack of the Cybermen is similar in style to Ressurection of the Daleks, but whereas I feel that the Daleks story is innocent of much that is levelled against it, this is undeniably guilty.  The story is convoluted and far too complicated for its own good and big parts of it feel clunky and shoehorned in just to satisfy some need that they feel fans will have.

Case in point, there's no need to go to Totters Lane, but we do anyway. There's no need to mess around with the Chameleon Circuit, but we do anyway.  Was there ever a point in Lytton being there at all?  Yes, there's some small aspect of an arc there, but lets face it, his police goons barely feature in it and by the nature of the fact that he's a mercenary, there's no real personal stake in this for him at all.  Redemptive arc, fair enough, but it barely does anything to move me and make me lament his death even a quarter as much as the Doctor and Perri seem to.  You could just as well slip anyone into that role and it still work as well.

The biggest thing that this story is guilty of is trying too hard. It goes far above and beyond to cram in as much continuity references as humanly possible but manages it all awkwardly.  In a big way, this was meant to be a sequel to Tomb of the Cybermen, but seeing as it wasn't anywhere in the archives in 1985, the production of it doesn't even vaguely resemble the ice tombs of Telos that we now all know and love. The costumes are too up to date and you wouldn't use the old ones in a modern story even if you had them.  There's no Cyberman logo on the walls, and where did the Cryons and all these prisoners come from.  Come to think of it, what is all this about a crashed time-ship?! 

Is there anything good about this story then?  Yes.  The mood lighting is spot on. The music, when not having a god awful comedic theme for the criminals, is quite striking and the sections with Bates (as pointless as he was) is quite brutal and nicely raises tension.  The story as has been pointed out by others, is effectively cut into two.  The first part is a mystery - exploring seedy locations and building up horror, but the second part near enough destroys all of that with bonkers plot twists and confusing run around's for reasons that make little sense.

I want to like Attack of the Cybermen, and in individual scenes, it works, but as a whole, it's just very, very messy.

Rating

5 out of 10

Re-watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Tenth Planet

• Tomb of the Cybermen

• The Invasion

• Earthshock

• Resurrection of the Daleks

The Five Doctors

One feature length episode

Aired on 23rd November 1983

Written by: Terrence Dicks
Produced by: John Nathan-Turner
Directed by: Peter Moffatt

Synopsis

Someone on Gallifrey is using a Time Scoop to pick the Doctor out of his timeline at various points in his life, including during his previous incarnations.  To assist these Doctors,  they also take various companions that each Doctor will be familiar with.

The exception to this is the Fourth Doctor and Romana who accidentally get trapped in the vortex when the mysterious figure tries to transport them with the Time Scoop.

This has a painful side effect for the Fifth Doctor, who is chilling out with Tegan and Turlough at the Eye of Orion. 

It makes him weak and he begins to fade in and out of existence.  Luckily, he's aware of why and he sets the TARDIS in motion to try and track down the source of it.

Once they land, the Doctor collapses and Tegan and Turlough are pretty powerless to do anything.  Not long after this, the First Doctor and Susan, his Granddaughter walk into the TARDIS, having just escaped from a mirrored maze where they defeated a Dalek.

Being in the area where his previous selves are presumably located, allows the fifth Doctor to recover.  Between himself and the first Doctor, they come to the realisation that they're on Gallifrey in the Death Zone.

Meanwhile, the second Doctor meets up with Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart at his reunion in UNIT. 

They're both taken by the time scoop and when the second Doctor sees a great tower in the distance, he also realises that they're in the Death Zone. He explains that it's the tower of Rassilon, where the great first Time Lord is buried. Legend has it that the Death Zone was created by ancient Time Lords when they were sadistic and compassionate. They used the zone like the Romans used the Colosseum, putting people and creatures in it for sport. The tower of Rassilon was added after as a resting place for Rassilon himself.  Although he's supposed to be the greatest of all Time Lords, rumour has it that Rassilon was crazy and a bit of a tyrant too.

The second Doctor knows that the only way out of the Death Zone is to get to the tower, and so they set off.

In the Citadel on Gallifrey, the High Council (led by Borusa) calls in the Master, employing him to track down the Doctors and bringing them out, back to the Citadel.  They give him a seal of the High Council and a transmat device. In return, the Master will be given a full set of regenerations.  The Master accepts.

On his travels, the Master meets the third Doctor, but fails to convince him that he's there to help. 

Strange laser bolts come from the sky and attack them, leading the third Doctor to believe that it was the Master.  The laser bolts hit Bessie and the Doctor and Sarah Jane are forced to carry on via foot to the tower.

After some debate with himself, the fifth Doctor takes Tegan and Susan out into the zone to go to the main entrance to the Tower of Rassilon. 

They can't take the TARDIS straight there because of a force field stopping it. On their way, they meet the Master too. The fifth Doctor is similarly distrusting, but their conversation is broken up when they're all attacked by Cybermen. 

The Doctor uses the Master's dropped transmat device and goes to the Citadel whilst Tegan and Susan make it back to the TARDIS.  The Master is captured by the Cybermen.

Once at the citadel, the Doctor realises that the Master was telling the truth.  He begins to uncover the insidious plot, implicating someone from the high council of being behind all of this.  Evidence is found to suggest that the Castelan is responsible, but he protests his innocence and he's shot and killed before he can confess.

Meanwhile, the second Doctor and the Brigadier are forced to flee from Cybermen into a series of caves beneath the tower.  They encounter a Yeti and are almost trapped when the roof falls in, but they find a way out and continue into the tower.

The third Doctor has similar troubles as he and Sarah Jane encounter a Raston Warrior Robot. 

Luckily, the robot gets distracted by a group of Cybermen that turn up and they take their chance, getting hold of some rope and javelins nearby to help them scale the mountain at the side of the tower.

They use the steel rope and hook it onto the top of the tower, zip-lining out onto the top entrance of the tower.

Tegan manages to convince the first Doctor of the necessity to go to the tower, and they get to the main entrance, unmolested.  Turlough and Susan await the force field going down so they can transport the TARDIS.

Whilst at the tower, Tegan and the Doctor find a trapped floor, something that another encounter with the Master solves - they hide as the Master tricks the Cybermen into going across and getting killed.

The second and third doctors both meet phantasms of past companions within the tower, but overcome them, knowing that it's a mind trick created by Rassilon's will.

Eventually, the First, Second and Third Doctors all meet up in the Tomb of Rassilon and begin to decipher what the old high gallifreyan inscriptions on the tomb mean. 

They drop the force field and Turlough and Susan take the TARDIS there just in time to avoid being blown up by a cyber-bomb.

Back in the citadel, the fifth Doctor uncovers a secret room and finds Borusa in there.  He is behind it all - he brought the Doctor's to the Death Zone because the Tomb of Rassilon gives people the chance to become immortal and he wanted it so that he could rule forever. 

Now the force field is down, he transmats into the tomb and takes the Doctor with him.

The spirit of Rassilon appears and asks Borusa if he really wants immortality.

The second Doctor insists that the others keep out of it and vouches for Borusa.  Rassilon smiles and turns Borusa into stone, giving him permanent immortality in the side of his casket.

The second Doctor explains that it was all in the inscriptions - "he who wins shall lose and he who loses shall win".

Rassilon agrees to send the other Doctors back as well as the companions and they all say their farewells.

Chancellor Flavia, the remaining member of the High Council turns up and praises the Doctor, appointing him the new President.  The Doctor asks her to convene other members and says he'll be right back, retreating into the TARDIS quickly. 

Tegan is disappointed but the Doctor says he's running away, just like he did the first time.

Trivia

• This celebration was conceived two years before it aired, but there was by no means a story worked on for that long.  The original script was to have been produced by Robert Holmes, the show's greatest writer.  

• Robert Holmes got on with Eric Saward, but he had no love for Nathan-Turner and his huge list of things that the story had to have shoe-horned in.  His script eventually got adapted and used as the hub for the Two Doctors, but he passed up the chance to finish this one off.

• The team therefore turned to Terrence Dicks, calling him at 3am (because he was at a convention in New Orleans) and asking him to come on-board.  

• The completion of the script came fairly late as Tom Baker kept running hot and cold as to whether he was going to be in it or not.  The publicity shots eventually used his waxwork from Madame Tusaude's when it was clear he wasn't going to be in it.  He did however suggest using the footage from Shada. 

• The Death Zone was filmed in south wales and as it looks on the screen, it was freezing

• There was so much to do and film for this project that Director Peter Moffatt had to ask John Nathan-Turner to help him out and shoot some footage.  At least part of the Cyberman vs Raston Warrior Robot scene was filmed by JNT himself.

• The Five Doctors was shown during Children in Need, starting a tradition that would run on for a number of years 

The Review

I began this very blog by stating that my earliest memories of the show were from this story and that they'd stuck with me even now.  For a look back on that, see here.

Now that I've watched the show in sequence up to this point, it has slightly diminished my love for this story, especially as it's quite upsetting to see that Borusa is the main bad guy. It by no means spoils it though, and here's the reason why. There's lots of inconsistencies and out of character moments to pick out of it, but the the difference to other low scoring stories is that a tight, coherent story wasn't ever really in John Nathan-Turner's mind at the time. 

The Five Doctors was there to give a slideshow of classic villains, doctors and companions, and in that, it absolutely gets it right.  As other sources have pointed out, the public could have gotten a series of interviews with the cast instead (as would happen ten and twenty years later). At least the Five Doctors was meant to be given something of a high-stakes adventure for us all to enjoy.

The music is pretty great, and the feel of nostalgia is also good, especially if watched in 1983 when there was little chance of going back and seeing older Doctors strut their stuff. The Raston scene is brilliant and gives a real sense of tension, even if Jon Pertwee can't stop moving and talking as he tells Sarah Jane to not move or talk.

At the end of the day, yes, there's significant faults in logic (e.g. if they can give the Master a full set of regeneration's just like that, why does Borusa need Rassilon?). That doesn't mean that this isn't a very entertaining story.  If I give the Sea Devils 10 out of 10, then The Five Doctors surely deserves it too.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-watchability Factor

10 out of 10!

Watch this if you liked...

• The Three Doctors

• The Two Doctors

• Day of the Doctor (Doctor Who, 50th Anniversary)

Earthshock

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...

• The Daleks' Master Plan

• The Tomb of the Cybermen

• The Moonbase

• Attack of the Cybermen

• Silver Nemesis