Doctor Who Diaries — Earthshock Epilogue

Adric’s final moments (Earthshock part 4)

It’s not often that the Doctor’s companions die for good, but in the case of Adric that was certainly the case. He would die fighting Cybermen and being unable to stop the freighter’s decent into the Earth. He did, however, manage to send the ship backwards in time to an era of Dinosaurs. The freighter’s crash was therefore always meant to happen, it was possibly the trigger for the extinction of the dinosaurs!

This epilogue looks at these final moments from Adric’s point of view.

Adric’s final memories

I never expected my life to end this way. Who would? I was born an Alzarian, a resident of E-Space. I stowed away on the TARDIS and joined the Doctor in his many adventures. We didn’t always see eye to eye, and there were times when all I could think about was going home, but really these were truly the best years of my life. As I mentioned before, I never expected it to end this way.

Here I was stuck on a freighter under the control of Cybermen in Earth’s 26th century. The Cybermen planned to use the freighter to crash into the Earth, destroying much of it in an antimatter explosion. The Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan were on the TARDIS by this point. The rest of the crew had evacuated. I opted to stay behind to try to stop the collision. I failed.

At first, the last members of the crew along with Lieutenant Scott and his men tried to help, but there just wasn’t enough time. What I did manage to do though was to sabotage the antimatter engines so that the ship would be hurtled back in time. I might not be able to save us, but I could at least save the people of Earth.

At the time I hoped that this action would grant us a bit of extra time so that I could break the code on the other logic circuits. If I could do that, I thought, we might stand a chance. I wasn’t fast enough though. I needed more time. The others started to evacuate, and they tried to convince me to do the same, but at the very moment that I gave up, I realised what the solution might be. I abandoned my last hope of escape in the vague hope of saving the Earth and myself.

I nearly succeeded too, but then a dying Cyberman blew up the console. That was my last chance. I would never know if I was right or not. I looked at the Earth as it came closer. This would be my final moment and I knew it. I watched and then the world went black.

Notes

• This record recounts Adric’s final moments on the freighter as depicted in Earthshock part 4, part of season 19 of the Classic Doctor Who series.