Revenge of the Cybermen

Of all the things I was hoping for more of, a Gerry Davis penned Cyberman story was not high on my list. Despite their ubiquity in the Troughton era, there was only one good story that featured the cyborgs (The Invasion) and Davis had nothing to do with it. Like Terry Nation, Davis had a tendency of recycling ideas, but at least Nation’s ideas were good. Things don’t look good for the story at the outset, with Revenge of the Cybermen starting off looking like a remake of The Wheel in Space, the very worst Cyberman story of the Troughton era. The story seems to indicate Davis’s sabbatical from the programme has given him time to think of a couple of new ideas. The Cybermen wish to destroy the planet Voga, a planet with very high gold deposits, a metal that is lethal to the Cybermen. The Vogans wish to be rid of the Cyber menace, but some wish to take offensive action, while others prefer to hide.

The fact that Davis has actually come up with a reasonably original storyline would be refreshing- if perusal of the original script didn't reveal that most of the innovations were the work of Robert Holmes. Beyond this, the actual plotting leaves a great deal to be desired. The Cybermen use the Doctor and the Nerva crew as ‘suicide bombers’ to take explosives to the centre of the planet. The reason why they don’t plant the bombs themselves is unclear. It can’t be because the gold content makes it impossible for the Cybermen to set foot on Voga, as some do, later on in the story. When they do, they are able to kill the entire Vogan army- who, for some reason, don’t use gold in any of the weapons that they deploy against the Cybermen, despite the fact that they use gold in everything else! Although their plan doesn’t have the Heath Robinson level of idiotic complexity that Davis usually gives them, the Cyber-scheme is still convoluted. Vorus’s plan is also ridiculous- why not just shoot down the Cybermen’s spaceship before they disembark? The characters are poorly defined and, even if it wasn’t for the many plot holes, the scene to scene plotting is very pedestrian.

To compensate for this, the story is very well designed, with some great sets and costumes and some fantastic location work at Wookey Hole. The makeup for the Vogans is very effective, actually making each of them look slightly different. Michael E Briant directs very well throughout- there are very effective scenes in part 1 when the TARDIS crew find Nerva full of diseased bodies and is helped by a cast that is so good that it elevates the mundane script into something watchable. The Vogans boast Kevin Stoney, David Collings and Michael Wisher, three excellent actors who manage to turn poorly defined ciphers into characters. Kelman is a stock traitor on paper, but Jeremy Wilkin makes him one of the smarmiest characters seen on the series. Unfortunately, the Cybermen themselves are less successful- so poorly defined that they could be any set of alien thugs. The performance of Christopher Robbie as the Cyberleader is completely off- a petulant, camp, silver gimp. The regulars are great, thanks to some great character dialogue by Robert Holmes- if there’s one thing worth watching the story for, it is the ‘Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!’ scene.

This is the best Cyberman story that Gerry Davis wrote. However, that is the faintest that faint praise can be. And the cybermats are still rubbish.

NEXT: Terror of the Zygons