Earthshock by Eric Saward was the sixth serial to feature in the 19th season of Doctor Who broadcast in 1982.
On it’s original broadcast the serial featured two major surprise elements, the return of the Cybermen, who had been absent from the series since 1975 and the shock exit of regular companion Adric at the climax of the story.
Earthshock starred Peter Davison as The Doctor and coincidentally it is he who is featured as the reader in AudioGO’s release of Ian Marter’s unabridged novelisation of the book. Davison is joined by Nicholas Briggs who provides the voices of the Cybermen for the reading.
Doctor Who: Earthshock – A Brief Synopsis
While taking part in a study of dinosaur fossils in an underground cave system on the twenty fifth century Earth, a group of palaeontologists are savagely attacked by unknown beings. The only survivor of the attack, Professor Kyle and a party of troopers lead by Lieutenant Scott return to the scene of the tragedy only to discover The Doctor and his companions at the scene.
It is not long before the killers return to the scene of the slaughter, but as The Doctor investigates he finds their presence has more to do with the fact they are attempting to guard a deadly secret, a secret that will lead The Doctor and his friends on a dangerous mission and face to face with an old enemy.
Nicholas Briggs Provides Cybermen Voices For Doctor Who: Earthshock Audio Reading
Despite excitement amongst fans at the time of the surprise return of The Cybermen In Earthshock (an element subsequently lost with later DVD releases and book adaptations that gave the secret away on the sleeve cover), the story falls down on television with lots of corridor scenes and the apparent character change of The Cybermen.
Depicted in early Doctor Who stories as emotionless beings, The Cybermen seem to have been blessed with emotions in parts of this adventure. This includes promising to take revenge on the Earth’s inhabitants to commenting "excellent!" when their plans appear to be working to their favour. Even the late Ian Marter describes them as hissing and purring when making various comments in his adaptation of Eric Saward’s script.
The audiobook does take steps to slightly rectify this. Nicholas Briggs, already familiar with fans of the current TV series for providing electrifying monotonous Cybermen voices, injects a touch of authenticity back into the proceedings.
Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s Exciting Reading Of Earthshock
Peter Davison delivers an exciting read of Ian Marter’s descriptive and unabridged adaptation of Earthshock. He manages to succeed in giving the many characters featured in the story more emphasis than many of the supporting actors were allowed to display on screen at the time.
It is also interesting to hear how Davison approaches some of Earthshock’s lines in his reading considerably differently to the way he performed them on television nearly three decades earlier, although in many cases some of these lines have been rewritten by Ian Marter.
Some passages are embellished with sound effects ranging from marching feet, TARDIS dematerialisation, gunshots and radio crackle and in some cases sound even better than those utilised in the TV original.
Doctor Who: Earthshock on audiobook format is undoubtedly a more satisfying experience than its television counterpart. With a running time of approximately 4 hours it is available from AudioGO on compact disc and audio download.
