Sadly the tale of Adric ends with tragedy, which does rather undercut all the griping about how annoying a companion he could be. In the middle of another ruck with Cybermen, Adric finds himself stranded on a space-ship headed directly to Earth, the controls of which are locked by a logic…

Poor old Adric. As Steve O’Brien said in the “Putting the Shock in Earthshock” featurette, “I think it was the older (fans) who saw him as a sort of whiny character. But then, I was eleven; I was whiny as well. So when he died, a bit of me died.”

I think maybe this is part of the root of my problem with Rose Tyler: if I’d first encountered her when I was still immature and selfish and expecting the whole world to worship my glory even though I’d done nothing especially awesome to deserve such treatment, then I might have been as fond of her as I was of Adric. But by the time she came round I was just too old and jaded, and I was unable to see her as anything other than a special snowflake/spoiled brat with serious stalker issues. Plus, as I’ve said in the past: once they killed him off, at least Adric had the courtesy to STAY DEAD.

I do miss Adric, though. There was a bit in one of the New Adventure novels where Five and Seven meet up, and Seven is attentive and patient with Adric in a way that Four and Five never were (because, of course, he knows what happens to him). It was only briefly mentioned in passing, but it was really sweet, and I’d love to have seen it happen in the actual show.