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.

Transmatting Sarah down to Voga means the toxins in her body are filtered out, like some sort of intergalactic sieve. Of course, it's not long until Harry and Sarah are arrested by Vogans, who look like lots of little William Hartnells as they scuttle through the caves, their white hair billowing in silhouette! They're rather sweet really.

The scenes in the caves (Wookey Hole doubling for Voga) are very well directed by Michael Briant, using the vastness of some of the spaces to great effect, as well as the atmospheric lighting. Later, when Harry and Sarah escape and are pursued by Vogans through the caves, the location is really used to its advantage, including camera shots from up high, and across bodies of water. It really feels like a real location, rather than a generic bunch of caves.

It's while watching Harry and Sarah hurtle around Wookey Hole that my mind wandered away from what plot there is and on to the fact that poor Ian Marter has been wearing these clothes for the last four stories. People comment on the fact companions in the Davison era so rarely change their clothes, but Harry has been wearing this blue blazer and shirt, grey slacks and cravat since he left Earth at the end of Robot (with just a couple of very brief changes into guard uniforms in Genesis of the Daleks). At least Elisabeth Sladen got to change clothes a few times, for both The Sontaran Experiment and during Genesis of the Daleks!

One thing we do learn in this episode is that Cybermen are apparently susceptible to gold. As a non-corrodable metal, it clogs up their breathing apparatus and effectively suffocates them, says the Doctor. But! But! But... Cybermen don't "breathe", do they? They're cybernetic, they don't have lungs, and they don't need oxygen. So what on earth is the Doctor referring to when he mentions breathing apparatus?

Of course, the introduction of gold as the Cybermen's ultimate weakness will stay with Doctor Who for many a year to come, and will find its most ridiculous form in Silver Nemesis when the silver giants are afraid of even the proximity of gold. A misstep methinks.

The Cybermen are barely in this second episode either. We get one brief and meaningless scene a la part 1, in which they essentially chat about the endless journey they are on to get to the beacon. The Cyberleader stands with his hands on his hips like some kind of stainless steel superhero. It's a stance that - rather like the seated Cybermen with their hands resting on their thighs - goes against the grain of everything a Cyberman is supposed to be. They don't have feelings or emotions, they don't have moods or mannerisms, and they never tire, so don't need chairs. This bunch of Cybermen seem the least cybernetic versions of all. Their voices are much more human too. Gone are the slightly incomprehensible ring modulated voices, replaced by something akin to what we'll get used to in the 1980s.

And that's about it. Little happens. There's some lovely banter between bickering Sarah and Harry ("Fetlocks like a carthorse!" - "My ankles are not thick!", and "Well we can't just sit here glittering, can we?"), and we get to meet Vogan Councillor Tyrum, who sounds so muffled behind that bushy beard of his that you only really catch the gist of what he's saying. Unbelievably, Tyrum is played by Kevin Stoney, he of the mighty Mavic Chen and Tobias Vaughn, but he might as well be played by an unknown bit-part actor for all he manages to bring to it.

The cliffhanger sees the Cybermen board Nerva at long last, cutting down Stevenson, Lester and the Doctor by shooting from their new-fangled helmet guns. "The beacon is ours!" says the Cyberleader triumphantly.

Erm... so? I fail to see why this is so important. Let's hope we get a bit of plot in part 3...

First broadcast: April 26th, 1975

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Michael Briant's location filming at Wookey Hole.
The Bad: We're halfway through and the Cybermen have only just entered the story proper. This is supposed to be their big comeback after over six years off screen, but it's actually a really dull runaround.
Overall score for episode: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 05

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; Part Four

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.com/2014/06/revenge-of-cybermen.html

Revenge of the Cybermen is available on BBC DVD (alongside Silver Nemesis). Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Revenge-Cybermen-Nemesis/dp/B003QP2TPA