Review: Doctor Who Classic: Earthshock

In 1982, Peter Davidson had taken up the helm of The Doctor. He'd had more acting jobs than all of the other Doctors combined, but notable, he was in his early thirties, the youngest Doctor up to that point. His producer was the infamous John-Nathan Turner, who had become so in the last year of Tom Baker's tenure.
         The show needed something to make Peter more popular, and JNT always pandered to the "fans," so he decided to reintroduce the Cybermen after their seven year hiatus. They got a redesign, which was fairly consistent during JNT's era.
          The resulting story is here before you; Earthshock. It broke with the trends surrounding Cyberman episodes, and for the last time in the history of Who, their presence was kept a secret. Indeed, the entire first half of the serial uses this suspenceful buildup, and then the grand reveal, as a sort of push-off to carry the rest. What results is nothing more than a tragedy; while the first episode, in which we are waiting for something to appear, is a piece of mastery, the rest doesn't really stand up to it. It all falls apart, really.
          We're introduced to a group of police-corps whatsits who are investigating the deaths of several scientists who went missing in deep caves, around the twenty-whatsit century. Within the caves, we see mysterious black clothed drones wandering about. They're quite effective, to be honest, and very low budget too; made out of a few stockings. Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, Adric, who is a small boy from another universe (it makes sense in context) is being stroppy with the Doctor about going home. The Doctor tries to explain rationally that he can't go into another dimension without risking severe harm to everyone on the vessel, but for some strange reason Adric doesn't care.
          They land, conveniently, in the same cave system and it all escalates and they think The Doctor is the killer, yadda yadda, and then there's a really bad CG droid fight and we suddenly get a glimse of the Cybermen, in what was proclaimed to be one of the best pieces of television surprise of the 80s. The rest of the serial is about how they're tracking them down to a cargo ship, destined to get to Earth and invade. Anyway, for whatever reason Adric works out his problem and then is left on the shuttle with the cybermen as it crashlands into a prehistoric Earth. (Oh sorry, I should have mentioned...).
          The commentary on the DVD is really fun. It's just a group of four middle-aged people joking about the past, inserting innuendo everwhere. It's also revealing about the sheer madness of the low budget film production.

Thanks.