From Earthshock: 16 March 1982. One movie that understood the satisfying pay-off better than most was the original Death Wish (1974) film. Demonised by many in its day for exposing and celebrating all that was shameful in people, nevertheless it told an honest truth. We want to see justice done and if the law will not act on our behalf then we will take the law into our own hands. This is probably the nearest that Doctor Who comes to having a proper 'Death Wish moment'. The pure moment of revenge comes before Adric's death, but his fate had already been sealed. Adric is on a freighter plummeting to Earth that is destined to wipe out the dinosaurs some millions of years before our time. It's all been caused by the nasty Cybermen and while Adric continues trying to avert disaster the Cyber-Leader decides to kill the TARDIS crew. In the ensuing struggle The Doctor breaks up Adric's gold-plated Mathematics Achievement badge into the Leader's chest unit. It poignantly reminds us that all that was Adric had in fact killed the Cyber-Leader. As he dies, the Cyber-Leader fires his gun, damaging the TARDIS console in the process. The Doctor grabs the gun and shoots the Leader, finally destroying it. There is something visceral, close up and personal in The Doctor's actions as he plunges the gold star into the Cyber-Leader's chest. He means it. It's one of the very few times in the show when The Doctor uses a gun, but again you feel like this time he means it. The show ended without the familiar theme tune to carry us off. Instead the credits rolled in silence and we watched forlornly as the camera held shot on the crumpled gold star. It was not a moment of elation, but as a plot pay-off it was both memorable and haunting. At that time Adric was not many people's favourite companion. Cleverly though, the plot required that Adric die after the act of vengeance for his death. That way we were left with coldness at our loss of a companion rather than the heat of justice recently enacted. Sometimes the elation we feel is not especially wholesome, but sometimes we have to just face that fact.
Hello, I'm Paul Hammans, terminal 'Who' obsessive, F1 fan, reader of arcane literature about ideas and generalist scribbler. To paraphrase someone much better at aphorisms than I: I strive to write something worth reading and when I cannot do that I try to do something worth writing. I have my own Dr Who oriented blog at http://www.exanima.co.uk
