So, we’ve had Sontarans and Daleks in quick succession and both were fab. We can go for the hat-trick of classic monster stories, right? Wrong.
The story concept is nice enough and adds quite a but to the mythos of the Cybermen – we’re flung into their (and humanity’s) future and we are introduced to the idea that most of the race has been wiped out and they are now a bunch of nomads. There is a planet made of gold and as the Cybermen are now apparently viciously allergic to gold, this screwed up their last attempts at universal domination. So they have come back to finish the thing off.
There’s some double crossing and a lot of buggering about. The truth is I really can’t be bothered to write much about this because after the first part it just drags. There’s a lot of dull internal politicking by a group of aliens who look identical to each other and the Cybermen themselves are dreary.
There are one or two good moments – Tom Baker predictably gets a couple of nice lines and Harry and Sarah-Jane are as great as ever – but that’s about it.
Not bad, as such, but pretty meh. The only interesting thing I can think of is that on the basis of episodes, this story marks the exact halfway mark (well, between episodes three and four, anyway) in the marathon. I find it quite interesting that half of the show's episodes were broadcast in the first 12 seasons. I may only find that quite interesting, however, because I've just watched Revenge of the Cybermen and, right now, almost anything would seem interesting.
For the Cyber-history but not much else it scrapes itself a 4/10.
The story concept is nice enough and adds quite a but to the mythos of the Cybermen – we’re flung into their (and humanity’s) future and we are introduced to the idea that most of the race has been wiped out and they are now a bunch of nomads. There is a planet made of gold and as the Cybermen are now apparently viciously allergic to gold, this screwed up their last attempts at universal domination. So they have come back to finish the thing off.
There’s some double crossing and a lot of buggering about. The truth is I really can’t be bothered to write much about this because after the first part it just drags. There’s a lot of dull internal politicking by a group of aliens who look identical to each other and the Cybermen themselves are dreary.
There are one or two good moments – Tom Baker predictably gets a couple of nice lines and Harry and Sarah-Jane are as great as ever – but that’s about it.
Not bad, as such, but pretty meh. The only interesting thing I can think of is that on the basis of episodes, this story marks the exact halfway mark (well, between episodes three and four, anyway) in the marathon. I find it quite interesting that half of the show's episodes were broadcast in the first 12 seasons. I may only find that quite interesting, however, because I've just watched Revenge of the Cybermen and, right now, almost anything would seem interesting.
For the Cyber-history but not much else it scrapes itself a 4/10.