Earthshock Part Two

The one where we meet a space freighter captain played by Beryl Reid...

Pretty much every time the Cybermen appeared, they had a different look. This is their seventh Doctor Who story, and their seventh different look. It works in the sense the Cybermen would always be trying to update and upgrade themselves, and their latest look brings the tin soldiers straight into the 1980s with their silver flight suits and power-fists. It's a chunkier, more durable design which would stand the Cybermen in good stead for the rest of the classic series. I particularly like the transparent mouthpiece, through which we can see a silvered human jaw speaking within. This reminds us that we're dealing with cybernetic humans, part-man and part-machine. These are the least robotic Cybermen since their debut in The Tenth Planet.

Their voices are different too, much less robotic than in the 1960s when sometimes their modulated dialogue was hard to make out. In 1975's Revenge of the Cybermen, actor Christopher Robbie debuted the deep, resonant, masculine voice, but here David Banks adds more intonation, and essentially makes the Cyberleader more emotional in his speech patterns. I like this too, I think it makes sense to demonstrate a balance between the human and the cybernetic elements of these monsters. It's a human-like voice, but one almost - but not quite - consumed by the cold, calculated logic of cybernetic conversion.

These new Cybermen (we've only seen three so far) also seem chattier, talking conversationally to one another like old friends. The Cyber Lieutenant is somewhat argumentative, often questioning his boss's decision-making skills, displaying caution in the face of the Cyberleader's zeal to press on. This is a new style of Cyberman completely, because in the past they were completely enslaved to the decisions of one Cyberleader, or a Cyber Planner, or Cyber Controller, or whatever. Cybermen never questioned, they obeyed. Here, the Cyber Lieutenant questions almost everything he sees and learns, which suggests an element of individuality has crept back into the Cyber race. Interesting...

In the caves, the androids continue to evaporate troopers, and are barely scratched by Scott's men's focussed lasers (and boy those lasers are bad). However, the androids are programmed for self-preservation, so when they feel outgunned, they scarper, one of them rather comically staggering away as if it's drunk!

The Doctor is curious as to why they are guarding the hatch so keenly, so unwisely decides to open it and look inside. Within he finds a primed explosive, flashing malevolently as it counts down to destruction. A race is on to defuse the bomb and save planet Earth! The scenes leading up to this are a jumble, with Nyssa given lines by Eric Saward which are basically the Doctor's. She talks like she's channelling Peter Davison as a medium, finishing his sentences with statements that feel like they were written for the Doctor. She has no personality or thoughts of her own, she merely says and thinks what the Doctor says and thinks. It's poor characterisation for a character who's sparsely sketched in the first place.

There's also Lieutenant Scott, who's gone from being deeply mistrustful of both Professor Kyle and the Doctor, to suddenly deferring to him with apparently unearned trust. A soldier such as he would not acquiesce so easily, especially as the situation they find themselves in is overwhelmingly militaristic, with a discernible armed enemy and a giant explosive to boot. The fact Scott almost blends into the background to become a mere passenger in the Doctor's adventure doesn't ring true.

Tegan bundles everybody into the TARDIS for safety. That includes several of Scott's troopers, but very few of them actually appear later on. We see a couple of them wander off into the TARDIS environs, when actually they could be directly involved in the adventure. Yet again, the TARDIS is being used as an intergalactic taxi, something no longer wondrous and amazing as it was in the 1960s. It's just a base of operations during this era.

Back at the bomb (which looks like a ghettoblaster), the Doctor and Adric work as a team to try and defuse it. It's lovely that it ends up being just the two of them again, after the explosive exchanges of part 1. It feels like the Doctor and his young ward are reconnecting, with the mentor asking the student for various tools (magnetic clamp, laser cutter, magnetic drone), as well as using him as a sounding board ("Tell me, Adric. Why a bomb? Why a bomb and not a missile or some other device, and why these particular caves?").

Later, in the TARDIS, the two have a heart to hearts which warms the cockles. They apologise to each other for their harsh words, and Adric admits he doesn't really want to go back to Terradon. Nevertheless he's done all the calculations required to enable the TARDIS to take him, just in case! This is a very sweet scene between Matthew Waterhouse and Davison, culminating in the Doctor affectionately bumping Adric's head with the notepad, and Waterhouse giving one of those beaming, impish grins. About time!

Meanwhile, the Cybermen have been playing back their tapes of the androids' battle with the troopers, and the Cyberleader notices something familiar to him. "What is that? I know that object!" he booms as the TARDIS comes into shot. Have we met this Cyberleader before? Perhaps this Cyberleader has had the experiences of a previous Cyberman (or men) uploaded into his memory banks? Cyberleaders may come and go, but their collective experiences go on, continually transferred into successive shells. Was this Cyberleader present for The Tenth Planet or The Moonbase, but in the form of a regular Cyberman? Now he's in charge, complete with black handlebars to make that clear.

The Cybermen then watch back their old tapes of Doctor Who, and we're treated to clips of Hartnell in The Tenth Planet, Troughton in The Wheel in Space (although Saward's dialogue refers to The Tomb of the Cybermen, which was missing from the BBC Archive at the time) and Tom Baker in Revenge of the Cybermen. It's great to see them all again, and a pity there's nothing for Pertwee, who never met the Cybermen during his era. It's also great to see the Cybermen reminiscing about old times, and past defeats!

With the bomb defused, the Doctor sets course for the origin of the signal which transmitted to the androids: a space freighter on its way to Earth. The Cyberleader isn't too fussed that the bomb's been defused because he has "contingency plans".

On the space freighter bridge we meet nervy officer Ringway, level-headed first officer Berger (another prominent female in a traditionally male role), and finally sharp-tongued captain Briggs, played by none other than Beryl Reid. The subversive casting of Reid is unexpected, eccentric even, but while some fans think it's a genius idea to have a matronly 62-year-old play the gritty captain of a space freighter, I tend to think it was less about genius and more about getting a big name as guest star (by 1982, she's a Tony and Olivier Award winner, and a Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee).

Reid is not ideally suited to this role, she's miscast in that she has no idea what's going on and fails to inject any amount of realism or truth into the part. Her disconnection from the piece is evident, and she's instantly out of place, immediately a cause for concern and mirth among viewers. At the time Earthshock went out, viewers were more used to seeing Beryl Reid pop up in comical roles in Worzel Gummidge, Agony and Nanny Knows Best. For Reid to convince as a hard-faced Ellen Ripley figure in wobbly old Doctor Who was far too much of a stretch for most.

She's entertaining though, I'll give her that. Her style of delivery is, shall we say, unique, and it's undeniable that Beryl Reid was never less than watchable in everything she did. I like how Briggs refuses to call Ringway by his name, instead using the barbed "mister". It's just a shame she looks about as convincing as Lucille Ball would in space.

I like the fact Eric Saward has moved the action completely from a cave system on Earth in 2526 to a space freighter on its way to Earth, dividing the story into two distinct halves and giving the narrative a kick up the bum. It didn't necessarily need it, but it provides a fresh start and adds to the ever expanding mystery. It does degenerate a little into a runaround, as the Doctor and Adric (together once more) wander the cavernous cargo holds of the freighter trying to get noticed, but when the sets and model work are as impressive as this, it's hard to get bored.

The episode ends with the Doctor and Adric being found by Ringway next to the bodies of Vance and Carson. It's a predictable cliffhanger in which the Doctor is mistaken for a killer, framed by an unseen other. But Alec Sabin gives it the necessary contempt: "On this ship we execute murderers."

It's been an entertaining two episodes so far, but now we know the Cybermen are back, we need to see them out and about, killing people, not skulking in the shadows bickering. It took until part 3 for the Cybermen to properly get involved in Revenge of the Cybermen, and a whole three-quarters of The Invasion passed before the Cybermen actually invaded, so it's high time we got some proper Cyber action this time around.

First broadcast: March 9th, 1982

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The repairing of the Doctor and Adric's relationship warms my cockles.
The Bad: Beryl Reid rocks. But not as a space captain in Doctor Who.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

Earthshock is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Earthshock-Peter-Davison/dp/B00009PBTQ