Comments on: Time Reconsidered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Who Eps: #17 EARTHSHOCK

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:40:32 +0000

haha awesome — but I think his second choice was a LOT BETTER

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:17:19 +0000

The casting of Beryl Reid makes a BIT more sense once you know that John Nathan-Turner’s first choice for the role was Pat Phoenix.

By: lonepilgrim

lonepilgrim — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:04:37 +0000

the Doctor and the Dame:
http://tardiseruditorum.blogspot.com/2012/02/guest-post-david-bowie-and-doctor-who.html

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:48:51 +0000

(i will tidy this up a bit over the weekend, it was written in fragments at work and posted in a hurry to get it out of the way as a large blob of proofing loomed; as you can see, i had none to spare!)

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:11:30 +0000

(in fact story for story EVERY ADRIC EPISODE is a winner! OK ppl argue the toss about Four To Doomsday, and The Visitation is dumb but flashy entertaining dumb) (with a haughty space lizard).

Earthshock is in fact the weakest story he was in – the best ones of the Adric Years (Warriors Gate, Logopolis, Kinda) are all-timers for me.

Not much thanks to Adric I grant you.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:08:17 +0000

Part of the Adric Problem is that even if the character had worked as designed (w/a better actor) he’d have been a little near-the-knuckle for Who fandom (AFAIK he was a deliberate attempt to create a viewer-identification character, but perhaps “badly dressed bratty pedant” misunderstood how closely said viewers WANTED their identification).

Though of course at the time he was created “viewers” was meant to mean “almost everyone”. It’s interesting that he turned up just as the series made its most dramatic lurch away from the mainstream (intentionally or otherwise) as ratings collapsed – relatively speaking – and the production team rediscovered the supposed virtues of ‘proper’ SF. The final Baker season and first Davison – the Adric Years – were the peak of my childhood Who adoration, but I never liked Earthshock much and appreciated that Adric was the weak link in an overstuffed TARDIS.