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Series 2 Episode 5: “Rise of the Cybermen” (Part 1 of 2)Broadcast on BBC1, Saturday May 13th, 2006
Series 1 Boxset:
Series 2 Part 3:
Series 2 Boxset:
Director:
- Graeme Harper
Screenplay:
- Tom MacRae
Cast:
- The Doctor: David Tennant
Rose Tyler: Billie Piper
Mickey Smith: Noel Clarke
John Lumic: Roger Lloyd Pack
Jackie Tyler: Camille Codouri
Pete Tyler: Shaun Dingwall
The President: Don Warrington
Jake Simmonds: Andrew Hayden-Smith
Rita-Anne: Mona Hammond
Synopsis: An accident aboard the TARDIS results in The Doctor, Rose and Mickey beingstranded on a parallel Earth where a sinister inventor is about to unleash acybernetic menace…
Last year The Daleks returned to the show in grand style, and now it’s theturn of another favourite nemesis the Cybermen. Writer Tom MaCrae debutson the show with an interesting twist to the established Cybermen mythology,with his parallel Earth premise allowing a rethink to the Cybermen’sorigins. In this parallel world, technology is more advanced, the London skyfilled with luxury airships, and the population able to receive informationdownloads via ear-pieces.
Roger Lloyd Pack plays John Lumic, the founder of Cybus Industries — a firmat the vanguard of this technological revolution who also has an interestin implanting human brains into metal exoskeletons. Of course, there is asmall underground movement against Lumic’s methods of abducting homelesspeople to aid his procedures, led by a parallel version of Mickey (calledRicky). But can they expose Lumic nefarious plot to create “Cybermen”…
There’s a lot to enjoy in Rise Of The Cybermen, particularly the restyledCybermen themselves and the increasingly enjoyable chemistry between TheDoctor, Rose and Mickey. The episode also sees the return of Pete Tyler,Rose’s dead father who is a wealthy businessman married to Jackie in thisreality. It’s an intriguing dynamic played well by all actors involved inthe subplot, despite its emotional similarity to last year’s Father’s Day.It was particularly nice to see Camille Codouri back again, as she’s beenignored in the show since The Christmas Invasion.
However, while Rise Of The Cyberman has a few good sequences and interestingcharacter moments to savour, there’s something a little frivolous and weakabout the execution. Roger Lloyd Pack seems to be badly channellingChristopher Lee in his clichéd mad scientist in a wheelchair role (shades ofDalek creator Davros, interestingly). The reasoning behind his scheme isalso difficult to rationalize.
Lumic’s clearly near death and seeking immortality so why not create abenign method to transplant your own mind into a robot for survival, insteadof creating killing machines from homeless people? I’m hoping this ambiguitywill be dealt with in part two’s The Age Of Steel, but for now it robs thisepisode of a tangible reason for any of the events to be happening. All toooften the episode contains too much exposition and ancillary moments thateventually all rush to a climactic attack on a mansion by the Cybermen
Elsewhere, Billie Piper‘s character is in serious danger of becoming dullfor the first time in the show. As I mentioned earlier, this episode playson the same emotions as last year’s Father’s Day, with Rose in anguish overthe possibility of meeting her dead father. Once again, her mother andfather don’t recognize her and this leads to feelings of abandonment – allstuff covered much better last year, but needlessly dredged up again here…
While it’s been interesting to see a companion take centre stage in the newseries, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the writers are strugglingto give Rose anything meaningful to play on. She’s no longer in awe oftime-travel, just excited to be on the journey (which is fine), she’s nolonger hung-up about leaving her boyfriend to go on these adventures becausehe comes along now (although she doesn’t seem to fancy him anymore), so theonly thing meaningful to her to latch onto is the loss of her dad before shewas born. But there’s only so many times you can play this “daddy card”, sothe character needs a shake-up soon.
David Tennant has now settled entirely into his role, giving a much moregrounded and believable performance - particularly in a scene when he’spulled between spending the day with Mickey or Rose and choosing Rose,despite hurting Mickey’s feelings. His scenes with Mickey in the TARDIS arealso solid, as it’s just nice to see The Doctor interacting with someoneother than Rose. Later scenes with The Doctor and Rose posing as waitingstaff are also nicely played and bring a sense of friends having fun thatworks very well.
The special effects are pretty strong, although the sight of airshipscircling London is a little overplayed and blurry. The costumes for the newCybermen are also far better than the publicity photos would have youbelieve, too. I particularly like the “teardrop” design of their eyes,giving the metal men a subliminal sadness. I also found it intriguing thatthe Cybermen, a clear influence on Star Trek’s Borg, have now been restyledto be more Borg-like in their quest to “assimilate” humans or electrocutethem with an iron grip.
Overall, a fun and enjoyable episode with moments of brilliance (theforeshadowing of the Cybermen’s “head-bar” in the ear-pieces is fantastic),some great character moments, and good effects. Where Rise Of The Cybermenfalls down is in a somewhat messy plot, unclear motivations, a clichédvillain, and a recycling of dramatic concepts from Father’s Day. Of course,some problem areas could be ironed out in part two, so this is definitely adecent episode worthy of your time.
NEXT WEEK: Can The Doctor defeat the age of steel…?
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.