Did you care when Adric died?

Or not?

I did. That was one of the great things about Earthshock. It really made you care for him in his final moments.

Yeah.

I liked him in Season 18 and was very disappointing in how he was written badly in Four To Doomsday and how bad he had gotten with each story afterwards and Earthshock served as a redemption for him where he got to be more proactive and well written for the first time since Castrovalva.

What was even more saddening was how Time Flight quickly dismissed his death. Now, I'm not saying he should have done a Rose and had Davison whine about him for the rest of his tenure but at least have it put to rest less crudely than it was.

That was a problem.

"We must accept that Adric is dead. Now that's all go to Hyde Park, gang!"

I just thought: one down two to go.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Yeah.

I liked him in Season 18 and was very disappointing in how he was written badly in Four To Doomsday and how bad he had gotten with each story afterwards and Earthshock served as a redemption for him where he got to be more proactive and well written for the first time since Castrovalva.

Yes, he turned pretty unpleasant in Four to Doomsday and downright loathsome in some parts of Kinda.

Which was a shock to the system because I'd seen him in Keeper of Traken and was pleasantly surprised how okay he worked there. I'd always heard fans dismiss him as the typical annoying little shit kid no-one likes in these shows, I thought maybe he deserved a fair chance, and didn't expect him to be written to be so hateful.

It's strange because those almost became surreal "let's just pretend that didn't happen" moments. And it was possible to forget them during Earthshock. And indeed it is one Season 19 story that really made me suspend my disbelief. His death was certainly disquieting (even if there are probably characters in the show I've mourned more).

What was even more saddening was how Time Flight quickly dismissed his death. Now, I'm not saying he should have done a Rose and had Davison whine about him for the rest of his tenure but at least have it put to rest less crudely than it was.

I think Time-Flight was a case of the season having started blossoming and evolving quite well by then, only to hit a collision course with another story of JNT's arbitrary dictates of having to do a Concorde/Master story for the sake of 'putting the expense onscreen'. And the character work just got completely derailed to that.

That said, it seems odd that Eric Saward never actually thought to incorporate the grieving moment into the action. It would've been much simpler for an upset Tegan to say "Doctor please just take me home", and immediately have them land at Heathrow where the story was set anyway. The whole business of 'let's go to some great exhibition to forget about it all' was just weird, and a complete dropping of the ball.

I think if Sarah-Jane or Leela had died in their final stories, it wouldn't have been a dwelt on thing by the show in stories after, but I think Tom's performance would subtly show he was still affected by it, even if it was never mentioned in the dialogue. The Season 19 main cast sadly were not so blessed.

Yes, I liked Adric, as someone who always liked math as a kid, he was a character I could relate to. However, I really don't feel his death scene was handled badly in any way. I don't watch Earthshock very often for this reason, but I don't think they ruined the story or the character by doing it. (Now Peri in Mindwarp, that bothers me way more because it was handled badly - and she didn't even die.)

However, if I was doing the writing: Time-Flight would have taken place right before the events of Earthshock and they would have seen the ship crashing into the Earth at the end and worked out a way to save Adric. Then, they would have all went back to Heathrow and left Tegan there for good.

No. Not in the slightest. Waterhouse should never have been selected for the role of Adric as he had zero acting talent and he didn't develop or improve as time went on. If a companion had to be chosen from the cast of Meglos it should have been Richard Willis / Varsh and if Willis wasn't available for a medium / long term contract they should have selected a different actor entirely for the role or delayed the introduction of the character until season 19. Waterhouse's acting was so bad i found he just distracted from the rest of any story he was in. State of Decay is excellent but having that bloke butchering his own dialogue and scenes was so frustrating for me as a viewer. The same goes for Warriors Gate, Traken and Logopolis. Plus all the Davison stories he was in.

As for the idea that we needed more on-screen time dedicated to the mourning of the character: No thanks. The guy was dead. Talk about it amongst yourselves off-screen in the Tardis kitchen, corridors, the companions bed rooms, toilets or that swimming pool we saw in Invasion of Time, but not on-screen. Waterhouse had ruined enough stories with his talentless thespian efforts. I didn't want to hear anymore of him. I never felt the programme was disadvantaged in any way by the lack of grief displayed on screen for Adric. I have always felt the grieving happened between the characters off-screen. In the same way the characters freshen up, eat or sleep off-screen. And frankly I think Fielding would have lacked the range / acting ability to emote that convincingly.

I don't even think Adric should have got the hero's death he got. A more appropriate demise would have been Adric enduring a massive, heart stopping electrical shock as he walked thru an airlock, at which point the Doctor could have rung the nearest Local Authority's Public Health Department and registered a Health and Safety complaint giving the details of the accident and the suspected faulty wiring and thereby leaving the Authority to sort the body out so the crew could move on and get on with the urgent business of thwarting the cybermen from doing what they were doing.

Alternatively he could have died of gangerine when he grazed his knee in Full Circle.