Doctor Who Diaries — Earthshock Part 3

A Cyberman fused in a door, nasty!

Earthshock would see Adric’s character leave the show. This doesn’t happen in this episode, but in part 4. Here, we see the beginning of this transition though, with Adric and the Doctor captured by the Cybermen on the freighters bridge. Finally, the Cybermen are out in the open and making their plans known.

This episode has some interesting characterisation for the ships captain, who is generally more interested in profit than her crew, and we also get some background about the important events going on, on Earth. It seems that Earth is at a centre of a conference which should result in a new alliance against the Cybermen. If successful, it will result in a formadable challenge to the Cyber-Empire. We never get to see any of that though. This story is about an attempt by the Cybermen to derail those talks by destroying the Earth, without anyone knowing that it was them.

Adric’s Record

The Doctor manages to get us into trouble yet again. This time we are accused of murder. We didn’t do it of course, but that’s not the point. We’re escorted to the bridge where we meet the captain. She’s a horrid woman, more interested in money than the well-being of her crew or any other living person. We try to tell her about the bomb on Earth, and how we discovered that it was being controlled from somewhere on this freighter. Captain Briggs doesn’t believe us, of course.

Partway through our interrogation there are a series of power surges and a significant loss of power throughout the freighter. Despite the risk, the captain refused to drop us out of warp speed as that would result in a deviation in course. Whilst Earth remains on red alert for the conference, any unusual activity such as that would result in delays, and thus the loss of bonuses. The captain’s a fool and the Doctor realises this. We both try to make her see sense, to explain to her that she’s only aiding and abetting those who are using her ship to break through the barricade surrounding Earth. They (whoever they are) are planning an attack and they are using the freighter to reach the planet.

Then the security cameras stop working and a warning signal flares on one of the monitors. What we see is terrible — Cybermen marching through the corridors of the ship killing the freighter’s crew and heading our way. The Doctor doesn’t seem particularly surprised. I’m guessing he’d already figured out who was behind the plot and the reason we had taken the TARDIS from Earth to this freighter. It seems that the Cybermen were behind the attack on the scientists in those caverns and behind the two androids that tried to shoot us down to stop us from deactivating a bomb that could wipe out all life on Earth. Now they had their sights on taking over this ship. Why though? That was the question. It had to be something to do with breaking through to Earth and presumably something to do with another bomb.

Captain Briggs orders a blockade set up outside the bridge. The Doctor pleads with her that this will do no good. All she’s doing is sending good men to die. She doesn’t listen of course. Why should she? Sure enough, the Cybermen blast through them without any effort on their part. The Doctor is rightly horrified and saddened by the loss of life, but he is also curious about other things. How did the Cybermen get on board in the first place and why? What is their plan? This is soon partly answered when one of the bridge crew Security Officer Ringway pulls a gun on the captain. He declares himself to have been working for the Cybermen all this time, fed up with Captain Briggs’ obsession with bonuses and money over the safety and well-being of her crew. This Ringway hasn’t got a clue who he’s gotten into bed with. Whatever the Cybermen offered him will not be his. He will be killed with the rest of us or formatted into a Cyber-soldier. I’m not sure which would be worse.

The Doctor manages to overpower him and close the doors to the bridge before the Cybermen get inside. We’re safe for a short while at least, although the captain seems overconfident that we can hold out until we reach Earth. She seems to be under the impression that there are only a few Cybermen. I enquire just how many cargo containers the freighter is carrying. She tells me 15,000. It then dawns on her that all 15,000 are probably carrying more Cybermen.

We can do nothing else but wait as the Cybermen start to cut through the doors with a thermal lance. The Doctor tries anyway, by tapping into the antimatter storage system to use it to stabilise the door. As per usual, the Doctor doesn’t explain what it is he is trying to do. I therefore demand that he explain it to me. He gives me an explanation as he works but he’s grumpy about it! Thankfully, his plan works, but eventually, they will break through, nonetheless.

Indeed, they have set charges on one of the other doors. The Cybermen take the bridge and we become their prisoners. They recognise the Doctor instantly and, not unexpectedly, their traitor in our midst, Ringway, is the first to be killed. With the bridge taken, the lead Cyberman orders the activation and revival of his army in the containers.

Notes

• This record recounts events in “Earthshock” Part 3, from the Classic Doctor Who series, season 19.
• Finally the Doctor learns who his enemy is. Until this point the Cybermen had been kept secret from the Doctor and his companions.