Earthshock still shocks 40 years on!

 

It is forty years since Doctor Who fans got two big shocks with `Earthshock`. I was lucky enough not to know what was coming up in this story so I was able to be shocked indeed.  Anyone who watched the episode live back then will tell you what a big impact it had- the latest DWM has some examples- and all this time later it remains one of those stories that you watch with anticipation. The edge is still there- this is not a cosy watch like for example `Revenge of the Cybermen`, it’s a thriller with bite. It wasn’t just fans who were affected by `Earthshock`. It proved to be a hugely influential story on this period of the series which turned out to be a good and a bad thing. On the positive side it’s style led to a number of subsequent stories pushing the envelope when it came to both scripts and presentation such as `Caves of Androzani,` `Revelation of the Daleks` and `Vengeance on Varos`. However it also started a trend for a more violent streak in the show which ultimately was a contributing factor to the 1985 hiatus.

 

It’s difficult after all this time to convey just how exciting `Earthshock` was in 1982. In the pre-Internet days when Doctor Who news was largely confined to fandom most of us did not know either of the two `shocks` this story delivered especially as serious attempts had been made to hide them. The normally publicity conscious producer John Nathan Turner turned down a Radio Times cover for this story in order to keep its secrets under wraps until broadcast. During filming the public viewing gallery was closed. Apparently some people knew about the Cybermen because I suppose if you worked at the BBC you might notice six or seven of them wandering about. However the unsuspecting watcher was bowled over at the end of episode 1 when to the accompaniment of creeping incidental music, a red tinged android’s pov of a puzzled Doctor and then a clanging metallic chime we cut to a shot of Cybermen watching a scanner. I think Steve O’Brien summarised it succinctly enough on the original DVD release! Forty years on even when you know it’s coming, it can still give you a tingle! In fact all the keynote moments that everyone recalls still work really well.

 Some viewers may have picked up on the over-riding sense that something was happening with Adric early on in this story. He was unusually placed at the centre of things arguing with the Doctor in part 1 over his place in the TARDIS crew as writer Eric Saward articulated a frustration that perhaps all three of the then current actors playing companions must have felt. In part 2 Adric gets an especially heroic moment when he leaps on an android and helps destroy it, then he assists the Doctor defuse a bomb. He remains a proactive character throughout but the nature of the show is such that even when he is alone and seemingly trapped on the doomed freighter with an injured Cyberman lurking we still expected something to save him. It’s only when the console is wrecked that the resigned look on Adric’s face told us no rescue was forthcoming. He really was going to die. 

 Adric was never much liked as a character amongst fans though the wider public were less judgemental. Like each of this trio of companions he was also something of a mismatch. Nyssa’s character was undercooked to the point of blandness; to have an actor of Sarah Sutton’s proven talent often reduced to standing about with little to do was a shame. Tegan by contrast was overheated (constantly!) her tantrums ill suited to a character of her age and experience. Yet Janet Fielding could work so effectively when given more subtle dialogue. Adric had been conceived as `a cosmic Artful Dodger` which sounds cool but in casting an actor of limited experience and then more or less forgetting his character origins he got off to a wobbly start. Eventually Matthew Waterhouse found his groove and showed flashes of excellence; his verbal sparring with an irritable Tom Baker in `Logopolis` was his best work on the show till this story. Here, a believable Doctor/ companion dynamic is shaken out and again it’s Adric who delivers it. 

If Waterhouse felt short changed by his departure it at least ensured he would be widely remembered in a manner that many former Doctor Who assistants are not. Though there had been the deaths of Sara Kingdom and Katarina in the Sixties there has always been some debate as to whether they count as companions or not. Even if they do they hadn’t been there for long whereas Adric had a decent run that also spanned a significant time for the series. His death and the silent credits at the end, the only time the show did this, are remembered by those who saw it.

 `Earthshock` still feels and mostly looks great. Peter Grimwade imbues every frame with a power and the clanging incidental music, sound effects and spacious sets are a playground he exploits to the full. Grimwade’s not averse to some of the things we normally associate with Graeme Harper; he sometimes utilises handheld camera work and gives each scene maximum impact making good use of the large sets. He excels in the caves sequences in the first episode exposing the narrative’s harshness making no attempt to disguise how cold it was on location and ensuring that explosions are bold and loud.

 As the story progresses to the freighter characters are flung around and even dying Cybermen groan in pain. There are a few occasions where the action becomes too confined by the geography of the stairs on the freighter but you can probably put that down to time constraints during filming. A decade on from his incredibly different `Sea Devils` music Malcolm Clarke is no less bold here eschewing the floaty synth that had become the default incidental music in favour of something sharper and more metallic. He creates perhaps the most memorable one note sting the series ever had and incorporates marching rhythms in to his creepy music whenever the Cybermen are about. What a coincidence that he returns to the series ten years after his chaotic electronic Sea Devils symphony to pen more magic,

 Though full of great moments the story doesn’t bear too much scrutiny. All writers do this to some extent but Eric Saward doesn’t hide the fact he’s arranged his developments to feed those moments. So, we have oddities like why are there androids guarding the bomb? Indeed if the bomb is hidden why guard it at all? The answer of course is to hold back the Cybermen for the cliffhanger but surely he could have thought of a fictional reason? Later, a lever accidentally moves waking up another Cybermen for no reason other than to bother Adric at the end. Yet why not just use an already injured one? Why does Nyssa spend much of the time stuck in the Tardis?  The troopers pop in and then leave again!  And what eventually happens to Walters, the guy left on the comms outside- I suspect he probably perished of cold. Every time the story cuts back to him actor Steve Morley looks increasingly chilly! It is little things like this that only show on repeated viewings.  Some of the scenes were clearly rushed on a set that however impressive, doesn’t always suit. TV in 1982 was still made to be seen once or perhaps twice, it wasn’t until the later 80s that Doctor Who was made with repeated watches in mind as it very much is today.

 Eric Saward’s characters are interesting enough- and unpredictably cast too- yet somehow never quite develop. Surprisingly in view of the stick she took from fans back then the one who does is Briggs, played by Beryl Reid. Our reaction at the time was very much along the lines of how unlikely someone like her would be in that job yet it actually makes perfect sense. The character is jaded, obsessed with money, near the end of her career. Whether intentional or not, Beryl Reid’s delivery brings her alive in an interesting manner. I can actually believe she is the slightly greedy, corner cutting captain she is portrayed as. James Warwick is also convincing as Scott even if he has to spend much of the story on his way to somewhere either in the caves or on the freighter. Oddly enough the Cyberleader becomes one of the better characters thanks to David Banks’ interpretation. Peter Davison is also at his best in this story.

  Many of the others in what is a fairly large cast soon become cannon fodder in the battles ahead. It’s odd that a story which ends with the death of a major character has already shown us multiple deaths that somehow don’t seem designed to affect us emotionally at all. A little more acknowledgment of the horror and desperation of the scenario might have helped. `Earthshock` though is not really a story to be filleted so carefully. Best to enjoy it as a dramatic whole, packed with incident and a sense of foreboding. The first and last episodes particularly possess an urgency often missing from the series

  Its success could be seen as a green light that set the series off on a course of making darker, different stories. The violence in this story is justifiable and efforts were made to lessen the impact on younger viewers. Yet the success of the story emboldened the production team to push the envelope too far in the end. If it was conceived as something of a Cyber greatest hits it has far more value than that. For those of us that were there it is one of the most important stories of all, to those who weren’t it is an example of how a then nineteen year old series could still thrill and surprise.