Doctor Who Story 122 Earthshock by Peter Grimwade (1982)
3 December 2008An enjoyable tale of the 5th Doctor Peter Davison, which has quite a sad ending, and involves the Doctor’s nemesis the Cybermen. I like the tension between the Doctor and Adric, and how headstrong that Tegan is, and Davidson is really growing on me as a doctor. I will have to check out more of his episodes.
On a future Earth, a Lieutenant Scott (James Warwick) leads a military team with scanning gear with a Professor Kyle (Clare Clifford) to scan for lifeforms of missing members of the scientific team that were searching underground for dinosaur fossil remains. Kyle is the only member who made it out, and rest have disappeared. The team going underground is being stalked by two robotic figures. The Doctor (Peter Davison) is arguing with Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) who wants to go home, and is trying to plot a course, but the Doctor does not want to take him. Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) don’t like the tension. They take the Tardis to Earth, and end up in the same caves, and the Scanner detects them, especially the alienness of the Doctor. Scott’s teams are attacked, and the wounded people keep disappearing off the scanner as they are killed, and Scott assumes the Doctor must be killing them. The Doctor is fascinated by the dinosaur bones, and wants to go back and see how they became extinct from a great impact. Scott come across the Doctor, and want to kill them, but the Doctor helps them fight the androids that are fighting them, and the Doctor realizes they are defending something. The Andriods are working for the Cyberman, and realize that this must be the Doctor.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
The Androids are defeated with the help of the Doctor, but he discovers a bomb, which the Doctor attempts to disable, and must use the Tardis to stop the transmission, and then traces the transmission, which leads to an Earth Freighter out in Space heading to Earth, which is working to get to Earth fast to get a bonus, and has a pass to get through the defenses.
The Doctor and his companions along with SCott and some of his men go to the ship, but the Doctor and Adric go out alone, and find some dead men, and are found and blamed for the deaths.
They are taken to the bridge, where the meet the middle aged woman who is Captain Briggs (Baryl Reid).
Scott meanwhile heads out with some men and Tegan to find the Doctor.
The Cyber-Leader (David Banks) activates his Cybermen, which are hidden in the cargo hold, and they start trying to take over the ship, and killing the crew. A crew member Ringway (Alec Sabin) turns on the crew as he is working for the Cybermen, but the Doctor disarms him and manages to close off the bridge, and they realize there are 15000 Cybermen in the hold.
Scott, Tegan and the others manage to kill some cybermen, and get their weapons, while the Cybermen work to get into the bridge.
The Docotr taps an antimatter storage system and destroys a door by trapping a cyberman in it, but the Cybermen get through and take the bridge and kill Ringway since they think he betrayed them for not telling about the Doctor and Adric.
The Cybermen fit a device to the ship to make it collide with Earth to destroy a conference between several galactic powers meeting on Earth to make an alliance to destroy the Cybermen. They plan to crash the ship and use the Cybermen to destroy any survivors, but thanks to the Doctors interference will now use the antimatter engine to destroy the Earth.
Tegan loses Scott and is taken to the Bridge with the Doctor and they use her as leverage, leaving Adric on the bridge, and making the Doctor use the Tardis to move the Cyber-Leader. Briggs plans to abandon ship, but Adric stays to try and stop the device, by breaking a code.
On the Tardis they realize they have gone back 65 Million years, and the ship is the object that killed the Dinosaurs, but the Cyber-Leader damages the Tardis, so they can’t go to save Adric.
Adric has about broken the code, but a damaged Cyberman shoots the controls, and forced the ship to crash, killing the dinosaurs, and Adric along with it.
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Wow, the Death of a Companion, that is hardcore. Enjoyable.
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