Attack of the Cybermen

Dear Gary—

“You never did intend to do that diamond job.” That’s what’s wrong with Attack of the Cybermen, as it is with a number of recent stories: script confusion. Our attention is focused on this supposed diamond heist for a good part of the opening episode only to have it go nowhere. Just as the character of Russell the undercover cop goes nowhere. Introduced and then disposed of to no apparent purpose.

This is done on a larger scale with the characters of Bates and Stratton. We never know who these guys are, how they got to Telos, what they are doing there, or why they are there. We come in on the execution end of their escape plan from a Cyberman work gang and spend quite a bit of time with this pair on the run. Bates is continually shouting at Stratton about how their plan has gone awry, and the two expend a bit of effort to get a hold of a Cyberman head so that Stratton can disguise himself and they can enter Cyber Control. But then they meet up with Lytton and this grand scheme of theirs is abandoned and the two are subsequently killed. This strand of story has potential but eventually leads us down a dead end. Waste of time.

The story can’t make up its mind what it wants to be about. By the time we get to the real heart of the tale it has to be rushed to a conclusion with no chance to explore, no depth, no subtlety.

Peri isn’t too sure of the Doctor, either, despite his claim of, “At this very moment I am as stable as you will ever see me.” And even the TARDIS is confused now that the Doctor has fixed the chameleon circuit (for shame!) and can’t make up its mind what it wants to be even though it has landed in the familiar Totter’s Lane junk yard. This is a nice nod to Doctor Who history, but then it is negated when the TARDIS changes from its beloved police box form into a fancy dresser.

Perhaps the TARDIS is making a wry commentary on the Doctor’s wardrobe, not to mention Peri’s pink disaster. I’m sure the dads and young lads are going gaga, but the poor girl looks highly uncomfortable in that too small spandex leotard. The Doctor declares, “I suddenly feel conspicuous,” but I’m sure Peri is feeling self conscious in her own getup. As for her high heels—I swear they are mic’ed. Clomping along after the Doctor they make her sound as graceful as a hippopotamus.

The Cybermen of our story have a few problems as well, with at least one appearing to have overindulged a bit. (Do Cybermen eat, I wonder?) There are two groups of Cybermen, one headed by the Cyber Leader in 1985 London and one headed by the Cyber Controller on Telos in the future. These two groups, past and future, must somehow be in contact. It’s a bit confusing and brings to mind the dreadful Dalek adventure Lytton was also involved with, Resurrection of the Daleks, in which there was a time corridor linking past Daleks on Earth with future Daleks on a space ship. In our present story the Cybermen only seem to have a communication link and not a physical link, although I suppose they could have arrived in the time ship referenced back on Telos. If so, the ship dropped these Cyber folk off in the sewers of 1985 London and then left them there. It is not until the Doctor shows up with the TARDIS that they are able to get back.

If the Leader et al were sent to Earth from Telos, I suppose it was to rig up something to arrange for the collision with Halley’s Comet. If so, shouldn’t the Doctor be concentrating on that? And if not, what were they doing there? Or if they were there for that purpose and didn’t complete the mission, why return to Telos before they are through?

As far as I can tell, about the only reason to have the Leader and his gang is so that there can be scenes of running through sewers on Earth and to stick in some references to past serials. The story would have been far better served if it had been set entirely on Telos so that the real meat of the plot could have been developed rather than including all of these distractions during the first half that lead us nowhere. Presumably we are treated to the Leader of the Sewer Pack in order to reintroduce Lytton, but couldn’t Lytton just as easily have gotten to Telos on his own? Did he really need this convoluted way of luring the Doctor to 1985 Earth, which by the way is by no means certain of success and he only lucked out by contrivance of the script, and then risking the wrath of the Cybermen who he somehow knows are lurking in those tunnels in order to manipulate them into hijacking the TARDIS to take them all to the waiting future on Telos?

And really, let’s face it. If Lytton is actually working for the Cryons, wouldn’t it be far easier for him to contact the Doctor directly, explain the situation, work with him to take the TARDIS to Telos and defeat the Cybermen, disable or destroy the confiscated time vehicle, maybe free the prisoners in the Cyber work camp rather than abandoning them to their fate as they ultimately do?

“I don’t think I’ve misjudged anyone quite as badly as I did Lytton,” the Doctor says ruefully at the end. However I’m not going to berate the Doctor on this one like Peri (“You never gave him a chance.”). I’m not even sure that Lytton is misjudged by the Doctor. So he was working for the Cryons. He’s a mercenary. Mercenaries work for the pay. We are never given any indication that he is working out of the kindness of his heart. He could just as easily be working for the Cybermen, and as previously mentioned he never gives the Doctor any reason to think otherwise.

Lytton’s fate is gruesome, yes. The whole concept of the Cyber conversion and of conversions gone wrong, as illustrated by the ill-fated Bates and Stratton, is horrifying (much more so than the laughable, cartoon machinery as depicted in New Who). I wish that this aspect of the Cybermen had been given the screen time it deserved. Neither this nor Lytton’s character, however, are ever developed to a point to justify the Doctor’s self flagellation.

Even if Lytton is aiding the Cryons for noble purposes, how do we know this is any better? What do we know of the Cryons? They are the native inhabitants of Telos, they can’t survive in temperatures above freezing (why or how they developed on Telos under those conditions is unfathomable), and they were all but wiped out by the Cybermen. Does this make them innately good? We are never given sufficient reason to side with the Cryons other than that they are opposed to the Cybermen. In a war between Cybermen and Daleks, would the Doctor use the same criteria?

One point in their favor is that the Cryons are resigned to their fate (or so they say) and are simply trying to stop the Cybermen from changing history even though this will seal the Cryon’s own doom. However, this whole history changing plotline is flawed. The Cybermen want to destroy Earth in 1985 to avoid the destruction of Mondas in 1986. This will not work. Earth did not destroy Mondas in 1986. The Cybermen destroyed Mondas by absorbing too much energy from Earth. If Earth were not there, the Cybermen would have tried absorbing energy from another source and again blown their home planet up. If the Cybermen of our present story truly want to save Mondas, they need to tell 1986 Cybermen to develop another means of obtaining the energy they require. And since they are already in communication with Cybermen on Earth in 1985 and apparently also have a ship on the dark side of the moon, can’t they just tell them this and be done with it?

But that seems to be the problem of late with both the Cybermen and the Daleks. The show uses them as shortcuts to action; it throws nostalgia reference points and old clips at the audience and thinks that this makes up for the lack of continuity in the actual characters and their history. Here is a chance to really explore and embellish Cyber History but Attack of the Cybermen utterly fails on this front.

Instead we get a muddle of Cybermen (who by the way are much too easily killed) from different places and times with laughable plans. Are they really going to destroy their adopted home planet just to study the effects of the explosion on the atmosphere, while at the same time trying to stop their past selves from destroying their original home planet?

And I just have to laugh, Gary. I guess the loud pink was too much for the Cyber brain to take in and they make Peri change. I can’t imagine that the Cybermen would so uncharacteristically care or even notice that a human might be cold in the outfit she is wearing. At least Peri finally changes into something slightly more sensible, although I doubt it is going to keep her very warm. The jumpsuit she dons might protect against crisp autumn air, but it’s not going to go very far in preventing frostbite in subfreezing temperatures.

One final word, Gary. The sonic screwdriver had been destroyed back in the Fifth Doctor story The Visitation, with the complaint against it being it had been relied upon too heavily as a magic wand. So what does Doctor Who do in Attack of the Cybermen? It needs a magic wand and it pulls a sonic lance out of the Doctor’s pocket.

“It didn’t go very well, did it,” the Doctor summarizes at the end. “Earth’s safe,” Peri offers, “ S-s-so is history a-a-and the web of time.” I never felt Earth or the web of time were in much danger, though, and can only agree with the Doctor. It didn’t go very well, but not on the “personal level” he talks of. The Doctor did just fine. This was a fundamental failure in the script. With bad scripts, it is hard to gain sympathy for the new Doctor no matter how much I try. At least the TARDIS has resumed its customary shape, and kudos to Doctor number six for the fond pat of recognition he gives it.

Here’s hoping, Gary, as ever . . .