Tales of the TARDIS "Earthshock" Full Reaction!
Added 2026-01-09 13:51:58 +0000 UTC
Comments
In addition to it being a treat to get more of Five and Tegan, it is nice to see them together again, and to see them tackle and contend with dealing with this story in the less cluttered land of Chibnall’s run of everything bouncing off all the wall like a pinball. Lets it breathe a bit better. Yeah, Janet still has the chops. Like I said, she gets you good when you fade back to her and Five. Tough though it would be for Jess, we can hope that we can completely tie off the Mara arc. (One silver lining would be gruesome snake demises, presumably, which I’m sure Jess wouldn’t hate that part of it.) It is looking very likely that Davies will be stuck in that horrible feeling of Adric’s infamous last words. As we get closer to a year following the last season finale, massive problems with it though there are, he still hasn’t annoyed me as much as Chibnall did with failing to follow through with shit. Yes, covid didn’t help, but especially the whole Timeless Child thing of just throwing the massive bowl of fancy linguini at the wall, just letting it sit there until it gets all hard and brown, all but yelling at us to praise the “genius” of it, without diving into it still bugs me more than the recent problems had with Davies Era 2: Electric Boogaloo, so Davies has that going for him. Plus, like Jess is, I’m more of a Moffat fan, so the betrayal doesn’t sting as sharply. Like we’re both saying, we are still trying to process. It’s a long road ahead. It’d be nice in the meantime if they could share a more precise date for the UNIT spinoff beyond just saying “sometime in 2026” when you look it up. Feels like I’ve heard about Tomorrow People. I’ve never seen it, but the name sounds familiar. Sounds fun.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-09 17:40:32 +0000 UTCShould have known that “Oh!” upon seeing the title was coming. Really is amazing how Peter has aged like a fine wine as Five. I know that he says that as he’s gotten older, he feels like he’s had a better handle on the Doctor than he had initially. Seeing him and Janet as Five and Tegan remains wonderful. Adore your own reactions to them again. They need to share stories, and few are as memorable as one of the hardest ones. Rather do like the line about how “it’s hard to tell where a story begins”, which is very true when you think about it. As Ryan says, it hits you seeing Janet sell Tegan’s realization of having to speak of Adric. Peter sells it too of Five realizing that he finally has to face it too. Leads to more reactions from you of that devastating death of Adric. You know it’s serious when Five just shut down as he did, and how Tegan took that in, and broke all those years ago. All coming back to them complete with the star. LOVE Janet’s acting with just her expression at that one. You didn’t give voice to it, but I suspect the way they spoke about just running from that resonated with you. Given what you said about Shirley in the Hill House reactions, we both have eerily similar grieving processes. In some cases, God just forces you to run from it as sometimes that’s the only way to survive some wounds. It is nice that Five and Tegan acknowledge that Adric was a mite insufferable, but he was a kid. A good boy. Sounds like my forever defense of Jake Lloyd as Anakin, and Wil Wheaton as Wesley when I finally saw Next Gen. Gets a man in the heart seeing your reactions to Tegan talking about what Five taught her. Chief amongst everything, the most important rule of life: Being a snarky asshole at times, when needed. The lesson you learned from Five. The lesson that began for me from the Sith, the Disney Villains. And the lessons kicked into maximum overdrive when diving into M*A*S*H where EVERYONE was a snarky asshole at some point or another, and they were all glorious at it. Even Frank got in a few good zingers once or twice. Of course, that spoke to you, just as Five became the very close third of your Doctors. Eleven and Twelve are the shared top two for us, so it does make sense. Makes it surprising that I have Five as low as I do. Best I can figure is the love for the original three Doctors is that strong, just as there is the strong love for Seven. Eleven skyrocketed up the rankings, and War, likewise, knocked most of the Doctors down the rankings as he’s behind Eleven, and roughly tied with One. And Twelve IMMEDIATELY jumped to the top, and permanently cemented his spot as my Doctor with just the haunted look of realization that he had after he gave the Theseus broom talk to the Half-Face Man. Still can’t properly explain that one. It all leads Five to be about eighth or ninth on the rankings, in a similar spot with Four. The others are ranked after, which I still haven’t figured out where Doctor Ruth would go, nor the Doctors following Thirteen, though I’ll deal with that omnishambles at a later time. Meantime, we have this lovely Tales of the TARDIS, where the Adric circle is now complete. From you recognizing that there was something big to unpack just from how Five said “Adric.” in Thirteen’s last hour, to said unpacking in Earthshock, and now this. There is still hope that somehow, Matthew returns, and we can then have one last beautiful send-off to the arc. (And yes, this would probably mean reacting to Adric’s death yet again, do apologize on that.) Until then, this is great to share with you, Jess, thank you for the beautiful reaction.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-09 17:27:38 +0000 UTCNot quite as much of an impact as the others since Five and Tegan had both appeared on the actual show already, but I'll never turn down getting to see more of them. And personally I'd call The Caves of Androzani the best story they could tell, but they certainly have good taste. Janet's face upon realizing what she'll have to relive shows every bit of the chops she still has despite her retirement, and makes me hold out a bit more hope that she'll get a chance to do at least one more to bring closure to a storyline they went out of their way to de-resolve (as hard as it would be for you to watch). And I can't help thinking of RTD right now, stuck with just one more episode to try to show any shreds of an idea he ever had for the show, saying "Now I'll never know if I was right" as he makes the hard choices for what he'll have to leave out completely. As they fade out, I can only imagine Five starts the story of the time he ran into the Tomorrow People (if you don't know what I'm talking about, just do a Google image search; it's pretty spectacular).
Ryan
2026-01-09 15:00:50 +0000 UTC
