Revenge of the Cybermen: my review
jph...@aol.com
had a copy of Revenge of the Cybermen, having sold my VHS a couple
years back on the certainty that it would be on DVD by the time I
wanted to see it again. "Oops." Anyway, one Amazon Marketplace
purchase later, here I am with...
REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN
4 episodes. Written by: Gerry Davis, Robert Holmes (uncredited).
Directed by: Michael E. Briant.
THE PLOT
The Time Ring returns the Doctor, Harry, and Sarah Jane to Station
Nerva. But they arrive centuries early, in the time before the solar
flares, when the station is being used as a beacon to aid in space
travel. This particular beacon has been set up around Voga, an
apparent asteroid drawn into Jupiter's orbit to become a new satellite
for the giant planet, and a potential hazard to space navigation. But
all is not well on Nerva Beacon. The station has been ravaged by
plague, with only a handful of its original staff still alive.
The Doctor quickly suspects that this is no simple space plague. And
when a metallic worm is caught injecting Sarah Jane with poison, his
worst fears are confirmed. The worm is, of course, a Cybermat. And the
Cybermen are on their way, with a fiendish plot to destroy Voga before
moving on to conquer the galaxy!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Tom's first truly manic performance (even Robot was fairly
settled, with most of the overt goofiness confined to the first
episode). I more than half-suspect Tom, now comfortable in the role,
recognized that this was a weak script and decided to have some fun
playing against as many lines as possible. Since it's the first time
he really runs with his more manic tendencies, it works (it won't
always, at least not in this reviewer's opinion). There are some
classic Tom bits here. Grinning after being manhandled by the
Cybermen, letting loose with a stream of technobabble and then
translating that he and Sarah Jane are "heading toward the biggest
bang in history," or cheerfully wondering, "Who's the psychopath?"
after Kellman insistst that he, Sarah, and Harry should be killed at
once.
Tom's best moment, for me, comes in Episode Two, though. Kellman has
been all but exposed as a traitor, but he is still protesting his
innocence and the station's captain is not yet quite 100% convinced of
the man's guilt. Until the Doctor decides to hasten the questioning by
using a reprogrammed Cybermat to threaten the man, noting that after
it strikes, Kellman will have about 10 seconds to give the needed
information if he wants to live. It's a standard enough scene, really.
Pertwee would have played this scene dead straight, utterly serious
and imperious in facing down Kellman, and he would have been suitably
compelling doing so. But Tom turns this scene just the right degree
askew to make it something memorable, grinning manically as he
threatens Kellman. Instead of summoning furious intensity - something
Tom's quite capable of doing, as Genesis amply demonstrated - he grins
manically, seeming to almost revel in the game of threatening Kellman.
It's very effective, and just the tiniest bit disquieting how much he
seems to be enjoying himself at this point.
Sarah Jane Smith: Not her strongest story. Other than showing absolute
faith in the Doctor at all times, she really isn't given much to do.
She gets thrust into the role of "damsel-in-distress" fairly early on,
when she's poisoned by the Cybermat. She then plays companion to
Harry, who very much takes the lead on Voga, before thrusting herself
right back into peril by going back to the Beacon in Episode Four, in
order to be rescued by the Doctor again. It is fun to see the rapport
she and Tom have developed by this stage. Their interplay on the
Beacon in Episode Four is positively buoyant, each seeming to feed off
the other's energy.
Harry Sullivan: "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!" Not an entirely fair
summation of the character at any point, and far from a fair one here.
Not only does Harry help to save Sarah Jane by helping her to transmat
from the Beacon to Voga, but he takes the lead on Voga. He notes the
significance of the gold shackles, engineering an escape for himself
and Sarah Jane. When the Cybermen arrive on Voga too early for Vorus'
trap to succeed, Harry is the one who determines that there must be a
way to delay the Cyber bombs from being planted, and he brings the
Doctor up to speed regarding Vorus' plans. His only substantial
misstep is sending Sarah Jane back to the Beacon, but that isn't so
much idiocy as simply acting on incomplete information. Overall, Harry
does become the inexplicable butt of the Doctor's ire in this serial,
however. As early as Episode One, he's earning glares from the Doctor
for little real reason (the sliding door bit), at which point even
Harry seems to start getting a touch fed up ("What have I done now?").
Another strong performance by Ian Marter, in any case.
The Cybermen: This story marked the Cybermen's return after a five
year absence. It was a return producer Philip Hinchcliffe seemed less
than enthusiastic about, apparently having been lumbered with them by
the outgoing production team. The Cyberman design here is a definite
backward step from their Invasion design (still the best Cyber
design), but it is at least serviceable. What jars is how very
emotional these Cybermen are. The Cyberleader gloats in some scenes,
and briefly gives the Doctor the upper hand at one point in Episode
Three when he throws a temper tantrum, and literally tosses the Doctor
at one of the Cyber bombs. The Cyber plan to destroy Voga is
needlessly complicated, and it is noteworthy that the backup plan -
stuff the beacon with explosives and aim the beacon at the planet -
actually seems far simpler, and far more likely to succeed, than their
Plan A. Worst is that this serial seems to fundamentally misunderstand
the Cybermen, turning them into bipedal Daleks - all about conquest -
rather than using that which made the Cybermen unique in the first
place, namely the desire to convert others to be like them. All told,
it's not hard to see why it was 8 years before the next Cyber story.
It's just a shame that, when they did return later, the Revenge
Cybermen seemed to be the template, rather than the more effective
1960's originals.
THOUGHTS
Revenge of the Cybermen is in many ways a quintessential Doctor Who
story. It's rather cheap-looking, with uneven guest performances and
plot-holes galore. It's incredible nonsense, a mishmash of barely-
connected elements in service of a thin and derivative plot. By no
reasonable critical standpoint could it be labeled "good."
It is also a heck of a lot of fun to watch.
For all of Revenge's many faults, it is never boring. The story just
keeps piling on incidents and set pieces. You may be aware that
Kellman's double-agent shenanigans don't actually seem to make much
sense, and that Vorus' grand plan (basically, to fire off a big
rocket) seems less than brilliantly thought out, and depends for any
lasting effectiveness on believing that there are only four Cybermen
left in the galaxy. Certainly, it may occur that the serial cannot
decide whether Voga is a small asteroid or a full planet. Or why,
given the Cybermen's weakness for gold, the Vogans don't just set up
wind machines to blow storms of gold dust at them - far more
effective, surely, given that gold dust clogs their chest units while
bullets do approximately nothing? That's not even mentioning that,
just as Vorus seems to assume that the handful of Cybermen attacking
Voga are all the Cybermen in the galaxy, the Cybermen seem equally
certain that there is no gold in the galaxy other than what is on
Voga. It's all ludicrous, sub-Buck Rogers nonsense...
...But it just keeps moving along, with so much that is either fun or
at least endearingly idiotic that it's virtually impossible not to
enjoy it. The scenes of the dead bodies splayed across the corridors
of the Beacon are actually quite effective. The Doctor's investigation
of Kellman, leading to an enjoyable set piece in which he avoids
Kellman's electrified floor. Sarah Jane and Harry, dodging Vorus'
troops on Voga. The Cybermen, landing on the Beacon. The Cybermen,
attacking Voga in force (a force of two, but still). Cave ins and
bombs and not one but two countdowns to Doomsday. And then, when it's
all over, the Doctor still has to avoid a massive collision in what
looks like a primitive version of a Disneyland ride.
Is Revenge of the Cybermen one of Doctor Who's great achievements? Of
course not. But perhaps more than any other serial I've yet reviewed,
it really captures one of the program's essential appeals as an
entertainment. There are many, many Who serials from all eras of the
show that are not actually terribly good as either science fiction or
as drama, but that nevertheless are a great deal of fun to watch.
Revenge of the Cybermen is about as dumb as a 2-month old beagle. But
it's fun. And there's honestly many an occasion when I'd prefer
watching Revenge's amiable idiocy over the grittier drama of Genesis.
Rating: 7/10. On the border between a "6" and a "7," but the fun
factor wins out here.
Next Up: Given that this ends with a direct lead-in to the next story,
I'll be slightly amending my plans and extending this first Tom run to
include Terror of the Zygons.