Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

iWho Podcast: Earthshock Part 1

"Just drop him on the nearest airless planet..."

Tachyon TV rubs its hands with glee as it prepares to wave goodbye to Adric. Topics up for discussion this week include: John's tragic and homicidal childhood, TARDIS bickering, Matthew Waterhouse's CV, and tiny dinosaurs.

Note: the theme toon from 'Gangsters' was inserted on the advice of our lawyers. Oh, and it was raining outside (but it's still less noisy than a BSG podcast).

Available from the usual place

Wallace and Gromit in An Excellent Adventure with Cybermen

Earthshock - Episode 5

Couldn't let Earthshock pass without a quick mention of the most amusing episode 5. If you ask me, Matthew Waterhouse in plasticine form is even more lifelike than the real thing. Should Madame Tussauds ever feel the need to stoop as low as have a facsimile of Waterhouse then I doubt even his own mum could tell them apart.

And a quick shout out (Christ! I sound like a prospective leader of the Tory party) to Darren, at System Enterprises, the company responsible for this little vignette. I never did take you up on the opportunity of popping over to see all the Who ephemera that clutters the offices in Durham...

Enjoy the Silence

Earthshock Part Four:

I'm going to cut right to the chase - I love Adric's death. I bloody love it! But then again, I'm only human.

But why, oh why, oh why are they traveling backwards in time?  Eh? Anyone? Considering that Eric Saward thought that wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was a pretty neat idea (the Great Fire of London again, just on a bigger scale), why didn't he bother to come up with a decent way of getting us there? Adric's throwaway explanation that anything is possible if you hook your BBC Micro up to an Atari is just laughable.

Waterhouse leaves the series with a emblematic scene that sums up everything that is wrong about his performance. For example, how does he know that the keyboard is going to blow up seconds before it does? Look at him - he's trying to key in the numbers on the other side of the room! Then there's the pout, the camera mugging and the nasal whine. 100% concentrated Adric.

But what is truly great about this moment is the realisation that Adric has to die if we, as a species, are going to survive. In fact, if he did succeed in breaking the Cybermen's logic codes then the human race would have been completely screwed.

And there's also a lesson to be learnt: if he hadn't been such a git in episode one then he might have realised that the freighter was destined to smack into the dinosaurs and none of this would have happened (I mean, they were only wondering about that an hour ago; seriously, what are the chances?).

You could make a case that Adric nobly sacrifices himself for the greater good but it isn't altruism that gets him killed - it's arrogance, petulance, stupidity and fate. The poor bastard never stood a chance.

It's just a shame that I can't appreciate the harrowing scene where the Doctor realises that he's dropped a bollock, because I'm far too busy noticing that Sarah Sutton is trying not to laugh...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Earthshock Part Four: The regular cast were laughing so hard during Adric's death scene it took five whole days to shoot it. The resulting overtime came out of 'Time-Flight's' FX budget.

Death. And no rebirth.

Earthshock - Episode 4

This is piracy! Long John Cyberman and his scurvy first mate have taken over the freighter and turned it into a flying bomb. Remember, turn down the sound and play this when the Cybermen are on the march. Hey presto! Instant none shitness.

The same, however, cannot be said of the dialogue. Frumpy and Mousey are still holed up in the TARDIS and are exchanging pearls like:

Frumpy: "What was that?
Mousey: "I don't know. A robot?"
Frumpy: "They're huge"

Andrew Pixley, whilst digging through Sarah Sutton's bins to gather as much evidence for an Earthshock Archive, discovered that it took 35 retakes to get the required level of disinterest into that short scene.

Tegan's still playing hide'n'seek with some Cyberchumps but eventually gets caught and the Cyberman now indicates that she's it and should count to 100 before coming to get him.

And what happened to the TARDIS' state of temporal grace? Or whatever the hell it was meant to be. Thought that was supposed to prevent weapons from going off in the TARDIS? But at least Frumpy gets it so it's not all a waste of time. Russell T., in the latest DWM Special, proposes that continuity started in the bright lights and garish colours of 70's Who - before then, anything went, anything was possible and didn't need to all add up. Better that then getting so anal about things like a state of temporal grace...

The soppy incidental music every time Adric takes centre stage merely emphasizes the sheer dopiness and uselessness of this tosser. Even mathematicians would be repulsed by this sad excuse for an idiot savant. Thank god we're inches of videotape away from his more than timely demise.

We're still focusing a little too much on the Cyberarse, reminds me of the furore there was when we got to see the Bat-butt in the George Cloony version. Turning attention to the Cybermen who have escorted the Doctor and Tegan back to the TARDIS, one of them seems to be having a de-misting problem inside the helmet, with his chin plate misting up. I've only recently noticed their "eyebrows" and the money-box slot on the top of their heads. By comparison with the 2006 versions these look really shoddy.

And Matthew Waterhouse. Such bad acting at the end as he knows there's going to be an explosion but is too scared to actually tap the keyboard with any force. You can tell he's gingerly pressing the keys because he knows what's coming. It's not as if, if he sustained serious injury, he wouldn't be able to work for a while. It's been 23 years and counting and he's not worked since...

Then we come to one of the most po-faced and ridiculous bits of Doctor Who's entire canon - silent credits as the annoying little turd plummets towards the Earth to die in the wreckage of the freighter. And a nation celebrates. Every time I watch this I feel the need to have a copy of an instrumental version of Little Spanish Flea on stand by to play over the end credits.

Go on. Do it. I guarantee that it'll add the requisite gravitas to the closing moments. And will also make you fancy a tequila.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part 4 of Earthshock: Early plans to show Adric's burning and broken corpse mashed into freighter debris during the end credits were dropped from the production. So you'll just have to go on trying to imagine that wonderful sight.

Leave in Silence

Adric and Minnie Caldwell: not exactly a combination you’d normally mention in the same breath, but a significant pairing nonetheless. ‘Who’s Minnie Caldwell?’ I hear some of you ask (or if you’re feeling particularly cruel, ‘Who’s Adric?’). Well, back in the 60s Minnie Caldwell was one of the regular members of the Rovers Return’s matriarchy; led infamously by one Ena Sharples (think Davros in a hairnet with a northern accent). And when Minnie Caldwell’s character was killed off - dying quietly over her light ale in the pub one night - they decided to play that edition’s end credits to total silence. Starting to get my drift?

But enough about that for now. There’s plenty to cover in ‘Earthshock’ part four before we get to the bit where Adric bites the bullet. And to be fair it’s not an episode (like one or two of its stable-mates) that has you watching the clock more than you do the screen. Basically the Cybermen have now decided to turn Beryl Reid’s freighter into a giant bomb; with the ultimate aim of wiping out a conference of planetary dignitaries who would otherwise kick some serious Cyber-arse (pre-emptive strikes…flying bombs; this was screened before September 2001, wasn’t it?). Meanwhile, the TARDIS tag-team of Scott, Tegan and a few other faceless extras have gone on the offence, with Tegan inevitably getting split up and captured by Cybermen (who curiously almost seem to know her connection to the Doctor despite no reason for doing so, otherwise why not just kill her?). And being a Saward script, Professor Kyle (left to mull things over with Nyssa without even her overalls to comfort her) is soon being killed off needlessly in the absence of anything better to do (although her death does at least provoke a flicker of life behind Sarah Sutton’s otherwise glazed expression; only a flicker, mind).

Elsewhere Dame Beryl is still blathering on about ‘warp drive’ as though it’s somewhere she lived as a young repertory actress. But fear not, Tegan - all mouth on legs still intact - is soon being thrust into the mind-games between the Doctor and the Cyber-Leader; with the latter - rather hypocritically - castigating the former for his emotional weakness (big words from a machine who says Excellent! as though he’s simultaneously creaming his pants). Seriously though, Davison and Banks do play these moral tennis scenes very well, with Davison in particular shining (and being granted one of my all-time favourite Who lines about ‘small, beautiful events being what life is all about’…shame Peter himself apparently didn’t like the line very much, as he delivers it perfectly).

Then we’re off to the TARDIS so that the Cyber-Leader and his minions can observe their moment of triumph in comfort (with cream teas and recliners no doubt the order of the day), leaving Adric to fend for himself with the (surprisingly high for a Saward story) gang of freighter survivors. I suppose you’re meant to be touched by that leaving scene between him and the Doctor and Tegan (especially as a sting of ‘Adric’s theme’ from ‘Full Circle’ cuts in part-way through). But by now Waterhouse has become so irritating that it’s all you can do not to shout DIE, BASTARD, DIE! at the TV set (which can be embarrassing when in polite company…)

And for a story not exactly averse to a touch of overdone foreshadowing, the piece-de-resistance has to be the Cyber-Lieutenant’s careless handling of that console’s lever; snapping back like a dodgy handbrake and reviving some of the dormant Cybermen who (for some reason) remained dormant even after the ‘My army awakes’ line of part three (and besides, having revived some 15,000 Cybermen, why is the Leader’s next move to abandon ship and leave 99% of these poor buggers behind? Not exactly efficient use of an invasion force, is it?). Anyway, I wonder if we’ll see one of these recently awakened drones sometime later?

From here on in we’re into the Doctor Who equivalent of the ‘Battle of the Somme’; as extras, Cybermen and even regulars fall left, right and centre. The Cybermen suddenly being killed by their own guns doesn’t exactly do much for their credibility (especially after the mincing emotions of the previous three episodes) and when even the sacred temple of the TARDIS console room rings to the sound of laser fire (so much for Temporal Grace, huh?) then you just know that some serious blood is about to be spilled. But not before the Fifth Doctor gets involved in some uncharacteristically brutal action, scrubbing Adric’s gold-tipped badge into the Cyber-Leader’s chest unit and blowing him away with his own gun into the bargain (and they say Colin Baker’s Doctor was psychotically violent…). It really can’t be underestimated the impact this sight had on fandom at the time; and Davison himself is really excellent again this episode, combining his Doctor’s sense of quiet resignation and righteous anger to a pitch-perfect degree. As later in ‘Caves’, here is a Doctor who for all his perceived, emasculated demeanour is not averse to desperate measure when the time calls.

But perhaps it’s the suddenness with which ‘Earthshock’ ends that still gives it its impact all these years later. With Cybermen falling like Autumn leaves and the Doctor desperately attempting to board the stricken freighter, the screen just flares to white and Adric is gone. Hurray, we all cheered at the time; but I remember being genuinely moved by his exit. He may have died as he lived - an obnoxious know-all brat who never knew when to quit - but Adric and Matthew Waterhouse were certainly given an exit that few fans have forgotten since. Just as Peter Davison said would happen at the time…

So, not exactly the ‘classic’ that we probably all once remembered, but ‘Earthshock’ is still blessed with an excellent first episode, two of the most memorable cliff-hangers in the show’s history and a Doctor who gave the words ‘reckless innocence’ a whole new definition. Better - and worse - would follow, but for me this is still an era-defining story. It’s just a shame this wasn’t the season’s last story and that - as with ‘Twin Dilemma’ - JNT managed to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse with the following week’s ‘Time Flight’. As they say, the more things change…

(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘Earthshock’ 4: the silent credits were in fact implemented to block out the studio sound of Peter Davison laughing like a tit while reading the script to ‘Time Flight’)

"I'm just a mouth on legs..."

Before I start reviewing, I have to get this out - with the Cyber Leader, we finally know what happened to Mr Burns. Excellent. It's been a while since I did a proper review, so here's hoping I can still do it!

That first episode, huh? If not for the DVD cover, I wouldn't have guessed it was the Cybermen. Makes you wish we could do surprises like that in modern times, doesn't it? But it's an excellent (feel free to strum your fingers every time I say that) first episode, full of drama and suspense. And an infodump that, shockingly, becomes horribly relevent later on. It's all good. But can it last? Well, yes. For the most part.

See, I've heard the Cybermen before. I like how they eventually sound - the electic death is perfect for making you quake in you (moon)boots. But what the hell was this? Remove all menace from the buggers, don't you? Christ. And a few other things. Playing with plastic bags is dangerous, surely? Why are they vulnerable to their own weapons? Why do they have to explain every little detail? But all those points aside, the Cybermen are as deadly as ever.

And yes, the suspense is carried across as the Doctor and Adric defuse a bomb, journey to its origin and are framed for murder (again). Much death and destruction (and a nice impression of Han-Solo-In-Carbonite) later and we've got a pretty good story. But there's one more trick up the production team's sleeve... I'm not afraid to admit that I was choked up when it happened. It was pretty damn moving. It's moments like this that really do make great television. It's what makes Doctor Who so excellent. (Fingers strumming) God only hopes the new series can have moments like this.

Off topic: check out the Outpost Gallifrey 2005 poll. Not so much for the best episode, but the worst... glad to see others agreeing with me for once. And hell with it. All three charity specials on Sunday as mini-reviews. Yeeha.

Emotion is a weakness

…as my tinny-voiced Product Enterprises Cyberman would no doubt agree (provided his batteries hadn’t run down). And pretty much underlines why the Cybermen aren’t really a significant threat in this story: giving them feelings has made them just like any other alien race intent on destroying the Earth.

Things do improve this episode; although there’s still much tortuous waffle to wade through first, with the action - such as it is - divided in equal thirds between the TARDIS (where Sarah Sutton appears to have lapsed into a coma judging by her performance), the freighter bridge and the Cyber-headquarters (which appears to be based slap bang in the middle of the hold…begging the question why has no-one found them up to now).

With the Doctor and Adric - surprise, surprise - fingered as the murderers, Briggs at last seems to be bothered about where her missing crew members have got to (although Beryl Reid is still clearly oblivious to the meaning behind any of her lines). The Fifth Doctor’s already in default mode for this incarnation: breathlessly extolling his innocence while no-one takes a blind bit of notice (a mode which reaches something of a catharsis in ‘Caves’ with the line ‘I am telling the truth…I keep telling the truth. Why does no-one believe me?’ To be fair, it’s a wonder he didn’t lose it long before crashing Stotz’s ship onto Androzani Minor).

Meanwhile the Cyber-Leader - keen to ensure the Doctor ‘suffers’ for their past defeats (very emotionless, that) - has his own guard activated in readiness for the next phase of their plan to destroy Earth/disrupt a peace conference/kill The Doctor (take your pick, this is an Eric Saward script after all…). Leading to a scene which surely caused the BBC one or two headaches in the health & safety department, as a waking Cyberman claws a polythene bag off his head as though he’s just come off the production line (you can hear Mary Whitehouse gyrating underground as I speak).

Back in the TARDIS, the whole situation has apparently got too much for Tegan, who suggests a spot of clothes-swapping with Professor Kyle just to ease the boredom. Then she’s off with Lieutenant Scott and some (no doubt doomed) extras to show Ridley Scott how post-Alien, gung-ho females have at last penetrated Doctor Who’s sexist veneer (and as a result, fails miserably). At which point it must be asked just what were those chatty-looking Cybermen discussing while Tegan and co. waited for their chance to strike? The cost of chrome polish? Which one of them’s got the cutest Cyber-arse (of which Grimwade shows plenty of candidates this episode)? Or, perhaps, the merits of their 2005 redesign (in which case, no wonder their gesticulations are so animated). It’s a great (and rare) peek into a Doctor Who monster’s private moments, and something we really should have had more of (personally I always wondered how Davros went to the loo myself…).

Back on the bridge, sneery-old Ringway is at last revealed to be the latest in a long line of Tobias Vaughan-style Cyber-collaborators (after seemingly an eternity of standing around holding a gun on everyone). Which only gives the Doctor an excuse to go off on one about how he and the Cybermen go waaaaay back, with obligatory mentions of gold, Telosian tombs and that pleasant weekend they shared in Cleethorpes one balmy summer. Which leads on to one of the original series’ more impressive special effects, as the Doctor uses some garbled techno-babble (not to mention deft timing) to partially encase a Cyberman in a door (though the result is, inevitably, somewhat less impressive when viewed now).

But if nothing else, the Cybermen are sticklers for the maxim if at first you don’t succeed; as with a strategically-placed Cyber-explosive they are soon marching mincingly onto the bridge for some ‘We meet again, Doctor’ pleasantries. And Ringway ends up the way of all Cyber-partners, in a hale of post-production laser fire and bad acting. ‘You don’t change…’, says the Doctor who clearly hasn’t taken notice of the amount of time the Cyber-race spend watching What Not To Wear (with Trin-EE and Zu-Zana as hosts, no doubt). And as the Cyber-Leader reaches something of a crescendo of smugness (which for him is no small feat) his ‘army’ starts crashing their way out of giant bog rolls to march synchronically towards camera (on which point, Grimwade is much more successful in establishing six extras as fifteen thousand through tight editing, rather than through the mirrored split-screen that ends the episode).

So the army is awake and the Doctor and co are up against it - tune in tomorrow to found out who makes it out alive (and more importantly who doesn’t…)

(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about Earthshock 3: due to newly enforced equal opportunity regulations, much of this episode’s second-unit work was directed by midgets; resulting in much of the scenes involving Cybermen being filmed at no higher than crotch level)

Excrement

Earthshock Part Three:

I've just remembered yet another reason why I hate this version of the Cybermen so much - visible panty lines.

Now, where were we? Ah, yes, Beryl Reid, the 80's equivalent of William Hartnell. When her first line - "What's the diday?" - spills out of her mouth you just know it's going to be a bumpy ride...

Tegan finally changes out of her stewardess uniform into... a pair of crumpled overalls. It's feminism gone mad, I tell you! She joins the snowmobilers in their desperate quest to involve themselves in the plot, while some faceless members of the freighter crew throw themselves selflessly to their deaths without so much as a "Nooooo!" (or else Equity might have to pay them). It's hardly surprising that they all get butchered because their tactics amount to nothing more than stacking boxes, which might not be quite as silly as it sounds. OK, so it doesn't stop the Cybermen from shooting you in the head, but it doesn't half make it tricky for the top-heavy goons to navigate.

Just when you think the sight of Matthew Waterhouse reacting to some fake heat is the worst thing you've ever seen on television this side of Artemis 81, Beryl steps in with an even worse attempt (maybe he coached her on her performance?). Panto? Yes. Mime? No.

There is, however, a great special effect in this episode when the Cyberman gets stuck (literally) in the door. It almost makes the ten minutes of technobabble that sets it up worthwhile. However, given that the Cybermen simply blow open an adjacent door ten seconds later, you have to wonder why they didn't do that in the first place...

The final mirror special effect, which valiantly tries to make it look like there's fausends (well, dozens) of Cybermen, is a nice attempt. It's just a shame that it cuts off the advancing Cyberman's arms at the end. The idiots.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Earthshock Part Three: Matthew Waterhouse had to be screwed into his costume.

Shrink Wrapped for Extra Freshness. Keeps the Evil In...

Earthshock - Episode 3

The Doctor and Adric are captured by the oh so butch Ringway. Stamping his little Cuban heels and wafting his weapon around in front of him. Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, mustachioed muscle bound military type is stuck with three of the oddest women in the galaxy: the frumpy one, the mouthy one and the mousey one. Where are the rest of the expedition they brought with them from the planet Earth? Are they all trashing Adric's room in an attempt to find all that stashed porn that he must have in there somewhere?

The cling-film wrapped Cybermen are a little strange. Why go to the bother of covering them in a protective film? Shrink wrapped for extra freshness? Make sure that they're not passed their sell by dates? Or their invade by dates? Given that these metallurgist's nightmares were at their peak in the 60's I'm sure they should be turning fair moldy by now.

Considering we're about 60 minutes into a 100 minute adventure, when the Doctor finds out that it's actually the Cybermen that he's up against, is quite good going.

Although even the sight of bristling nasal hair doesn't do much to ramp up the tension. Yesterday I talked about how unlike the usual structure this story is and, whilst it's still a cut above, it's not the thrill-a-minute ride I was expecting (or had remembered it as). There's not an awful lot happening, to be honest. Lots of skulking around a cargo hold and lots of Beryl Reid getting her surgical supports in a twist. Bless.

By far the worst thing about the Cybermen is the fact that they look as if they've been dressed completely by some bastard love child of Primark and Accessorize. Just get a load of those silver moon boots and the silver trinkets that adorns their body. I'm surprised they don't also sport silver sovereign rings, large hoop earrings and piercing in what's left of their organic matter (which in this case would be a stud through the chin and a neuron clamp on their cerebral cortex). No wonder the Doctor describes them as being far worse than robots. Robots are a man's best friend, doing all those jobs that men hate like defusing bombs, washing the dishes and sleeping with Vanessa Feltz.

And where does this "Cybermen are allergic to gold" nonsense come from? I'll tell you where from - their fear of commitment, that's where. Picture the scene, two Cybermen in a long standing loving and murderous relationship want to express their love for one another and buy each other a ring. But because the gold ones were too expensive they made up some cock and bull story about being allergic to gold and Bob's your cybernetically augmented uncle. If all you needed to do to defeat a Dalek was go up some stairs then all it would take to defeat a Cyberman would be to push them into a branch of Elizabeth Duke jewelers shop in any branch of Argos.

And those two! What are they doing? Having a conversation? All you needed was for a water cooler to be dropped into the scene and they could have been talking about last night's Sex in the City or which page of the Comet Christmas Catalogue made them go all cyber-horney. My money's on the stainless steel kitchen appliances. They're not called stainless for nothing you know!!! And whilst we're on, their catch-phrase. Excellent. What's that all about? What sort of focus group came up with that dumb line? Sheesh. We shouldn't be afraid of these losers, we should piss scorn and derision onto them from a vast height.

However, as the bridge comes under attack, I thought that the Cyberman getting stuck in the door was absolutely fantastic. It's a fairly simple effect and he looks just like Han Solo in that block of carbonite at the end of the Sunderland Empire Strikes Back or whatever it's called. A film so bad, it put me off cheese and tomato sandwiches for quite some time, I can tell you. I can also tell you that Mawdryn Undead put me off a sausage roll for much the same reason. I had a fairly traumatic up bringing, don't you know.

Back to what remains of the episode and we get lots and lots and lots of Cyber-butts jiggling across the screen.

Me thinks someone was directing out one of their deepest, darkest fantasies...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part 3 of Earthshock: The Cybermen originally came from Earth's twin planet, Mondas, and not Croydon as previously thought.

al-Qaeda - The Cyber-Converted Years

Earthshock - Episode 2

It's just like an episode of Lost as a mysterious hatch is revealed beneath a rock fall. I'm expecting the pot-hollers to tune in a radio and get a mysterious message in French... read out by Gary Downie, and it's Adric's turn for a flashback sequence as we find out that he was actually bullied as a child on Alzarius.

Why can we see the chins of this iteration of the Cybermen? You can't tell me that these silver nonces have had all remnants of their humanity expunged apart from their brains and their chins? What about shaving? Do they still need to do that? Perhaps it's only there so that, in one of their more pedantic juvenile moments they can rub their chin and taunt the Doctor with "Chinny Reck-on"? I'd like to think so.

These androids, with the explosive palms (quite possible as a result of ensuring that they don't indulge in a little onernism) areapparently too valuable to waste. Perhaps the Cybermen are paying for them on the never-never. It's also deduced that, as they're logical automatons, you can create confusion in their logic circuits by attacking the hatch and bending their poor little logical brains round a spiral staircase. They're basically fighting a bunch of Texas Instrument calculators. Attacking what they're programmed to defend. Programmed to do that and display the number 5318008 which, when they swing upside down, displays the word BOOBIES.

Here's a typical extract from the dialogue of episode 2:

"Is the second android fitted with visual monitoring?"

"No, Leader. That was an additional 450,000 credits, so we went with the own-brand version which was considerable cheaper and meant that we could also afford this lovely console that was a reject I bought off CyberBay from someone claiming to be Lucas of George."

Cyber technology is too advanced for humans. That's a miracle, since most of it looks like it originated from a Dixons high street retailer, including the bomb which itself resembles a Dixon's own make Sashio Ghetto-blaster, circa 1980. You can just imaging the Cybermen marching into the store and being dealt with by the master of disinterest, a 16 year-old retail drone, who really isn't interested in anything other than Final Fantasy 17 and girls with angry chests. I'd imagine that they would have had problems flogging extended warranties on any items that the Cybermen purchased.

Arming procedure. Tension's mounting. Display readout incomprehensible. Acting terrible. Perhaps the Cyberworld's Staff Development Unit is going to come under some fire as a result of the poor performance from these two imbecilic tin heads? Performance development reviews all round and a very stinging probation report from Cybermanager as a result of his minions ridiculous performance.

I absolutely loved the clip montage when I first saw this. I know I shouldn't. And it's geeky. And just plain wrong. But I loved it. Back then I'm not completely sure I knew who the old buffer and the chap with the pudding basin hair-cut were but I thought it was wonderful. Mind you, for all this advanced Cyber technology that was knocking around you'd have thought that they would have invented VIDFire to improve the quality and fluid motion of the clips they played from their archive.

Shifting the action mid way through the second episode makes the whole story feel much bigger than it actually is, and probably guarantees that you don't get that usual third episode lull as people run around the same corridor set for 25 minutes. We're basically starting again, except this time we've got - typecast as per usual - Beryl Reid in her toughest and most uncompromising role to date... as a jaded freighter captain. I must go back and read a bit about what she thought she was doing but for her entire screen time for this episode she seems to be labouring under the impression that she's actually been lined up for a guest stint on Last of the Summer Wine and it's all one of Foggy's harebrained schemes.

Wasn't she heard to mutter "Warp Drive? Isn't that off Tottenham Court Road?" or some such insanity? Is it any wonder the poor love didn't know what she was doing...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part 2 of Earthshock: Beryl Reid made life for the production team a living hell as they had to pander to her every whim. Amongst the outrageous requests she made were: freshly baked ham was to be made available to her, in her dressing room, at all times; she needed the private use of Terry Wogan between studio sessions and needed her entourage, which consisted of 14 blue rinsed old dears, to be plyed constantly with gin and orange.