Attack of the Cybermen Part Two

The one where Lytton undergoes Cyber-conversion...

When you take a step back - which isn't hard to do during this era - it becomes plain just how ridiculous Attack of the Cybermen is. It's all show, and no depth. There's so much going on, entire subplots appear from nowhere and are dropped into the mix in an effort to raise the stakes. But all they really do is confuse and annoy. There are so many ideas thrown into this hotch-potch of a script that it begins to feel like I'm watching tangled wool (now there's a simile for you!).

Part 1 didn't exactly feel straightforward, but for the most part I did feel that I understood what was going on. With part 2 comes a wealth of extra elements which might have felt quite neat individually, but collectively they destroy any sense the story may have had to start with. I'm really not sure how anyone could adequately summarise the plot of this story in one or two sentences.

Attack of the Cybermen Part One

The one where the Cybermen invade the TARDIS...

It's January 5th, 1985. Doctor Who's 22nd season bursts onto the screen on a Saturday teatime for the first time since Tom Baker regenerated in 1981. It feels like Doctor Who was back where it belonged, back home where it all began on that fateful November evening in '63. Fittingly, this episode would see the Doctor return to the place where it did all begin - a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane. There would also be a policeman wandering about, as there was in An Unearthly Child. What delightful symmetry!

Something is different though, and that's the length of the episodes. For 22 years an episode of Doctor Who had been 25 minutes, with a handful of exceptions, but Season 22 would see each episode almost twice the length at 45 minutes. Previously, an average story would consist of four 25 minute episodes, but now they'd mostly be made up of two 45 minute episodes. It was a gamble with the format, perhaps to make it more commercial overseas, but you can't just stitch together two 25 minute episodes and get away with it. There's an entirely different ebb and flow to a 45 minute drama, so let's hope the requisite adjustments were allowed for...