The Tenth Planet Episode 2

The one where the Cybermen storm Snowcap Base...

As with The War Machines, we get some vital information about the situation transmitted to the world via a newscast (this time on International Television News), adopting Russell T Davies' method of filtering extraordinary events through everyday means almost 40 years beforehand. It's a pity we don't get to see 1966 Doctor Who's vision of the earlier serial's London boozer as it might appear in the "futuristic" year 1986! Actually, it'd probably be a wine bar rather than a pub.

The Cybermen inexplicably don their victims' anoraks in order to infiltrate the control room, before revealing themselves in extravagant fashion by whipping off their ill-fitting hoods and displaying their utterly strange visage for all to gasp at (or scream at if you're Polly). These Cybermen, as we learn they're called ("Yes, Cy-ber-men"), really are very strange to look at. They appear to have been designed in a piecemeal fashion, reflecting the spare part surgery which took place to bring these monstrosities about. Sandra Reid's costume design might have been executed rather haphazardly (the Selloptaped headgear is embarrassing), but the aesthetic is terrifying and ageless. Fifty-one years later the new series would bring back and update the design, to fabulous effect.

Some people find this Cyber-design (which I utterly refuse to refer to as "Mondasian") a bit silly, but although the costumes aren't put together all that well, or sympathetically, it's the blank faces that spook me the most. The gaping hole where the stuttering electronic voice pours out is icky, it makes me think the jaw is fluid and unhinged inside that bandaging. But it's the eyes which spook me the most, because every now and then you'll catch a glint in the sunken eye sockets, as the light reflects the fact there is an actual fleshy eyeball in there. It's the way the actors stare around the set, at people, past people, even off set at times. You can see the humanity at the heart of these creatures is still in there somewhere, even if the emotional presence is dead.

These Cyber-actors do a grand job of portraying man-machines. They look half-human, half-plastic, they stare at you with the whites of their eyes, they point and shove with their bare fists, but they also stride around the set like giants, utterly convinced they are in charge and that resistance is useless. These Cybermen have a physical presence that perhaps they never had again until the 1980s.

The twin planet is called Mondas, which Barclay claims is "an ancient name for Earth" (news to me). Most of episode 2 is taken up with lots of Cyber-exposition. It seems they've invaded Snowcap Base just to bore everybody about their origins and intentions. One notably odd aspect of this very talky episode is that William Hartnell very much takes a back seat, having very few lines at all, and the ones he does have are short and sharp, often just repeating the previous speaker's recent words ("Save us?"; "Gather energy?"; "Why? Why?!"). It's obviously due to his ever-worsening health at this stage, but while he looks physically up to scratch, his mental faculties (or rather, his memory) were obviously failing him. Many of the lines I imagine were to be spoken by the Doctor in Kit Pedler's original script are farmed out to either Polly or Barclay, while the Doctor looks impassively on. It seems as soon as the Cybermen burst into the control room, the Doctor shuts right up; you'd hardly know he was there for most of it.

I do like the scene set in the projection room, where Ben destroys a Cyberman by projecting a 1943 Western called Wagon Wheels into its eyes, pinching its ray gun and turning it on him. Ben's regret at having to kill the Cyberman is an interesting contrast to the Cybermen's own disregard for human life, which perfectly partners Polly's particularly vocal protestations against the invaders' emotionless stance throughout the episode.

Director Derek Martinus treats us to a creative, yet questionable, shot of a waking Cutler through the parted legs of a Cyberman, before the General uses Ben's Cyber-gun to shoot down the rest of the invaders. It's all over very quickly for Krail, Talon and Shav (it's a surprise to learn the Cybermen had names when the credits roll, because they're never named on screen), but as the Doctor warns, perhaps he shouldn't have done that because, as we see, hundreds more Cyber-ships are on their way!

First broadcast: October 15th, 1966

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The Cybermen make for a very eerie screen presence. Especially the shifting eyes...
The Bad: It's all quite humdrum still. The Zeus 4 scenes continue to bore, and I'm kind of glad when Schultz and Williams die (it's not as if Kit Pedler gave them any form of character to feel for anyway).
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 3...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 3; Episode 4

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-tenth-planet.html

The Tenth Planet is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Tenth-Planet-DVD/dp/B00EF1I85Y