Silver Nemesis

Three Episodes
Aired between 23rd November 1988 and 7th December 1988

Written by Kevin Clarke
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough

Synopsis

Two groups of people are interested in a comet that is crash landing on Earth at Windsor on 23rd November, 1988: the first is a bunch of Nazi's who have been residing in South America, led by an Aryan man called De Flores.  The second is a Jacobean woman - Lady Peinforte, and her assistant, Richard.  They have employed the use of a mathematician to calculate the comet's exact angle of descent. Once they know it, they kill him and take potions to travel in time to 1988.

Elsewhere, the Doctor and Ace are in Windsor, enjoying a nice bit of Jazz when his pocket watch bleeps. It's an alarm set to remind the Doctor of something important, but he can't remember what.  It seems it's to do with here and now however, as gunmen open fire on them and they narrowly escape by jumping in the river. After fishing themselves out, they go back to the TARDIS and the Doctor uses Ace's modified tape deck to discover that indeed, the Earth is in danger of destruction. 

He takes Ace and they travel to the bowels of Windsor Castle where he says he's looking for a silver bow which he suspects is part of it. 

Now in 1988, Lady Peinforte and Richard have brought with them a silver arrow which begins to glow as the comet hits Earth. 

In Windsor's basement, the Doctor feels the impact of the comet and determines it's to do with the nemesis- a piece of living metal that he brought with him from Gallifrey and sent out into space to keep it out of the hands of enemies. It crashes down every 25 years, and he sends it back up again, but it brings with it destruction, heralding significant events with it, such as the assassination of Kennedy, the start of WWII and so on. Thankfully, the nemesis is useless without two other bits of living metal - the bow and the arrow - both made of this living silver and hidden by him. Unfortunately for the Doctor, the bow went missing in 1788.

The Doctor and Ace go back to 1638 and discover Lady Peinforte's home (he knows her well as she was involved in an altercation with him when he launched it into space then).  He finds her gone, and the Mathmaticians calculations that point them back to the exact spot of Nemesis' return. They return to present day windsor, and after nearly bumping into the Queen, they are arrested by security guards.  

They try the honest approach and ask for guards to help them, but they're not believed and the Doctor resorts to distracting them with hypnotism so they can escape.

At the crash site of nemesis, Police arrive, but are knocked unconscious by a mysterious gas that comes from tubes in the ground.  All three parties - De Flores, Peinforte and the Doctor turn up there and are met by a fourth interested party - the Cybermen.  

A firefight ensues and the Nazi's are mostly killed, but a few Cybermen are taken down with Peinforte's golden arrows.  

The Doctor and Ace make a run for it, taking the silver bow. Peinforte and Richard also withdraw and the Nazi's are fought off, leaving the Cybermen with the Nemesis.

After another quick visit to Peinforte's home and making a mysterious chess move on the board there, he takes the TARDIS back to present day.  He explains that Nemesis is made from Validium and needs the critical mass of all its parts to work. It was created by Omega and Rassilon in the old times as a defence for Gallifrey but can be misused and so it's why he keeps it at arms reach. The bow glows and can lead them in the direction of the Nemesis.

Deflores and Richard use the arrow to also find the Nemesis. It turns out the Cybermen took it to her burial place. Together, they drive the Cybermen away with the gold arrows. They discover that the Nemesis looks just like Peinforte and that her own bones are not there.

As Peinforte is in her own tomb, and Ace and the Doctor blow up the cyber shuttle with her canisters of Nitro-9, De Flores tracks down the Cybermen and strikes a deal with them to kill Peinforte on their behalf in return for having part of the Earth when it's conquered by the Cybermen. 

They attack and Richard trades the silver arrow for their lives, taking Lady Peinforte against her will and escaping.

Believing he's got all three parts of the Nemesis, De Flores betrays the Cybermen, but soon realises the bow case is empty as it's with the Doctor.  He only just manages to escape by blowing gold dust at the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, the Doctor uses Ace's tape deck to discover that a huge Cyber-Fleet is waiting in orbit.  

He uses the Jazz tape they bought to jam the signals between them. The Doctor decides in light of the amount of ships, it's probably better for him to activate the Nemesis and order it to destroy them all.  They get to the crypt, bluff their way amongst the Cybermen and through throwing the bow between them, get it close enough to the Nemesis statue to animate it.  They run and it begins to follow.

The Doctor makes another quick trip to 1638 to make another chess move against an unknown opponent, then grabs some gold coins before coming back to 1988, materialising in a warehouse.

The Nemesis finds them and can speak. It takes the bow and is willing to be ordered by the Doctor.  The Cybermen however turn up, and it's down to Ace firing the gold coins in a slingshot to save them.  The Doctor manages to set a new trajectory in the rocket sled of the Nemesis and orders it to destroy all the Cyber ships.  The Cybermen corner Ace and the Doctor. The Doctor bargains for their lives by threatening to destroy the bow using the sled's thrusters.  They go to retrieve it, but the sled activates, killing the Cybermen.  

De Flores turn up and takes the bow. He speaks to Nemesis, but she will not answer.  A once thought dead Cyber-Leader, shoots De Flores and kills him.  He then takes the bow.  Peinforte and Richard also arrive, and she threatens to uncover the Doctor's supposed big secret unless he gives her the Nemesis. He decides that the bow is better in the hands of the Cybermen and offers it to them.  Peinforte says she will let them know all about the Doctor and old Gallifrey's secrets if the Cyber-Leader gives the bow to her, but he say's he doesn't care about any of that. 

The Cyber-Leader then makes the Doctor cancel it's destructive capabilities to which the Doctor knowingly asks it if it understood. It says it does.  He is then ordered to make the rocket sled rendezvous with the Cyber-fleet, which the Doctor is more than happy to send it up there.  As it sets off, Peinforte dives into the sled. becoming part of the Nemesis.

The nemesis goes into the midst of the fleet, blows up and destroys them all. The Cyber-leader aghast, asks how. The Doctor said Nemesis understood, but it didn't have to comply with the order.  The enraged Cyber-leader is about to kill the Doctor, but Richard saves him, killing the Cyberman with a gold tipped arrow.

The Doctor takes them all back to 1638, where a grateful Richard entertains them with music and food and a game of chess.  Ace asks the Doctor what secret Peinforte had, who actually is he? 

 He puts a finger to his lips and listens to the music.  

Trivia

• The story was always to have the word "silver" in it, as it was there to mark the 25th Anniversary of the show. It was a natural conclusion therefore to also include the Cybermen as the villains, even though the writer asked for the Daleks.

• When Kevin Clarke was asked what idea he had for the script, he didn't have a single clue, but he bluffed his way through a meeting, suggesting that Doctor Who is actually God himself.  John Nathan-Turner liked the idea and said Kevin Clarke could go with it, but he could never reveal it explicitly. 

• When Clarke was writing the script, he went to lengths to avoid naming De Flores' men as Nazi's, especially as Germany had just begun to watch the show.  However, the Director had other ideas and put swastika's everywhere.

• Anton Diffring who played De Flores was not impressed with the part at all.  It seems he'd played stereotypical Nazi's like this for most of his career and hated it.  He only agreed to do the part because he could come to the UK and watch Wimbledon.  He sadly died a year after this was made

• The production company asked permission to both film at Windsor Castle, and for Prince Edward to be in the story, but both were declined

• The crowd that's getting a tour of the castle actually contained lots of past show directors and actors, including Nicholas Courtney, the Brigadier himself.  He was approached by John Nathan-Turner during this and the result of their conversation can be seen in two stories time.

• The waste ground and the gasworks site that was used for this story was the site where the Millennium Dome was eventually built

The Review

Silver Nemesis is one of the rare Doctor Who shows for me that I remember fondly from being a child, and when you watch it as an adult is particularly cringe worthy.  The bits that allured me to it are still relatively good now, and are no doubt the best parts of the story- Ace fighting the Cybermen with a catapult- the Cybermen emerging from their ship in all their chrome plated glory.

If it was an action film, then it would have had a halfway decent attempt at it.  The scenes are fast paced and exciting. The three way showdown in episode two is surprisingly good. The problem comes when you have to make sense of it all.  A lot of the plot is just nonsense e.g. why did the Doctor keep allowing the nemesis to return to earth if it instigates all the bad stuff? Where is the bad stuff that HAPPENED in 1988?  How did the Germans get to the UK from South America so quickly?  

It's interspersed with comedy also (the skinheads and llama's), which is a bit meh, and ultimately just wastes time, as does the repeated trips to 1638, although that is a nice hint that something bigger is going on.

One thing that you could say is that this is effectively the exact same plot as Remembrance of the Daleks, but done worse. Neither plot is glorious, but it's the components in it that make up the enjoyment.  Unfortunately for this story, there was less character development, less intrigue and a lot more nonsense going on for it to be an equal.

Rating

4 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• Remembrance of the Daleks

• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark