Attack of the Cybermen

Two Episodes (45mins each)
Aired between 5th January 1985 and 12th January 1985

Written by Paula Moore
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Matthew Robinson

Synopsis

Perri is still unsure about the Doctor's mental condition as he is currently frustrated at his attempts to repair the TARDIS' chameleon circuit. 

After a bit of persuading, he agrees to take Perri somewhere relaxing on Earth, but as he makes the adjustments, something pulls him to a specific location on the planet.

On Earth, Lytton, the stranded mercenary who fought with the Daleks has acquired himself a new job. He's now a bank robber, and has got a team together - Russel (an explosives expert), as well as Payne and Griffiths (hired muscle).  Together, they plan to steal 10 million pounds worth of diamonds, and Lytton orders Russel to get the explosives that day as the schedule has moved.

Russel goes to make the arrangements, but informs someone on the other end of the phone what the plan is.

The Doctor meanwhile decides to land and investigate a strange distress beacon, that seemingly pulled them off course.  The Chameleon circuit isn't working 100% and as they land at 76 Totters Lane scrapyard (See An Unearthly Child), it transforms into a french dresser. 

The Doctor starts wandering the streets with a tracker and Perri tries her best to keep up, all the while, they're unaware of two Policemen following them.

Lytton and his men meanwhile go into the sewers from an old access hatch at a garage site and move through the sewers, intending to blow the diamond vault from beneath.  It becomes obvious that they're being followed too, so Payne hangs back to kill whoever it is.  As the group get to the spot, they're surprised and captured by none other than a group of Cybermen (Payne is killed by a black stealth Cyberman in the process).  Russel however manages to slip away.

The Doctor traces the signal to the garage site and is confronted by the Policemen. They are Lytton's goons and are soon disarmed and cuffed. The Doctor and Perri go into the sewers to investigate and find Russel who after also being disarmed, tells them about Lytton's plan. It turns out that Russel is an undercover cop and was going to have them arrested but things went crazy with the arrival of the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, Lytton explains to the Cybermen that he's been looking for them (that was his real plan) and he wants to serve them. They tell him that the Cyber-Controller on Telos will decide his fate.

On Telos, the desert / ice planet, a group of captives work in the desolate landscape, digging rocks.  Three of the prisoners try to escape but one is killed, leaving only two - Bates and Stratton - to get away. Bates is angry and explains that they need 3 men to pilot a ship he knows is close by and they also need the head of a Cyberman to hollow out and use as a disguise. 

Back on Earth, the Doctor takes Russel back to the TARDIS but finds that the Policemen have been taken.  He's confronted in the sewers by a Cyber-Scout (black Cyberman) and kills it with his sonic lance.  Once they get inside the TARDIS, they see that it's overrun by Cybermen.  Russel is eventually killed and the Cyber-Leader orders Perri to be killed too. They are all spared however when the Doctor bargains to take the Cybermen to Telos if they let them live. 

The Doctor, Perri, Griffiths and Lytton are all closed inside an internal room off the console room and the TARDIS gets underway.

The Doctor leans from Lytton that the Cybermen have crude time travel thanks to a ship that crash-landed on Telos (and now the TARDIS). They have big plans for it, but Lytton won't say how he knows so much. 

The Doctor sabotages the trip, and they land in the catacombs of Telos instead of the main control room. 

The Cybermen lead them out, but they're attacked by crazed, diseased Cybermen from the tombs. The attack allows everyone to escape except the Doctor.  The humans run into the Cryons, ancient people of Telos who's cities the Cybermen took over for themselves. 

It turns out that Lytton was hired by the Cryons to help them stop the Cybermen and free their cities.  The Cybermen's plans involve going back in time to 1986 when Mondas arrived at Earth (see The Tenth Planet), and stopping its destruction.  They will then leave Telos and destroy it.

The Doctor meanwhile is placed in a cold room and meets the Cryon leader, Flast. 

She explains that the Cybermen will stop Mondas' destruction by diverting Halley's comet into Earth before Mondas can absorb too much of its energy. 

Lytton and Griffiths go out to find the crashed time-ship and meet Bates and Stratton, joining forces. Lytton is re-captured by the Cybermen along the way though. Ultimately, they do make it to the ship, but Cybermen are inside and they're all gunned down mercilessly.  Lytton is tortured and put into a conversion chamber.

The Doctor escapes his icy prison by using his sonic lance to warm up Vastial, an explosive mineral.  It blows the door and allows him to escape.  He gives his lance to Flast for her to blow up cyber control with the rest of the mineral.

The Doctor then finds Perri and they go to the TARDIS. The remaining Cryons urge them to go, but Perri convinces The Doctor to go back for Lytton, revealing his good intentions all along.  He takes the TARDIS to the conversion centre and finds Lytton but the Cyber-Controller finds him.

The Doctor palms a scalpel to Lytton who stabs the Controller when he reaches him. This is enough of a distraction for the Doctor to grab a gun and kill them, but not before Lytton himself is destroyed.

The Doctor mourns the loss of Lytton and escapes just in time for the Vastial to blow up and taking the time ship and the Cybermen of Telos with it.

Trivia

• The main thing to say about this story is that there's a lot of contention about who actually wrote it.  The simple answer is that Eric Saward wrote it.  The longer answer is that he wrote it, but Script Editor's couldn't usually commission their own work, so he got his ex-partner - Paula Woolsey to put her name to it (but called herself Paula Moore).  Not contentious so far, but... Ian Levine, continuity advisor to the show claims to this day that he had a lot of input into the story but goes un-credited.  Eric Saward strongly disagrees and says he had very minor things to contribute to the story.

• This is the first story of this season that intentionally shifted to using the 2x 45min format for episodes. The production team liked this format as the 25min format didn't allow much time for character or plot development.  

• The keen eyed of you will have spotted Terry Molloy playing the part of Russel. For those of you who don't know, he is the 1980's Davros. He got the part after the Director promised to find him a non-costume roll in one of his productions. 

•  Interestingly enough, Donald Plessence was down to play the part of Griffiths, but that fell through and Brian Glover got the part instead. He was supposed to play it cockney, but after two days of rehearsals, he managed to convince the Director to let him play it northern instead.

• The scene with Lytton getting his hands crushed was actually gorier, but was cut as a result

The Review

Being written by Eric Saward, the Attack of the Cybermen is similar in style to Ressurection of the Daleks, but whereas I feel that the Daleks story is innocent of much that is levelled against it, this is undeniably guilty.  The story is convoluted and far too complicated for its own good and big parts of it feel clunky and shoehorned in just to satisfy some need that they feel fans will have.

Case in point, there's no need to go to Totters Lane, but we do anyway. There's no need to mess around with the Chameleon Circuit, but we do anyway.  Was there ever a point in Lytton being there at all?  Yes, there's some small aspect of an arc there, but lets face it, his police goons barely feature in it and by the nature of the fact that he's a mercenary, there's no real personal stake in this for him at all.  Redemptive arc, fair enough, but it barely does anything to move me and make me lament his death even a quarter as much as the Doctor and Perri seem to.  You could just as well slip anyone into that role and it still work as well.

The biggest thing that this story is guilty of is trying too hard. It goes far above and beyond to cram in as much continuity references as humanly possible but manages it all awkwardly.  In a big way, this was meant to be a sequel to Tomb of the Cybermen, but seeing as it wasn't anywhere in the archives in 1985, the production of it doesn't even vaguely resemble the ice tombs of Telos that we now all know and love. The costumes are too up to date and you wouldn't use the old ones in a modern story even if you had them.  There's no Cyberman logo on the walls, and where did the Cryons and all these prisoners come from.  Come to think of it, what is all this about a crashed time-ship?! 

Is there anything good about this story then?  Yes.  The mood lighting is spot on. The music, when not having a god awful comedic theme for the criminals, is quite striking and the sections with Bates (as pointless as he was) is quite brutal and nicely raises tension.  The story as has been pointed out by others, is effectively cut into two.  The first part is a mystery - exploring seedy locations and building up horror, but the second part near enough destroys all of that with bonkers plot twists and confusing run around's for reasons that make little sense.

I want to like Attack of the Cybermen, and in individual scenes, it works, but as a whole, it's just very, very messy.

Rating

5 out of 10

Re-watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Tenth Planet

• Tomb of the Cybermen

• The Invasion

• Earthshock

• Resurrection of the Daleks

The Twin Dilemma

Four Episodes
Aired between 22nd March 1984 and 30th March 1984

Written by Anthony Steven
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Peter Moffatt

Synopsis

The Doctor is unhinged.

He is arrogant to the last, thinking that his new regeneration is superior in every way, but his personality keeps shifting. On top of that, his dress sense is appalling as he chooses a god-awful jacket that must have come from the biblical Joseph.

One outburst even results in him choking Perri half to death.

Whilst this is happening, two twin math geeks - Romulus and Remus are abducted by an old man called Edgeworth and taken to a spaceship thanks to a narcotic patch.

Edgeworth contact a slug like creature called Mestor and reports he has the twins.  He's ordered to go to the asteroid Titan III.

The twins father calls the cops and Lieutenant Hugo Lang takes on the job of hunting them down.

The Doctor being told about his violent attack on Perri realises he's not in his right mind. He declares that he wants to live in isolation for a thousand years in penance (even though Perri is with him).  He decides on Titan III as the perfect place to serve his atonement.

As they get there, they hear a ship crash landing.  They check it out and find an unconscious Lieutenant Lang in the wreckage. 

They take him back to the TARDIS but when he recovers, he accuses the Doctor of destroying his fleet and taking the twins.

Lang points a gun at the Doctor but faints again before he can pull the trigger.  The Doctor starts to act selfishly by refusing to help the man after being threatened, but Perri shames him into it.

Once they've treated Lang, the Doctor looks outside and finds a building on the isolated asteroid.  He and Perri check it out and get captured by two bird like aliens. The Doctor acts cowardly, begging them to kill Perri, not him. 

They don't kill them though, instead, the aliens take them to Edgeworth.

The Doctor recognises Edgeworth as an old Time Lord known as Azmael - lord of Jaconda.  They used to be friends. The Doctor realises that Azmael has abducted the twins and that he is using them to carry out complex math problems. They discover that someone else is ruling Jaconda now and forcing Azmael to do his bidding. Azmael looks sorry to do so, but he traps the Doctor and Perri inside his lab.  The Doctor isn't worried though, he thinks he can find the combination for the door lock in a day or two.  Unfortunately, one of the bird aliens has planted a bomb in the lab and it's ticking down.

Working fast, the Doctor uses some of Azmaels technology to teleport himself and Perri back to the TARDIS a little earlier in time.

Back in the TARDIS, Lang recovers and changes his tattered top.  Perri arrives and he holds her prisoner.  The building on the asteroid explodes and Perri thinks the Doctor's dead, but he turns up a short time later, alive and well.

They take the TARDIS in pursuit of Azmael to Jaconda.  The planet is not the jungle paradise as expected though, it's delsolate and rocky and full of giant gastropod trails.  Perri suggests going to the Palace to save Azmael and the planet ,but the Doctor doesn't want to as he fears for his life.  He finally agrees to, but decides to go underground, beneath the palace instead.  As they emerge, they find old cave paintings that depict a story of giant gastropods coming to Jaconda as retribution from a sun god. The gastropods were supposedly defeated, but the Doctor points out that clearly they weren't.  They see two of the gastropods go by but as they attempt to sneak away, Lang gets his foot stuck in their hardening slime trails.

Elsewhere, the twins come face to face with Mestor.  It becomes clear that Mestor has usurped Azmael's rulership of Jaconda and part of Mestor's plan is revealed to the twins. He intends to draw two planets into the same orbit as Jaconda. The kids are needed to stabilise their orbit.

The Doctor gets fed up of waiting for Lang to free himself and rushes off ahead to Azmael's lab, confronting him (and trying to strangle him).  The only friendly Jacondan left and the twins restrain the Doctor long enough for him to regain his senses.

Perri gets captured by the Jacondan's and taken to Mestor who intends to kill her. 

Lang, who managed to hide, rushes to tell the Doctor.  Turns out though, even Mestor finds Perri attractive and decides to keep her alive for a little while.

The Doctor is brought to Mestor and he suggests that the giant slug let him help move the planets, especially since these planets will then be moved into different time zones using technology stolen from Azmael.  He also bargains for Perri to be his assistant.

Mestor agrees and as the Doctor is snooping around the lab, he finds lots of gastropod eggs, engineered to withstand extreme heat.

He works out that the point of the planets is to put the eggs on them and send them to a time when the sun explodes. The eggs will be unharmed but will be shot into space to continue the gastropod's cycle of life and conquering of other planets.

Mestor uses the mind of Azmael's Jacondan friend to overhear their discovery, and knows that his game is up.  The Doctor sends Perri, Lang and the twins back to the TARDIS, whilst he and Azmael gather some supplies from the lab and confront Mestor. 

Mestor refuses to give up his plan and the Doctor hurls acid at him, but finds that Mestor is protected by a force field.  Mestor shows his power by possessing Azmael. The Doctor then destroys Mestor's original body with a second vial before the slug can return to it. 

Whilst Mestor is still alive, the ace up their sleeve is that Azmael was on his last regeneration, and therefore, when he forces himself to regenerate, the body dies and kills Mestor.

The Doctor takes a second to mourn his old friend and then goes back to the TARDIS.  Lang decides to stay on Jaconda and help the bird people rebuild and the Doctor agrees to return the twins home. 

Perri is still not happy with the Doctor's current regeneration, but he say's that he's the Doctor whether she likes it or not.

Trivia

• As you've probably seen, the story doesn't actually contain a dilemma about the twins

• Colin Baker was an odd choice to be a Doctor.  Rumour has it that John Nathan-Turner saw Baker's exuberant and erratic side at a party and decided he'd be fun to have.  Indeed, JNT modelled this Doctor somewhat on his own tastes and sensibilities - hence the bright coloured coat (he himself was a lover of gaudy Hawaiian shirts).

• Eric Saward thought that Colin Baker was not the right choice for the Doctor, but was forced to go along with it anyway.  

• Much of the "messed up Doctor" was JNT's idea, as was the decision to end season 21 with a sixth Doctor story to get people used to him

• Colin Baker himself had different ideas, wanting to be dressed pretty much as the 9th Doctor would end up.  He was overruled and had to wear the awful costume instead. He however did come up with the idea of the cat badge. This was intended to tie in the theme of a cat having 9 lives 

• In 2009, when Dr Who magazine asked fans to vote on their favourite stories from the classic era, The Twin Dilemma came in dead last, whereas The Caves of Androzani came in first place

The Review

The Twin Dilemma is a different Doctor Who in all the wrong ways.  John Nathan-Turner's vision for this Doctor was to shake things up, make him more edgy and unpredictable - almost a return to the crotchety old days of the first Doctor. He also wanted to get a story into the end of season twenty one so that the fans would get used to him before the next season started in the autumn.  The theory behind all that is okay, but the reality was something much different.

You see, to make it work, for a start, the Doctor has to come full circle so that he's redeemed and back to "normal" by the end of the story. As you see by the end remarks (and will see by future stories) this crotchety regeneration gone wrong will carry on for most of his next season. Given the ballsy move to actually try to choke Perri out on screen too, this Doctor just comes across as a complete tw@t!  I mean, there's very little in the way of redeeming qualities about him, and this is still the case by the end of the story (if you discount the brief glimpse of sorrow at Perri nearly dying or the actual death of Azmael). This would have undoubtebly left people at the end of the series looking in stunned disbelief and thinking - wow, this IS the new Doctor whether WE like it or not. Many would stop viewing because of this.

Also, the budget had been blown on the previous stories, so this is laughable in realisation of effects. Not something you want to put your new star into is it? 

All this is before we even get into the baffling and pointless use of the twins.

Many people take the mickey out of the Jacondan bird people, but that is one aspect that I do actually like. They did a decent job of them, in light of the budget.

I would fully recommend watching just to the point of the Doctor getting his new clothes and then switch off.  Switch it off, eject the disc (if that's still a thing) and throw it in the bin.

Rating 

4 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

2 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Web Planet

• Frontios

• Vengeance on Varos

• Mindwarp (Trial of a Time Lord Parts 5-8)