Planet of Fire. Cast notes Peter Davison has stated that Earthshock is one of his three favourite serials from his time on the programme. Broadcast and reception The story was repeated on BBC One (not BBC Wales) as two 50min compilation episodes in 1982 on 9 August 1982 & 16 August 1982 at 7.20pm as part of "Doctor Who and the Monsters", achieving viewing figures of 4.9 and 5.2 million respectively. The story came 17th in the 1997 Doctor Who Magazine annual best serial survey. Rob Hill ranked it at number two in "the top 10 Cybermen stories" for Den of Geek in 2010, beaten only by The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967). In 2018, The Daily Telegraph ranked Earthshock at number 22 in "the 56 greatest stories and episodes", arguing that "Peter Davison's first season was unremarkable until Earthshock descended with a mighty thud". It continued, "Peter Grimwade's pacy direction keeps the action and tension levels high, and the Cybermen once again come across as a credible menace, backed by some appropriate marching music courtesy of Malcolm Clarke". The article concluded that it was "one of the most memorable stories of Eighties Doctor Who". Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "Exciting and engaging early on, but a writer is not supposed to get so caught up in the excitement that things happen for no better reason than plot expediency. What we have is great... for a first draft." In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker wrote "the story as a whole stands up very well and is highly entertaining". They felt that "deficiencies" in the plotting were not that noticeable. Howe and Walker called the first episode "a masterpiece of suspense and terror", praised the surprise return of the Cybermen, which they said were "more effective" than those in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), and thought the way Adric was written out showed "the level of brilliance to which Doctor Who could still ascend if the production team put their minds to it". In Doctor Who: The Episode Guide, Mark Campbell awarded it eight out of ten, describing it as "a dynamically directed action story, much praised at the time; although the plot has huge holes and the dialogue is often lousy." In 2011, The A.V. Club reviewer Christopher Bahn was positive towards how