cybermen – Page 2 – Movement Point

Doctor Who Project: The Wheel in Space

July 27, 2023December 17, 2015 by Chris Baer

There seems to be rather a lot of metal around us.

Season Five of Doctor Who ends more or less as it began, with the Second Doctor facing off against the Cybermen. Regular series writer David Whitaker takes his first crack at the metal monstrosities in “The Wheel in Space” (Story Production Code SS), based on a story by Cybermen originator Kit Pedler. They’ve become much more Dalek-like in their intentions, looking to conquer the Earth with a convoluted plan that hinges on capturing Station Three, the titular wheel in space. It’s certainly not the first time the Cybermen have tried to take over Earth, but one wouldn’t know it from this story, as no one on the station seems to have ever encountered a Cyberman previously. Even though, um, the planet Mondas appeared in Earth’s sky back in the 1980s and the Cybermen invaded the Moon in the year 2070, both events prior to the setting of this story.

This narrative amnesia neatly encapsulates the current state of Doctor Who in 1968 (and, one might say, through to the current day). The needs of the story outweigh the needs of the established canon. Yet at the same time, there’s an almost reverent attention to small continuity details pitched solely at dedicated viewers (who would be the ones most likely to recognize, and resent, this amnesia). In the case of “The Wheel in Space,” the Doctor and Jamie are trapped in their predicament by a faulty fluid link; the escaping mercury vapor requires them to abandon the TARDIS and search (eventually) for more mercury. The fluid link connects back to “The Daleks” some four seasons prior when the First Doctor disabled the fluid links to force an ill-advised exploration of the Dalek city to look for mercury—and for adventure.

As has become somewhat standard, the Cybermen are attempting to infiltrate a base that they need to keep intact, so as to use the equipment therein for various nefarious purposes. This time, they have upgraded substantially, with the little Cybermats having energy beams (and the ability to detect brain waves and corrode metals) and the Cybermen themselves equipped with the ability to control human minds. What they haven’t upgraded is their tactical planning apparatus, as the entire scheme to take over Station Three hinges on ionizing a distant star to create a meteorite storm which threatens the station—so far, so good—and then, ah, hiding in a box.

Doctor Who Project: The Tomb of the Cybermen

July 28, 2023April 6, 2015 by Chris Baer

Well, now I know you’re mad. I just wanted to make sure.

Though only two months separate the end of Doctor Who‘s fourth season and the start of its fifth, the difference between “The Evil of the Daleks” and Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis’ “The Tomb of the Cybermen” (Story Production Code MM) could scarcely be more striking. Where David Whitaker’s Dalek magnum opus plodded along several episodes too long and jumped from location to location, Pedler and Davis bring the Cybermen back in a taut, crisp, and focused four episode story that feels unlike any Doctor Who we’ve seen before—mostly because it feels exactly like what we think Doctor Who is supposed to feel like. This story is the ur-Who.

After a brief introductory scene bringing new companion Victoria into the TARDIS, a scene serving mostly to give a refresher about what Doctor Who is all about to new and returning viewers after the summer hiatus, action shifts immediately to a crew of space archaeologists on the planet Telos. It’s actually a quarry, of course, but the setting works inherently because these archaeologists are blasting their way into the buried Tomb of the Cybermen. You can tell because there are Cybermen on the walls next to the (electrified) doors.

We’re given no excuse or reason for the TARDIS appearing here, unlike the elaborate explanations of a wonky control console or stuck fast return switch of prior seasons. The TARDIS simply lands and the Doctor and his companions just walk out to have a look around. Further, the archeological team only cursorily question the Doctor about his sudden presence and then the matter is effectively dropped, the show’s internal logic reigning supreme. In this instance, the Doctor is taken to be a rival archaeologist, also seeking the secrets of the long-dead Cybermen, and he goes with it, silencing his young companions when they threaten to blow his conveniently bestowed cover. There’s a story to be told here, so on with it.

The Doctor volunteers to help the expedition get into the tomb, and once there, he vacillates between helping and hindering. Something seems not quite right, with two members of the expedition, Klieg and Kaftan, curiously insistent upon getting in, despite the death of a expedition member by the electrified tomb doors. The Doctor knows the danger of the Cybermen, but he also wants to know just what Klieg and Kaftan are up to with the Cybermen. The story establishes (somewhat ham-fistedly) that they’re up to no good, and by the end of the first episode, there’s a sense of menace without a Cyberman in sight. One does show up right at the end of the episode, but it’s a dummy, albeit a deadly one. We do, however, meet someone new. A cute, cuddly, metallic Cybermat…

Doctor Who Project: The Moonbase

July 29, 2023December 14, 2014 by Chris Baer

Will somebody please tell us what it all means?

Just when you thought it was safe for the Doctor and his companions to visit an isolated human outpost that coincidentally contains a device capable of destroying the Earth, the Cybermen show up yet again to spoil the day. In almost every regard, Kit Pedler’s “The Moonbase” (Story Production Code HH) reads as a remake of his “The Tenth Planet,” aired a scant four months earlier, only with a different Cyberman weakness and a different Doctor at the helm, plus a groggy Scotsman who thinks a Cyberman is an avenging angel. We have: a remote international base (on the Moon instead of the South Pole); a commanding officer who effectively shrugs his shoulders at strangers knocking on his door; a doomed Earth spaceship; a group of Cybermen knocked out by quick companion thinking; a whole bunch of technobabble that sets up the doomsday device on the base; and a Cyberman weakness that requires humans to act in their stead and lets the Doctor turn the tables on the silver suited cyborgs.

And yet, derivative as it is, “The Moonbase” winds up being very different from “The Tenth Planet” almost entirely because it’s the Second Doctor rather than the First doing the table-turning.

If nothing else, “The Moonbase” represents the moment where Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor finally comes into his own as a fully developed character, out from William Hartnell’s shadow. To be sure, Pedler makes the connection between the two Doctors, with the Cybermen recognizing the Doctor (and vice versa):

Cyberman: You are known to us.

Doctor: And you to me.

The Daleks in “The Power of the Daleks” similarly recognized the Second Doctor, suggesting, again, that the Cybermen know of him from encounters between the original 1986 meeting, where the First Doctor regenerated, and their current 2070 engagement. But there, we didn’t recognize the Doctor even if the Daleks did; here, we feel like we know this Doctor: he’s crafty, cautious, and cunning, aware of his limitations and confident despite that knowledge. By the this story ends, we know how the Second Doctor thinks and acts. Pedler simply nails it. We almost feel badly for the Cybermen, because we know this is going to end poorly for them. You might say the Doctor blows them off their feet.

Doctor Who Project: The Tenth Planet

July 30, 2023July 20, 2014 by Chris Baer

I don’t understand it. He just seems to be worn out.

As Doctor Who stories go, quite a lot is asked of Kit Pedler’s “The Tenth Planet” (Story Production Code DD). In addition to delivering a ripping near-future yarn about cybernetic invaders from a twin-Earth, the story also needed to usher out William Hartnell’s First Doctor in a fitting and dignified manner. Pedler, with assistance from story editor Gerry Davis, manages both with some aplomb. Not only do we get the Cybermen, more frightening here in their debut story than in any future iteration, but also, Hartnell is given the chance for the virtuoso exit he richly deserved.

The TARDIS again finds its way to Earth, skipping from seventeenth century Cornwall to twentieth century Antarctica, though in 1986, twenty years in the future from Ben and Polly’s time, much to their dismay. With plenty of warm coats in the TARDIS wardrobe to choose from, our time travellers merrily pop out onto the ice cap for a visit, only to be apprehended by soldiers from the International Space Command, at whose polar base the TARDIS had landed. The commanding officer, General Cutler, has no time to interrogate his guests, however, as a space capsule on a routine mission has run into trouble. Some outside force is pulling the astronauts from their planned orbit. And the Doctor knows just what has happened.

In order to prove his knowledge of events, and thus potentially to help, the Doctor gives a scientist at the base a piece of paper noting that the problem stems from the sudden appearance of another planet—the Tenth Planet—in Earth’s vicinity; and not just any planet, but Earth’s long-lost twin, Mondas, with the same continents (and continental drift), only upside down. What’s more, the Doctor knows that Earth is about to receive visitors.

The Cybermen are on their way. They don’t want much, really. Just to drain the Earth of all of its energy and then destroy it.