Who In Review

Having seen barely any episodes featuring the Cybermen, I wasn't quite able to assess this week's Doctor Who episode on a Cyberman-menaceometer (I think they were supposed to be 'scary' as opposed to 'cuddly' from some of the context I've read). I've only seen Tomb of the Cybermen, which is a stone-cold classic (menaceometer: brooding and terrifyingly calculating) and last season's Closing Time which was unremarkable and a backdrop to the Doctor working out various other things (menaceometer: defeated by the concept of love).

The story was good enough that I'll forgive the minor issues. The inclusion of two children, for a start - it's rare to have a script for children that doesn't cast them as either irritatingly twee or obnoxiously like, whatever, bored and tiresome. This script didn't quite push them that far either way but there were enough moments to warrant eye-rolling.

Their inclusion was, of course, the prompt to visit the planet. The best moment may be the first reveal of the 'dormant' cyberman. It's such a wonderful introduction as there can be no doubt that it won't remain dormant, leaving only the nervous waiting for when it will happen. I loved the cybermites - an inspired improvement on the cybermats, which even in the more recent episode looked somewhat cute while the mites did not. They generated the appropriate air of remorseless menace which is what the Cybermen should be.

Touching on remorseless menace, all the battle scenes echoed this. The stop-motion cyberman in the first combat encounter belied their seeming lumbering unstoppability and ramped it up a further notch. The repeated 'upgrading' was a nice counter to the classic Who trope, 'how can such an impressive warrior race fall for such an obvious trick so many times?' and at least forces imagination and the use of different obvious tricks.

One feature of the upcoming 50th anniversary spectacular is the lovely use of flashbacks, nods and homage to previous episodes and series. The 'regeneration' montage of all the Doctors was an excellent use of this - although I wonder if this is meant to provide the opposite bookend to that of the Doctor montage in Smith's first outing in The Eleventh Hour?

Returning to the story, I liked the scenes of the internal Doctor conflict (arguably made better by the fact that the children stood in mute attention the entire time). The conclusion may have been a little too neat and straightforward - but on the menaceometer, having the only real counter-tactic as 'blow up the planet' is pretty effective.

Next weekend is the series finale, and as we're away this may be a Sunday or Monday watch on iPlayer instead - rendering us in the annoying position of us having to avoid spoilers from Carisa as opposed to taunting her with spoilers (the episodes in America air later in the day, but on the same day).

Hopefully this is posted late enough that Carisa has at least had a chance to watch it by now. Spoilers ...