Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Daleks and Cybermen in back to back reviews? Heavens!

For those of you just catching up - from 1963 to 1989 (and a couple of false starts thereafter) the BBC ran an immensely popular family program called Doctor Who. The main character is called The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He travels the universe in the TARDIS, a wondrous spaceship that can go anywhere in time and space - provided that the Doctor can steer it correctly. During his adventures, he and his companion (usually a young human female with weak ankles and good lungs) combat evil and injustice wherever they find it. Key to the longevity of the series - Doctor Who can do what the James Bond movies have done several times. When fatally injured, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate, totally changing their faces and personalities, allowing the ability to swap out the lead roll when the actor wants to leave the series. So there have been several Doctors with different faces (ten, so far), but all of them the same character.

Oh, and the name of the show is Doctor Who. The main character is simply called The Doctor.

Welcome to Earth in the 26th century, as the TARDIS lands inside a cave system with several dinosaur fossils (foreshadowing alert!). The Doctor (the one with the celery) runs afoul of a military scouting force looking for a group of missing paleontologists and geologists. Quicker than you can say "You're the one behind my missing men!" the group is attacked by a pair of androids. It turns out that much more sinister forces are at work: the Cybermen are behind things!

The Doctor manages to disarm a bomb planted by the Cybermen to destroy an imminent peace conference on Earth, a conference that would rally forces in an alliance against the Cyber race. He then follows the bomb's activating signal to an approaching space freighter.

Upon arrival, the Doctor finds not just a crew of space truckers, but an entire army of Cybermen - on their way to Earth and clear passage through the defense grid. Now the Doctor has to stop the Cybermen army and save the peace conference. But is he prepared to pay the ultimate price to do so?

If need any proof that fandom has changed between now and the early eighties, you only have to look at Earthshock as exhibit A. While then Producer John Nathan-Turner decided to bring back the Cybermen for the first time in about 10 years, he took steps to maintain secrecy, including intentionally structuring the opening episode to misdirect viewers as to the true enemy and putting in fake credit listings in the Radio Times. Now, with today's instant communications, ubiquitous camera phones and vast internet fan network, a spoiler of that magnitude would be disclosed and on the outpost Gallifrey forums within half an hour of the first day's shoot.

That’s a damn shame too - it's a masterfully done episode. Peter Grimwade deftly handles the cast and action and manages to sustaining the suspense with gloomy underground tunnels, mysterious black-clad figures and unwary military team. It really is an effective shocker.

Well, provided that you miss the gigantic Cyberman on the front cover, didn’t read the back cover of the DVD, hadn’t read this review or pretty much knew anything about the show at all. Oh screw it - it's like the twist ending of Planet of the Apes. Everyone knows about it now.

The Cybermen featured are far more effective in this episode than they’ve been in a long, long time. Streamlined and updated, they have a solidness to them that the versions in Revenge of the Cybermen didn’t have. Also, props goes to David Banks as the Cyber Leader, who gives the Cybermen a certain - well, emotion is the wrong word - menace and power. We haven’t seen a baddie this good since Michael Wisher made Davros his own in Genesis of the Daleks.

Speaking of guest stars, I should mention that for the most part, they're all well acted - James Warwick is outstanding and Beryl Reid, though fine, is an very, very odd choice to play a starship captain - but I must point out that the secondary characters are not fleshed out beyond the archetype grizzled blue collar space freighter crew that was all the rage after Alien came out..

As for the regular cast - again Nyssa is mostly redundant and gets nothing to do (poor Sarah Sutton) and the opening scene on the TARDIS is the typical soap opera writing that teneded to plague this period, Later on, however, Tegan gets some quality screen time as she helps defend the freighter in the final episodes. Peter Davison is dead on as the Doctor, getting some wonderful moments with Banks bantering back and forth about the quality of emotions. And he looks devastated at the end . . .

Oh yes, the ending.

When it became clear that four characters in the TARDIS may have worked in the sixties, it was simply too many in the eighties - and someone had to go. Again, JNT was able to pull off a spoiler that would be nigh impossible these days - which makes Adric's sacrifice all that more effective. Still, even with 25 years of spoilers, it's still a powerful moment (although I always think at the silent end credits excessively melodramatic).

It's amazing that writer (and script editor) Eric Saward is such a hot and cold writer. He inflicts Resurrection of the Daleks upon us, delivers a pretty good script with Revelation of the Daleks and gives us a downright corker like Earthshock. He's the worlds most schizophrenic writer ever!

THE DVD -
Some really nice restoration work here. Now I know I say that all the time, but this is good, even compared to the rest of the RT's work. The exteriors in episode one had been all washed out - no clouds in the sky, passable if not outstanding color and that sort of thing. The picture now? You can see clouds - like details in the sky, and not just a white haze!

Oh, and we get another round of optional CGI enhancements. Lasers replaces (good job!), some spaceship shots and that sort of thing. Very well done.

THE EXTRAS -
Another rock hard package. We get a brand-new thirty minute documentary featuring interviews with the cast and fans of the series and examining the impact of the return of the Cybermen and the death of a companion, we get complete film sequences for episode one, including previously unseen shots and dialogue, a ten minute segment from new program Did You See...? about the Doctor Who monsters from 1981, an isolated score track (and a pretty good score to boot), commentary from Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhouse, a photo gallery, the pop-up production notes and a cute short 45 second Episode Five Easter egg. Ever wonder what happened to Adric? Then wonder no more!

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Earthshock is not quite my favorite Davison story ever, but it comes pretty damned close. And we get the pleasure of a great DVD to boot!

OTHER DOCTOR WHO EPISODES ON DVD:

DOCTOR ONE -
* The Beginning * Doctor Who and the Daleks * The Aztecs * The Dalek Invasion of Earth * The Web Planet * The Lost in Time Collection *
DOCTOR TWO -
* Tomb of the Cybermen * The Seeds of Death * The Mind Robber * The Invasion *
DOCTOR THREE -
* Spearhead From Space * The Three Doctors * Carnival of Monsters*
DOCTOR FOUR -
* The Ark in Space * Genesis of the Daleks * The Pyramids of Mars * The Robots of Death * The Talons of Weng-Chiang *
DOCTOR FIVE -
* Earthshock * The Five Doctors * Warriors of the Deep * Resurrection of the Daleks * The Caves of Androzani*
DOCTOR SIX -
* Vengeance on Varos * Revelation of the Daleks*
DOCTOR SEVEN -
* Rememberance of the Daleks * The Television Movie*
THE NEW SERIES -
* Doctor Who - Series One * Doctor Who - Series Two * Torchwood - Series One * Doctor Who - Series Three * The Infinite Quest*


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12