Doctor Who: Earthshock: Part 1 starts on Earth in the future during the year 2526 where a team of paleontologists & geologists have been attacked & killed in some caves, an army unit lead by Lieutenant Scott (James Warwick) along with the sole remaining scientist Kyle (Clare Clifford) is sent in to investigate but are picked off one-by-one by an unknown force. Meanwhile the Doctor (Peter Davison), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), Tegan (Janet Fielding) & Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) arrive in the cave system in the TARDIS. After an argument Adric stays behind in the TARDIS as the Doctor, Nyssa & Tegan explore their cavernous surroundings outside but run into Scott & his men who blame them for the unexplained killings...
Episode 19 from season 19 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during March 1982 this was Davison's sixth story as the Doctor from his first season, directed by Peter Grimwade I personally think Earthshock is Peter Davison's best story. The script so far by Eric Saward is a nice claustrophobic horror with a group of people being killed off one at a time by some unseen menace, in fact the whole heavily armed soldiers walking into an isolated & enclosed location & being picked off reminds heavily of Aliens (1986) even though Earthshock was made a full four years prior. I do like my Doctor Who stories when they try to be scary & actually have the balls to try & be horrific, there's plenty of dark cavernous corridors & the remains of melted soldiers to satisfy on both counts & there's the great ending which suddenly reveal the return of the Cybermen who are probably my personal favourite Doctor Who monster. At 25 minutes it moves along at a nice pace, the story is good if a bit familiar & it's a much better written & thought-out episode than usual for this period of the show's history.
The first thing to say is that the cave sets look a little fake, they aren't too bad but they are the one production aspect of Earthshock so far which lets it down. I also have to mention the new look Cybermen, they look great although I would maybe have liked a more electronic robotic sounding voice. In fact the Cybermen had not featured in Doctor Who since season 12 & the mighty fine Tom Baker story Revenge of the Cybermen (1975) but both writer Saward & the Doctor himself Davison were fans of the of the silver cyborgs which probably helped convince the production team they were ready for a long overdue come back. There weren't many special effects in Earthshock, the pink laser beams that the soldiers fire from their weapons actually look alright although the DVD (another brilliant special edition DVD by the way) gives you the option to replace these, as well as other various effects, with brand spanking new CGI beams which obviously look a lot better but as I said they aren't too bad to begin with.
Earthshock: Part 1 is just a great Doctor Who episode, it's got surprises, some nice tension, atmosphere, eeriness & the reappearance of the newly designed Cybermen in a great cliffhanger ending. Surely this is Peter Davison's best story, surely...
Episode 19 from season 19 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during March 1982 this was Davison's sixth story as the Doctor from his first season, directed by Peter Grimwade I personally think Earthshock is Peter Davison's best story. The script so far by Eric Saward is a nice claustrophobic horror with a group of people being killed off one at a time by some unseen menace, in fact the whole heavily armed soldiers walking into an isolated & enclosed location & being picked off reminds heavily of Aliens (1986) even though Earthshock was made a full four years prior. I do like my Doctor Who stories when they try to be scary & actually have the balls to try & be horrific, there's plenty of dark cavernous corridors & the remains of melted soldiers to satisfy on both counts & there's the great ending which suddenly reveal the return of the Cybermen who are probably my personal favourite Doctor Who monster. At 25 minutes it moves along at a nice pace, the story is good if a bit familiar & it's a much better written & thought-out episode than usual for this period of the show's history.
The first thing to say is that the cave sets look a little fake, they aren't too bad but they are the one production aspect of Earthshock so far which lets it down. I also have to mention the new look Cybermen, they look great although I would maybe have liked a more electronic robotic sounding voice. In fact the Cybermen had not featured in Doctor Who since season 12 & the mighty fine Tom Baker story Revenge of the Cybermen (1975) but both writer Saward & the Doctor himself Davison were fans of the of the silver cyborgs which probably helped convince the production team they were ready for a long overdue come back. There weren't many special effects in Earthshock, the pink laser beams that the soldiers fire from their weapons actually look alright although the DVD (another brilliant special edition DVD by the way) gives you the option to replace these, as well as other various effects, with brand spanking new CGI beams which obviously look a lot better but as I said they aren't too bad to begin with.
Earthshock: Part 1 is just a great Doctor Who episode, it's got surprises, some nice tension, atmosphere, eeriness & the reappearance of the newly designed Cybermen in a great cliffhanger ending. Surely this is Peter Davison's best story, surely...