| RISE OF THE CYBERMEN/THE AGE OF STEEL by Tom MacRae |
| Story 16 Synopsis: The TARDIS falls out of the Universe, landing in an alternate London, where Rose's dad Pete is still alive, and a success. The Doctor finds a small part of the TARDIS still functioning, and can regenerate the rest in 24 hours. Rose goes to meet her parents, whilst Mickey ducks off on his own mission. The Doctor follows Rose to the Tyler mansion, where a party is in progress. They get disguised as staff and mingle inside. Mickey visits his Nan, and is then kidnapped by Jake, a terrorist who thinks he is their leader, Ricky. The people of Great Britain all have earpieces from the Cybus Corporation, downloading information when delivered. Cybus is the brainchild of John Lumic, who plans to create new bodies for people to allow them to live on. The President refuses permission, but Lumic goes ahead anyway. At the party, the President is present, when the first of Lumic's creations arrive - the Cybermen. They kill the President, and cause havoc. The Doctor, Rose and Pete escape, and meet with Ricky, Mickey and their pals. The Cybermen surround them. The Doctor surrenders, but to no avail. He uses the surviving part of the TARDIS to blast the Cybermen away, and they all escape in Ricky's van. Pete reveals that he is the mole who was feeding information to Ricky's mob. Lumic activates a signal, and everyone wearing Cybus earpieces becomes a drone, heading for Battersea, where the Cyber-factory is. Travelling across London, Ricky is captured. The Doctor organises the rebels into groups - Pete & Rose go inside pretending to be drones, Mickey and Jake go to sabotage the airship to cancel the drone signal. The Doctor uses an underground tunnel to gain access. Rose and Pete are spotted and taken to the control room. Lumic is sabotaged and forced to become a Cyberman, but because of his knowledge, he becomes the CyberController. The Doctor is caught, and taken to the control, having learned the Cybermen have their emotions electronically inhibited. Jake resents Mickey for not being Ricky, but Mickey wins him over, and they manage to sabotage the drone signal, allowing the people in the factory to regain their senses. The Doctor gambles that Mickey is able to see the control room, and gets him to find the code for the emotion inhibitor, which he cracks. With it, the Doctor releases all the converted Cybermen to realise what has happened to them. The CyberController is not happy. The Doctor, Rose and Pete flee, making it to the roof where Mickey and Jake have taken over Lumic's airship. The CyberController tries to catch them, but Pete uses the sonic to burn off the foot of the rope ladder, causing the CyberController to plummet back to the exploding factory. Mickey decides to stay on this Earth, and help Jake liberate the Cyberfactories around the world. Pete is not impressed with Rose being a parallel daughter. The Doctor and Rose leave the parallel world behind. |
| Review:- Out of the ordinary, into a changed land, and the return (?) of an old and deadly enemy... After the return of the Daleks in the preceding series, the stage was set for the return of the Cybermen. But all is not quite as it seemed. From the crashing opening with the TARDIS knocked into a parallel universe, things looked bad. And they got worse. Mickey took umbrage at being ignored by the Doctor and Rose (and who would blame him?), setting off on his own agenda. Having found a way to restore the TARDIS, the Doctor found Rose overwhelmed by another chance to meet her dead dad again. Reluctantly, he went with her to try and meet Pete. Fortunately, the President was due to come to Pete's party, and some other guests not on the list came, too... One recurrent criticism of modern Doctor Who is that stories are so packed with incident that 45 minutes seems too short for a full development of the issues. This means that when there is a 2-part adventure, there is an expectation that stories will have additional room to develop. As it turns out, what this also means is that stories get loaded with even more plot, so as to create the same basic problem on a large scale. Here, there are two clear plot strands - the alternative Earth, and the Cybermen. Arguably one gave rise to the other, but putting them together is to their mutual disservice. The alternate aspect gives us yet another chance to meet Pete Tyler, the likeable rogue who we last met in Father's Day. There, his story was presented completely, leaving no need for more. So, here we got it. Quite why the Tylers were coincidentally so merited was not addressed, which is unsurprising when it seems to be more about cost-effectiveness. Pete is shown to be an actual success, which is hardly a stretch, and that Jackie is unlikeable and spoilt, which is hardly a stretch either. Rose's Achilles heel of trying to get close to her family seems to be taken for granted. It's laughably contrasted when Mickey wanders off to face his own family ghosts, something barely addressed before. It says a lot that Mickey's loss is more appreciable than Rose's persistent hero-worship of her father. Mickey also finds he has a double - Ricky. Whereas Rose is replaced by a dog, Ricky is identical, apart from the slight name-change. The consequences of alternate universes are thinly addressed along the way, and Mickey's big choice at the end is about as good as it gets. Inbetween, there are the Cybermen, as the wheelchair-bound John Lumic has devised a way to upgrade humanity into new bodies that will never degrade as humans do. Effectively, this provides a fresh start for these arch enemies of the Doctor, whilst at the same time playing on their earlier appearances. Regrettably, they seem to have made a few silly changes. They can kill people electrically, but only by making physical contact (arguably a sop to avoid scenes of strangulation). They also march everywhere in the most ridiculous fashion, as if Lumic was a secret fan of formation dancing. Without hand-held weaponry, they stand around and look menacing. Their implicit threat is used as a scare, without showing them much in action. The process of Cyber-conversion is graphically represented, and is impressive, whilst the scenes in the Battersea factory create genuine drama, as it seems Pete and Rose are doomed, but that's about as good as it gets. As soon as the Doctor finds their emotion inhibitor, it's curtains. He then gets a confrontation with the new CyberController, and takes a gamble that Mickey has access to see what's happening. Of course, it's a bit lucky that Mickey has made it through in time to get the Doctor's message. Otherwise, it would have been game over. Still, having knocked the signal to the earpieces, the Doctor completes the job by breaking the emotion inhibitor. Adios Cybermen. Even with the factory exploding, the CyberController gets one more chance to escape, but is doomed to plummet to death (or is he?) The story does build, so that the somewhat slow and unsatisfactory first half is bettered by the more dramatic second. Then again, some have complained the second part ruins all the magic of the first. Such is discussion. The cliffhanger is not good. The Doctor, Pete and Rose seemingly run away from huge numbers of Cybermen (what are they all doing outside anyway?), but end up surrounded. Then, in one bound, the Cybermen are zapped, and the story's off again. Quite poor. Yes, sacrificing the crystal was important, but there was so little attention given to it, the Doctor might as well have waved a magic wand. Unsurprisingly, the ending was rather curt. Pete did at least provide a fine end to Rose's infatuation, rejecting her interest. Mickey then left her to help Jake liberate the world. Like in the previous series, the idea that there might be a sequel from this is tantalised, even with the claim that there's no way back to this universe. Overall, it's an alright story, but with many flaws. Then again, wasn't it ever thus? |
| Disclaimer: I have watched this story. |