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
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