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Rewatching... Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen — Episode 3

My continuing mission: to watch classic television exactly fifty years after original broadcast date.

By Nick BrownPublished 6 years ago 8 min read
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"I'm really quite lively actually, all things considered."Saturday 16 September 1967

The first thing I notice this week is how the opening music goes on a bit longer over the action before fading, a bit like in the very first episode.

The head Cyberman, whom the Doctor calls the Controller, has been thawed out and woken up along with his saluting soldiers. Eric Klieg fails to make an impression and gets a Cyber-handshake which seems to hurt.

This bigger, scarier cyber person is super assertive. And you can see his brain — that's bad enough; never mind the silver face, I don't want to see anyone's brain through their head.

The Controller declares ownership of the humans and promises that they will become like the Cybermen.

I can't tell if the controller is angry that he's been woken up, happy that he's got exciting new company, cross with himself for oversleeping, or just disappointed in Klieg's weak handshake. No one can tell. The controller just stares impassively. That's world class impassive staring.

The Controller reveals that the whole logic puzzle thing was a trap to ensnare the brainiest people.

This got me wondering whether quiz show Only Connect is also an elaborate cyber trap. That has a Victoria in it too...

Upstairs in the control room a very stroppy Victoria has to deal with a couple of rather patronising men called Captain Hopper and Callum, who she's trying to convince to help her open the hatch to the ice tombs. Bad girl Kaftan locked it shut, trapping the others inside, but then got attacked by a little metal rodent thing called a cybermat.

I'm not sure what it did to her but she collapsed on the floor and is currently pretending to be asleep while the others bicker. Or maybe she just pretended it bit her.

In the tombs Jamie wants to make a run for it.

Is he a coward?! Or just sensible...? Let's face it we'd all probably run if we had half a chance.

While the humans chat amongst themselves the Cybermen do what so many Doctor Who "monsters" do: wait patiently until everyone's stopped talking.

The Doctor chats to the Controller.

He's very flattered when told that the Cybermen know of his intelligence. That's a very typical Second Doctor reaction. The Controller now explains their motive in previous cyber story "The Moonbase." It hadn't occurred to me that this hadn't been explained in that story. So it's all the Doctor's fault for destroying their home planet apparently. But didn't Mondas destroy itself by absorbing too much energy after the Cybermen drained energy from the Earth? So the Cybermen are trying to justify attacking the Moonbase by blaming the Doctor for something they brought about themselves. Hmm. That's not very logical.

They should have negotiated with Earth when their energy ran out. I'm sure we could have lent them some or come up with some sort of deal and none of this childish tit-for-tat would have been necessary. Doing it the friendly way could have been much less trouble for them — that would have been logical.

So they plan to convert the humans into a new type of Cyberman and send them back to Earth.

Jamie makes a run for it.

There's a bit of cat and mouse corridor-running but eventually Jamie is recaptured after a Cyberman attacks him with a sort of lightning gun. There's something about the way that Cyberman determinedly marched off to catch Jamie...and then suddenly appeared behind him...my five-year-old self would have been quite frightened by that scene.

The next scene is less successful. Kaftan's servant Toberman decides to take on the Cybermen and so we get one of the worst visual effects failures yet seen in Doctor Who as a Cyberman lifts the man over his head, harness and wires all clearly visible! Perhaps my TV screen is just too clear and sharp!

Back upstairs Kaftan has grabbed her gun back and threatens the others as they are about to open the hatch. However she's thwarted by a pesky cybermat for a second time. Victoria makes her look with one of her screams, and they overpower her.

After grabbing a couple of smoke bombs Hopper heads down to the tombs and to Victoria's annoyance he won't let her come with him.

I had thought this must be set in the far future but judging by all the sexism, maybe this is the sixties after all. "Who'd be a woman?" Exclaims Victoria. "How would you know, honey?" Replies the fake American. Ouch. It was bad enough the men winding her up by calling her "Vic" constantly, even after she complained about it. Or maybe especially after she complained about it...

The Cybermen have been having a bit of a think. Lucky Klieg is going to made the leader of the new human Cybermen. Except his excitement is dampened somewhat by the word "altered." But before any alterations are made, just like ready made pastry dough, the humans are going to be frozen in the tombs until they're needed.

Suddenly Hopper arrives and lobs his smoke bombs.

It takes astonishingly little smoke to confuse the Cybermen! They start reeling around, babbling and burbling after the merest wisp of smoke.

The men make a run for it. In the confusion Toberman gets into a scrap with the controller. He loses but the controller is impressed by his strength and decides he'll be useful to them.

The others are luckier and get to the ladder up to the hatch. Well, all except Klieg.

It's very tense as they all scrabble up the ladder pursued by Cybermen, especially when one of them catches up with the Doctor and grabs his leg. Obviously he makes it and the hatch is closed on the Cyberman's head, pushing him back down. The cyber fist banging dents into the hatch is a great touch.

Klieg has managed to hide, and then makes it to the ladder. He taps on the hatch.

They debate whether to let the villain in.

I like how Parry argues for compassion, Kaftan insists, but the Doctor wins with logic: Klieg's more dangerous downstairs than in there with them.

Klieg and Kaftan are locked in the testing room.

I like the polite respect everyone gets in the sixties. It's still Mister Klieg and Miss Kaftan, despite everything.

It doesn't take long for Kaftan to spot their means of escape.

Everyone seems to have forgotten the cyber gun in the testing room! You'd think the others would have given the room the once over before locking the bad guys in. That's basic, surely?

Klieg describes this weapon as an "x-ray laser." Scientific gobbledegook? Well surprisingly not, look it up! In 1967 mind you, this is incredibly forward thinking.

For me, whilst I love these episodes, one of the things that let's it all down is the dreary megalomaniac of the week with his hammy "I shall be master" dialogue. His loopiness is entertaining at times and I enjoyed his sarcasm, but for the most part I find him rather dull. "The supreme moment of my life," he witters on, "it was logical." He's like the Anti-Spock.

The Cybermen aren't giving up: "Release the cybermats!"

I spotted those mousehole "runway" tube things last week. So that's what they're for. These cybermats must come in different sizes for different tasks as these are much bigger than Victoria's handbag-sized one from earlier. The cute little metal rats trundle along the chute. They're not very speedy are they? Can they really be a threat? The Controller made their excuse earlier though: they're dormant through lack of use! Neat.

There's a marvellous scene now as the humans (and even the Doctor) all catch up on some much needed sleep. I don't know how anyone can possibly sleep after all that's happened but it's striking how rarely we get scenes like this, and it really gives the story extra scale. A brilliant change of pace in between all the action. And then there's this lovely scene when the Doctor yawns loudly and a startled Victoria pulls a gun on him. He goes over to her and they chat about the death of her father and how it's affected her. The Doctor speaks of his own family, telling the girl that they "sleep in (his) mind."

The calm is broken suddenly when the Doctor spots the cybermats which have entered the room. He wakes the others up urgently.

The cybermats move far too slowly...I'm imagining the 21st century remake where swarms of them dart around at lightning speed. But nevertheless it's a superb scene. "The Moonbase" had a similar scenario with the humans under siege but in that story the threat was on the outside. The brilliant thing here is adding this additional threat within what everyone thought was a safe space to sleep.

Why don't they just give Victoria a pistol? She'd pick them all off in seconds.

But the Doctor as always figures out an alternate method, by disorienting them with the electromagnetic field from a power cable.

As I've noted before there's an admirable attempt in this story to make the science plausible. Perhaps this was inspired by the real life disorientation the radio controlled creatures suffered from the studio equipment!

The Doctor explains that the cybermats home in on human brainwaves.

I love Victoria's reaction: "Urrgh!"

Jamie groans at the Doctor's "complete metal breakdown" pun. But how could an 18th century highlander understand that joke? Perhaps the Doctors been educating him in psychiatry and wordplay between stories.

The jokes don't last long though...just seconds later they are about to rush to the testing room to check on their prisoners' safety. And then Klieg walks in and rewards their concern with a blast from his new gun...

I really enjoyed that one. Of course it's not as fast paced as your modern version of the programme, but for 1967 the tension in this felt positively relentless, with one set piece after another. The moments of humour and that lovely scene between Victoria and the Doctor really helped with the pace, changing gear every so often and giving the story a believable sense of timescale. In fact this elevated the episode from what could have been an ordinary monsters versus humans tale to a superb thriller.

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About the Creator

Nick Brown

I've embarked upon an open ended mission, pretending to travel back in time and watch classic television on (or close to) the fiftieth anniversary of original broadcast date; getting a sense of the context, the magic of that first viewing.

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