Rise of the Cybermen

It might just be that I'm flagging, but very little about Rise of the Cybermen excited me. For a start, it's the Cybermen. Don't me wrong, I think the Cybermen are tremendous baddies: implacable, relentless and creepy. It's just their potential has never been fully realised because a lot of their stories are awful. Do we need to go through all that? Suffice to say that the cliffhanger to episode two of Tomb of the Cybermen is as good as they ever get. Far too often, it feels like they have just been bolted on to a story that could have worked with any alien threat. Even Earthshock, that sacred Cybercow, would be just as good, if not better, with Zygons or Draconians instead. Cybermen stories should be about the Cybermen. They should be driven by the characteristics, the methods that make Cybermen different to, say, Daleks. Or else why use them?

What are these unique Cyber-factors then? Firstly, the horror of human conversion. They take us, they need us, and break our bodies and minds so that we fit their template. (See Revelation of the Daleks, The Parting of the Ways, Daleks in Manhattan and Asylum of the Daleks for examples of Dalek encroachment into this area). Coupled with this should come a sense of the Uncanny Valley: Cybermen should be unsettling because they are so nearly human. Secondly, logic. The Cybermen do what they do because it makes sense to them. Coupled with good organisational skills, this should make them cunning and almost unthwartable, but see The Wheel in Space, Revenge of the Cybermen, Earthshock, and Attack of the Cybermen for some really stupid and/or nonsensical schemes. Thirdly, lack of emotion. Whilst executing their well-prepared plan to harvest your human body, the Cybermen should show you no compassion. Or smugness. Or display a sense of betrayal. Fourthly, strength. Cybermen should tower and physically intimidate those around them.

Does Rise of the Cybermen tick any of these Cyber-boxes? Well, it is beginning to. The story takes some pains to explain the process of conversion, and we do get a sense of the horror of it all. We certainly see their strength and power when they crash through the windows of the Tylers' party. But we don't get anything else: so far, these new Cybermen are just hired muscle.

This is a problem. Nearly all of this episode is spent exploring a parallel world and the motivations of John Lumic that bring the Cybermen about. It is wasted effort. Lumic's presence downgrades the Cybermen to mere henchmen, devoid of their own agency. In this episode they are merely following orders and therefore their logic and their emotionlessness are irrelevant. If Lumic was more of a Davros, this would matter less, but Roger Lloyd Pack plays him with a demented panto glee that guts the character of any interest. He's a gurgling monster, when it's his humanity which should fascinate us and drive the creation story forwards.

And then, sadly, the rest of this almost entirely Cyber-less episode is just dull. The first thing that happens is that the TARDIS supposedly withers and dies, and several minutes are devoted to having the Doctor mope about as a result. Nobody watching this believes for a single second that the TARDIS is actually dead. Nobody. So why string out the suspense as if this was a genuine event?

This parallel world is not particularly interesting either. The point of a parallel world is to show us something about our own. The differences should matter to the story. The classic Doctor Who parallel world story is Inferno, where the Doctor travels sideways to an Earth where Britain has become an authoritarian fascist state. Faced with an identical threat, our world is saved and theirs is destroyed - the difference is the effect that the regime has had on the people in that alternative world: it has made them suspicious, selfish and violent and they effectively prevent the Doctor from saving them. In Rise of the Cybermen the differences are entirely cosmetic: airships and a president. It doesn't matter. It tells us nothing about ourselves.

The only significance of this alternative Earth is personal. Mickey has an identical equivalent and Rose's parents are both alive. Bringing back Pete Tyler only weakens the impact of Father's Day, an error that will be compounded by Doomsday. It's great to see more of Mickey, and of Noel Clarke (both have been considerably underused), but as fun as this is, it is only happening so that Mickey can be written out. He's superfluous to requirements, as we can see from the cruel opening scene in the TARDIS. None of this adds anything to this particular story and I can't help but think this could have been set on our world with only a few unimportant changes. By all means have them be 'invented' on our Earth (rather like the Ironsides in Victory of the Daleks) but they should appear much earlier in the episode, perhaps with a cliffhanger where the Cybermen turned on their creator and took control. Yes, it would mean losing a lot of set-up for Doomsday but this story would be better, and a better Cyberman story too. But it seems sometimes like the point of Doctor Who is to move Heaven and Earth to make Rose Tyler happy.

If I sound bitter, I am - but only in the context of this being a daft but brilliant TV show I've watched all my life. And this episode really is another missed opportunity to do something great with the Cybermen. They were all the boys wanted to talk about, certainly. They both awarded nines, but there was a lot of debate between them about the conversion process.

"Do they attach the person to the cyber body?"
"No, they said they cut out the brain. They have the body ready."
"They cut out the brains? That doesn't make sense. How would they stay alive?"
"They said something about a special fluid that kept the brain fresh?"
"While it is being cut out of the head?"
"I guess."
"That does not make sense. And, quite frankly, I did not need that image in my head."

That seems to sum the Cybermen up. They hardly ever make sense, and you don't want them in your head. Or your head in them.


NEXT TIME...