Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 600: Earthshock, Episode One

Dear diary,

In the old days, Doctor Who wasn’t necessarily a programme which tried to really surprise you. Oh, there have been moments of it over the years - Sara’s sudden brutal death in The Daleks’ Master Plan, or the reveal of the Master in a few of the Pertwee stories for instance (hush, it was sometimes a surprise) - but generally, it’s only been surprising because there were very few places to get information about what was to come. The Daleks’ returns were often heralded in the title of the story, or previewed in the pages of the Radio Times. Companion’s arrivals and departures were in the newspapers some time before they occurred. Even the cliffhangers are simply a part of the programme, so you get to know the format they take.

So I think it’s fair to say that Earthshock is probably the first Doctor Who story that prides itself on actually shocking you. It’s full of surprises, and the production team went out of their way to make sure that these moments stayed intact for the broadcast of the tale. The gallery at TV Centre was closed off, so that passers-by wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the Cybermen in the studio. John Nathan-Turner turned down the cover of the Radio Times - the first offered to Doctor Who since the Pertwee days! - because he’d rather keep it secret. Even the death of Adric at the end of the tale (I’m terribly sorry if that’s a spoiler now, but more than thirty years on I’m fairly sure it’s common knowledge) was kept under wraps by finding a way to have him appear in the following episode - just so that his name would appear on the cast lists and thus throw you off.

Now, my friend Nick likes surprises in Doctor Who. Or, more specifically, he likes surprising unsuspecting fans with twists in the story and seeing how they react. He recently showed a friend The Caves of Androzani without her knowing that it was Peter Davison’s swan song. Oh, the joy of the reaction, as the end of that story approached and she realised that the Doctor was heading to his death! The plan for the next night would be to show her Earthsock, and see how she reacted to all the various twists in this one. The plan somewhat backfired, though, because having been filled once with the ending to Caves, she decided to do a bit of digging on this tale and uncovered the news about the Cybermen and Adric. A pity.

Thankfully for Nick, a week on from that event and it’s my turn to watch Earthshock. I’ve got my own guinea pig to test it out on, and thus I’m joined for the next few days by Emma, who thinks it’s just time for me to show her a Peter Davison story. She’s actually quite excited by it. I’ve gone to great pains to keep the DVD cover hidden from her, and to make sure that the episode is cued up to start playing from the opening titles by the time she enters the room, so that she won’t catch sight of the clips on the menu. We sit through 25-or-so minutes of the Doctor and his companions in a cave, before that stunning final reveal of the Cybermen watching them (‘Destroy them! Destroy them at once!’), and I snap my head towards Emma to gauge her reaction.

‘Friends!’ she declares. I forgot that were Emma to travel in the TARDIS, she’d make friends with pretty much any monster she came across.

But all is not lost. She may not have been entirely floored by the appearance of the Cybermen, but there’s something more interesting happening here which I’m looking forward to seeing play out over the next three episodes. She’s taken something of a dislike to Adric immediately (I have pointed out that he’s being made more whiny and annoying than usual here), and has already told me that it’s his last story because he ‘keeps banging on’ about going home. She’s sure that the story will end with the Doctor trying to get him back to his own planet, so I’m keen to see how she reacts when he ends up slamming into our planet, instead.

It’s quite hard to watch this episode when you know that it ends with the Cybermen showing up. All the suff with the androids in the tunnel feels like padding until the cliffhanger arrives (although it’s plenty enjoyable in itself). Earthshock was one of the very first Doctor Who DVDs that I bought - already knowing the surprises - so for me it’s a story in which I’m waiting to see the silver giants make their appearance. But I love all the stories about kids at the time falling open mouthed, and excitedly discussing it in the playground the next day. I think that’s where this new twice-weekly broadcast pattern really comes into its own: allowing children to analyse the story the very next day at school.

In the past, with returns of characters like The Master, I’ve always questioned how much the viewers of the time would have really known of the character (and several of you have commented with your own tales of the time - please do so today, too, as I’d love to hear how you reacted to this one!), but I don’t feel the need to do that with the Cybermen. They’re one of the elite of Doctor Who monsters, and this might well be the very best surprise that the programme ever delivered…