Day 203 — July 22nd 2021
Revenge of the Cybermen Parts Three and Four
Revenge of the Cybermen — Part Three
Season Twelve is a bit of a frustrating watch when it comes to Blu-ray, isn’t it? Everything’s been restored very well, of course, but two of the five stories are shot entirely on videotape, another is all videotape aside from a handful of model inserts shot on film, and none of them have any surviving film elements, which means that as lovely as it all looks, it’s not in full HD. It’s especially frustrating in the case of this episode because while I’ve continued on in my feelings or not really caring about Revenge of the Cybermen, the film material shot at Wookey Hole is the best thing on display, and I reckon it would look incredible if we could see it scanned in full resolution.
I’m thinking in particular of the close up shots we get of the two Cybermen in the caverns. It’s something that happens over and over again, and even just upscaled they look incredible. I said yesterday that I wasn’t a big fan of the Revenge style Cybermen, and while that still hold true, I think they look considerably better shot on film in the half darkness than they do stood around under the studio lighting.
We get a great opportunity to admire their built-in weaponry, too, with the ricochets of their bullets from the cave walls looking (and sounding) great. They feel like sequences which belong in a significantly more interesting story than this one.
Director Michael Briant can be a little frustrating too, it has to be said. His second story — The Sea Devils — was full of great bits of direction which really stood out and generated some praise from me on here, but all his subsequent stories have left me totally cold. This one seems to be pretty much the same case; there’s gorgeous moments like those close ups which feel really modern and special, but everything else is just workmanlike at best.
I have to say that I’m also really disappointed by the Cybermen in this one. I said yesterday that the new design isn’t my favourite, but their ‘arrival’ scene is brilliant — and I wish we’d not seen them in the story before it, as it would have been a fantastic way to encounter them for the first time after so long since The Invasion. Now that they’re on Nerva, though, they’re just standing around with their hands on their hips, chatting to each other.
And to make matters worse, there’s been absolutely zero attempt to do anything with the voices. So we’ve got blokes stood around talking… and their speech is all muffled as a result of being screwed into a fibreglass helmet! At least if they’d put some kind of electronic effect over the words you could pretend the muffled noice was all part of it. I’m not one to struggle with buying Doctor Who monsters as ‘real’ rather than simply as men in suits, but this is the most half-arsed attempt at an alien species in ages!
It’s not all bad, though. This episode does at least include a brilliant speech for Tom Baker to really sink his teeth into;
Cyberleader: ‘The matter is of no interest to you.’
Doctor Who: ‘Everything’s of interest to me, and Cybermen possess nothing that a human might want.’
Cyberleader: ‘You are incorrect.’
Doctor Who: ‘Then what is it? You’ve no home planet, no influence, nothing. You’re just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship.’
Cyberleader: ‘You speak unwisely. We are destined to be rulers of all the cosmos.’
Doctor Who: ‘No, I don’t think so, somehow.’
I think one of the things I really like about that little exchange is that I can imagine perfectly how Troughton would have performed it. It’s the one bit of the story so far which I can recognise from the Cyberman stories of old, although it ends up making me long to just watch The Moonbase or Tomb again instead of this one. A 3/10.
Revenge of the Cybermen — Part Four
As this episode rolled on, I came to the conclusion that I really couldn’t be bothered — and I suspect the same is true of the episode itself. The Cyber-plan that we’ve followed for the last two episodes unravels pretty early on here, and they decide to switch to a Plan B; crashing Nerva into Voga and letting it do the destroying for them. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t think of this sooner, because it’s a much easier option than trying to get humans down into the tunnels on Voga wearing bombs which (of the one we see explode here is any indication) aren’t all that powerful in the first place.
For a race which relies so heavily on logic, they don’t seem to have given much thought to their actual plan.
Anyway, the Cybermen set Nerva onto a collision course and head off back to their own spaceship, but that’s not a problem because the Vogan’s rocket can be reprogrammed in flight — even without the man who knows how to work it — and the Cybermen are all blown up ten minutes before the end of the episode. I know they’ve not always proven a particularly effective threat, but their arrival in Part Two was so powerful that it’s a shame to see them blown up so casually here when the story doesn’t need them anymore.
That’s indicative of how the story treats every element, though. Lester sacrifices his own life to let Doctor Who and Harry carry on with their mission to destroy the Cybermen. It starts off as a really interesting scene, as he watches them try (and fail) to overpower two guards with handfuls of gold dust only to be beaten down. In a single swift move he jumps down and detonates the bomb. He saves our heroes, and without him the Cybermen could very well have won. And how do the other characters react to his death?
Well, Doctor Who and Harry look at his remains (presumably — we don’t see them of course), shrug and our lead character simply says ‘come on…’ as he leads Harry away. Neither one of them bats an eyelid at this act of self sacrifice from a guest character who’s been with us since the beginning of the story and has been a part of the plan up to now. That feels callous and badly thought out.
A similar thing happens right at the very end of the story. The day is saved, the TARDIS rocks up, and the story decides it can’t be bothered;
Harry: ‘I say, what about the Commander? Aren’t we going to stop and
say cheerio?’
Doctor Who: ‘Come on!’
Sarah: ‘Don’t argue!’
They bundle into the TARDIS and we’re gone! Story over!
I think my biggest take away from Revenge of the Cybermen will be a massive sense of wasted opportunity. The series has been firing on all cylinders lately, and the Cybermen were a foe I enjoyed so much during the 1960s stages of this marathon. The chance to see Tom Baker going up against them, when he’s at this early stage of his tenure and giving it nothing short of his all every episode, was really exciting, and in the end the story… wasn't.
I’m ending this one on a pitiful 2/10, and now we’re back into another long wait for the Cybermen’s return — let’s hope it’ll be worth it next time…!
