Adric

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Doctor Who character

Adric
Affiliated with	Fourth Doctor Fifth Doctor
Race	Alzarian
Home planet	Alzarius
Home era	Unspecified
First appearance	Full Circle
Last appearance	Earthshock Time-Flight (cameo) The Caves of Androzani (cameo)
Portrayed by	Matthew Waterhouse

Adric is a fictional character played by Matthew Waterhouse in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was a young native of the planet Alzarius, which exists in the parallel universe of E-Space. A companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors, he was a regular in the programme from 1980 to 1982. The name Adric is an anagram derived from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Paul Dirac. Waterhouse is the youngest male actor to play a companion.

1 Character history
2 Appearances in other media
3 List of appearances

[edit] Character history

Adric first appears in the Fourth Doctor serial, Full Circle. Attempting to escape from the mysterious Mistfall threatening his community, he stumbles across and finds refuge in the TARDIS, which has been drawn into E-Space via a wormhole-like phenomenon known as a Charged Vacuum Emboitment. He stows away when the Doctor and Romana left Alzarius and accompanies them on the rest of their adventures in E-Space, remaining with the Doctor when Romana leaves and the TARDIS finds its way back into its own universe.

With a brilliant mathematical mind and sporting a gold badge for mathematical excellence, Adric is also very well aware of his own intelligence. This, coupled with his relative immaturity, leads to a personality that is abrasive and crosses over into arrogance. As a result, Adric is one of the least popular companions among fans of the programme. However, it is obvious that Adric also desperately seeks validation from the Doctor as well as those around him, and is often hurt and resentful if he feels he is being sidelined or unable to contribute.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Adric is present when, during the events of Logopolis, the Fourth Doctor falls from the Pharos Project radio telescope and regenerates into his fifth incarnation. He continues to travel in the TARDIS along with new companions Nyssa and Tegan, but his travels come to an end in Earthshock when he tries to stop a Cyberman-controlled freighter from crashing into prehistoric Earth. The navigational controls had been locked by logic codes, and Adric is entering the solution to the last code when the computer is destroyed by a dying Cyberman. He dies in the crash, while his fellow crewmates watch in horror on the TARDIS viewscreen. His last words before the explosion kills him are "Now I'll never know if I was right." Adric also dies not knowing that the freighter he was trying to stop was actually destined to be the "meteor" that would wipe out the dinosaurs.

Adric's death affects his companions deeply. The Xeraphin try to use an illusion of him to stop Nyssa and Tegan in Time-Flight, but they see through the deception when they realise he's still wearing his badge (which the Doctor had destroyed in order to kill a Cyberman). He also appears as a hallucination at the end of The Caves of Androzani - his name is the last word the Fifth Doctor says as he "dies", regenerating into the Sixth Doctor.

[edit] Appearances in other media

An image of Adric appears as a manifestation of the Doctor's guilt in the Virgin New Adventures novel Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell. A ghost of Adric also features in the plot of the Past Doctor Adventures novel Empire of Death by David Bishop.

[edit] List of appearances

[edit] Television

Season 18

Season 19

Season 21

The Caves of Androzani (cameo)

[edit] Novels

Virgin Missing Adventures

Cold Fusion by Lance Parkin

Past Doctor Adventures

Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell

[edit] Short stories

"A Boy's Tale" by Gary Russell (Short Trips: Companions)
"Hearts of Stone" by Steve Lyons (Short Trips: Companions)
"The Immortals" by Simon Guerrier (Short Trips: Past Tense)
"Mauritz" by Jonathan Morris (Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
"O, Darkness" by John Binns (Short Trips: Steel Skies)
"In the TARDIS: Christmas Day" by Val Douglas (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)

v • d • e Companions of the Fourth Doctor
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←Sarah														Leela									Romana I						Romana II												Tegan→
Harry																		K-9 Mark I					K-9 Mark II																	Nyssa→
																																						Adric→