Revenge of the Cybermen Part Four

The one where the Doctor turns the Cybermats on their masters...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again - I love Harry Sullivan. How can you not love the bumbling old fool, played so perfectly by Ian Marter? At the start of this episode, he's basically responsible for nearly killing the Doctor twice over. "Harry, were you trying to undo this?" asks the Doctor of the explosive bomb buckle. "Well, naturally," Harry innocently replies. "Did you make the rocks fall, Harry?" adds the Doctor, to which Harry responds: "Er, well, I suppose I must have done, yes."

"HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!" hollers the Doctor, creating one of the most memorable moments involving Tom Baker and Ian Marter. The following scene is wonderful too, all down to Marter's spot-on performance and characterisation. Harry's rambling summation of events to the Doctor is hilarious. The way he casually mentions Kellman's death as an aside, forgets what the Cybermen are called ("Terribly bad on names") and sums everything up with the beautifully understated: "Things have gone a bit wrong." It's Marter at full throttle, totally in control of his character, and that's why I love him.

Revenge of the Cybermen Part Three

The one where the Doctor becomes a walking bomb...

It might have taken them too long to actually enter the story proper, but when they do arrive, the Cybermen are pretty impressive. They board Nerva in a way very similar to Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers in Star Wars two years later, and waste no time in gunning down every human they see: Commander Stevenson, Lester and the Doctor. They use gunfire from their helmets and it looks very much like everybody's dead (except of course we know the Doctor can't die). It's soon revealed that they're not dead at all, just "neutralised", as they are needed as part of the Cybermen's grand plan.

And we finally find out what that plan is: the Cybermen will send Stevenson, Lester and the Doctor down to Voga with lethal bombs strapped to their backs. When they reach the core of Voga, the bombs will be exploded, resulting in the planet of gold being "fragmatised" (as the Doctor points out, that isn't a proper word!). These cyberbombs have been banned by the Armageddon Convention, but the Cybermen don't give a toot about intergalactic law so carry on anyway. The Armageddon Convention features in the 1995 book The Empire of Glass, and is also mentioned in the New Adventure Original Sin. For the record, Cybermen and Daleks refuse to cooperate with the Convention, but Ice Warriors, Krargs, Sontarans and the Rutan host do.

Revenge of the Cybermen Part Two

The one where Sarah and Harry transmat down to Voga...

What a swizz! The blatant reordering of scenes in the reprise is a monumental cheat which directly contradicts the chronology of the previous week's cliffhanger. Last week, the Doctor was not free of Kellman's quarters when Sarah was attacked by the Cybermat, whereas this week he gets out in time to hear her scream and run to her aid. Cheating the audience like this really annoys me. It's so easy to write a good cliffhanger which has a workable solution the following week. Simply re-editing it to make it work better is just lazy production.

This second episode is treading water already. I've just sat down to write this after watching it, and I'm still hard pressed to think what actually happens in its 25 minutes. The Doctor does next to nothing except fiddle with various circuitry to get Harry and the ailing Sarah down to Voga, and then listen, boggle-eyed, in the background of numerous other scenes. The plot is literally on pause until the Cybermen decide to rock up at the end.

Revenge of the Cybermen Part One

The one where our heroes return to Nerva, but find that much has changed...

Season 12 just continues to give. First you have a new Doctor and companion, then a magnificent giant robot, followed by a new species of monster in the Wirrn. Then there's a trio of stories that brings back classic monsters: the Sontarans, the Daleks and now... the Cybermen! This is the first proper Cyber-story since The Invasion finished in December 1968, and is also the first time we'll see them properly in colour. Exciting!

The Time Ring zips the Doctor, Sarah and Harry back to Nerva, but I have to admit I'm just as puzzled as Harry as to why they have gone back in time thousands of years before the point from which they left. It's a pretty rubbish Time Ring if it can't even get you to the time you need to be. The Doctor gives some garbled explanation that the TARDIS is drifting backwards in time to meet them, and doesn't seem at all put out by this. To be honest, it makes little sense, but I do appreciate the fact there is a kind of season arc going on here, linking The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment and Revenge of the Cybermen (with a pretty monumental interlude in the form of Genesis of the Daleks!).