When Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis needed a new style of Doctor Who monster in 1966, they looked no further than humanity itself. Looking at our species, they identified what it was that set us apart from machines — and got rid of it. And thus, the Cyberman was born: cybernetic creatures that were once human, but with all traces of emotion, any sense of a soul, removed and destroyed.
If anything, that severance of a connection with ourselves has made the Cyberman a far more terrifying foe for the Doctor than the Dalek, even in its new, terrifyingly relentless form as seen last year. Unfortunately, in the later years of Doctor Who’s original run, their effectiveness was weakened by overuse and occasionally dodgy characterisation. In the first part of Tom MacRae’s two-episode story, there’s every sign that they are on a definite return to form.
When the Daleks returned, it was essential that they looked pretty much like they always had in our imagination. With the Cybermen, though, there is no one historical design — so Neill Gorton’s Millennium FX were free to take inspiration from the multiple designs that have been seen in the last four decades. They’ve produced a masterpiece — moving men of steel, with a real sense of weight and merciless brutality.
The quasi-art deco look fits in with the parallel Earth that the Doctor, Rose and Mickey find themselves in — a world where Zeppelins swarm the skies above London. As with so many science fiction stories set in alternative realities, the concerns of the day are amplified — in this case, we have the single large technology corporation, sticking its digital fingers into every aspect of our lives. This, coupled with the ubiquity of mobile phones and the desire to have the latest upgrade, creates the perfect scenario in which, in their anniversary year, to portray a Cyberman genesis story.
And in general, it works very well indeed. Director Graeme Harper, the first to have worked on both the old and new versions of Doctor Who, creates an effectively claustrophobic environment, no more so than as the cries of the first human “upgrades” echo around a deserted factory. And Tom MacRae’s script, in common with the best aspects of this incarnation of Who, excels in portraying the humanity that the Cybermen lack. Especially effective is the set-up of Mickey Smith’s backstory, which is exposited and then expanded upon in short order, without feeling rushed. And the old device of the small resistance cell (in this case, led by that other old standby, the alternate universe version of Mickey) manages to stay just the right side of cliché.
If only the same could be said of Roger Lloyd Pack’s John Lumic — the head of Cybus Industries and creator of this universe’s Cybermen. In a wheelchair, crippled and dying, the evil genius who creates a new race of creatures to provide a twisted longevity for his race, inspired by his own quest for immortality, Lumic comes across as nothing more than a low-rent Davros. It’s not a fault of Lloyd Pack, but of the character he’s been given; a necessary role, but a cardboard one.
The only other negative point for me came at the episode’s climax, as the communicative Cyberman becomes reduced to chanting, “Delete, Delete, Delete”. As a catchphrase, it’s no “Exterminate”, let’s face it, and seems a backward step given the way that the steel monsters have previously been, if you’ll pardon the pun, fleshed out.
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