Undoubtedly Janet Fielding’s comment that the android costume looks like something out of a B/D video. The commentary track dissolves into uncontrollable laughter for about two minutes afterwards.

Putting the Shock into Earthshock: An original documentary, with contributions from Steven Moffat (who isn’t entirely tactful about Matthew Waterhouse), Mark Gatiss and Gary Gillatt as well as Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse and Eric Saward, among others.

Episode 5: Plasticine fun.

CGI Effects: New effects. With CGI.

Location Film Sequences: Full versions of the film sequences recorded on location for Part 1.

Did You See? In which a strange but knowledgeable man pays tribute to Doctor Who monsters past and present.

Music Only Option: Anybody found marching up and down to the Cybermen music will be put on YouTube.

Photo Gallery: Well-presented, but not a great deal of new material here, unfortunately.

I have to put my cards on the table before I begin and admit that I almost certainly can’t write impartially about ‘Earthshock’- for those of us who were fortunate enough to catch it on its original transmission, just the mention of the title or a snatch of Malcolm Clarke’s Cyber-theme is enough to turn us into excitable nine-year-olds who, reared on the Doctor Who Monster Books and Doctor Who Monthly, knew what Cybermen were when they saw them in spite of still being in nappies when the Fourth Doctor saw them off from Voga. In spite of the series’ fanbase and near-unconditional love, there aren’t all that many stories- regenerations apart- which have such a specific attachment for a certain section of fandom of a certain age (self included), some of whom are now making Doctor Who themselves- so that when the story came to DVD, having always been a front runner for an early Davison release, the opportunity was there to recognise the special place that the story has for a partcular generation of fans.

This means that ‘Putting the Shock into Earthshock’ is unusual among DVD extras, in that it takes as its theme the two surprises which the story sprang on its 1982 audience- the return of the Cybermen in their revamped 1980s form, and the demise of Adric. Admittedly that also helpfully covers the two things ‘Earthshock’ is best known for, but it also puts the story into context when fans-turned-professionals like Mark Gatiss talk about having much the same reaction as my nine-year-old self did at the time- by way of contrast, there’s not that much on there about the actual making of the story, but then again the producer and director are no longer with us so apart from Eric Saward’s recollections of the actual writing, what’s left is little more than anecdote. The commentary, featuring all four regulars, is thoroughly entertaining, the tensions and personality clashes of legend presumably having been ironed out over the intervening years. Peter Davison and Janet Fielding dominate- perhaps unsurprisingly- but the interplay is as sharp as ever, Davison seemingly having a wry and tongue-in-cheek approach to his time as the Doctor, while Fielding shoots from the hip and an older and wiser Matthew Waterhouse seems to have a more considered view- it’s perhaps typical of the way the stories were structured that Sarah Sutton seems to get pushed to the fringes, as there doesn’t seem to be room for four on the commentary either.

The other particularly interesting item is the deleted location footage, mainly because it shows just what a good job Steve Morley was doing as Sergeant Walters, bearing in mind that half of his scenes were filmed with just him and a prop computer, and yet even without music and sound effects he’s still as convincing. Episode 5 is a lightweight one-joke piece of claymation, throwaway but difficult to actually dislike, while the Did You See? segment is worthwhile just as an illustration of how the reinvigorated Doctor Who was seen by the BBC of the early 1980s, with a well-researched gallery of monsters and an affectionate but knowledgeable approach which never quite reaches outright mockery. It would be a good package for any story (although if it were released today we’d no doubt have a PDF of John Craven’s Back Pages), but the focus on the story’s best-remembered aspects means that not only does it do justice to the blockbuster of Peter Davison’s first season, but to an extent it also keeps the legend of ‘Earthshock’ alive wherever there are fans in their mid-to-late thirties.