Doctor Who: 6 Great Fifth Doctor Stories

2. Earthshock (Story 121, 1982)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6rra8aj084 Poor, poor Adric (Matthew Waterhouse). He€™s really the Rodney Dangerfield of Doctor Who, getting no respect, no regard. There€™re a lot of reasons for this, but I think it mostly boils down to the fact that he was written like a realistic, overly smart, teenage boy. That meant he was more than a little arrogant and insufferable at times, and when your audience is often comprised of overly smart teenage boys, this creates something of a problem. But I always liked Adric, and I was more than a little shattered at the end of this episode, which features one of the rare times a companion actually dies. The story itself is pretty good, featuring the Cybermen returning for the first time in a long while. There€™s also some great supporting performances by people like Beryl Reed. But the real payoff here is Adric, who not only gets a grand death, but also gets to actually show some signs of life as a character and gives us an idea of what he might have been had he been better written.