The Tomb of the Cybermen part 3

[Craig @craig Emperor]

“You Shall Be Like Us”. “Struggle Is Futile”. You can see where the Borg got it from!

The tomb is revealed as a trap and the Cybermen are planning a new race on Earth. Klieg and Kaftan, however, still think their plan to control them has a chance.

Features a touching, and quite famous, chat between The Doctor and Victoria where he (as @phaseshift has pointed out) controversially discusses the fact that he has a family.

Some of the action and effects (including the cybermats) may be a bit ropey, but I think the Cybermen are genuinely creepy and unnerving in this. Unlike today, sadly, despite Gaiman’s efforts. I don’t think AG Who has ever properly grasped the concept of the Cybermen. They come across mostly as clunking robots these days, rather than humanoids with their humanity removed.

[Anonymous @]

Oops, I was a bit late watching this one – busy weekend 😉

I can’t add much to what’s already been said but I posted on the ‘Part 1’ thread that The Doctor and Jamie’s relationship reminded me of Doc11 and Rory. Well here, when The Doctor was talking to Victoria about her father, I was reminded of Doc11 and Amy’s little “hearts to heart’s” chats, notably TPo3 and TBB (just before Doc11 takes off in the Pandorcia).

I pondered for a while on whether Matt, Karen and Arthur were specifically asked to replicate Doc2, Jamie and Victoria’s relationship before coming to the inevitable conclusion that it’s probably just a coincidence. A nice one though 🙂

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Pretty good episode, this one. Victoria, while still screaming loudly at the slightest excuse, passes the Companion test. Namely, will this companion bash monsters with any weapons to hand?

Yes. She bravely bashes the Cyberman with a thermos. I’m sure if there’d been a baseball bat on hand, she’d have given it a go. Though, given the Captain’s unreconstructed 1960’s attitudes, it might be a good thing there wasn’t a baseball bat available. 🙂

I love the nice little bit of ironic scriptwriting with Klieg and Kaftan. Kleig is daydreaming about being ‘Master’, and Kaftan is – at the same time – telling him what to do. I’ve got a bit of a problem with the Cybermats in this episode, because the tail wagging made them look, um, cute. I’ve now got visions of Cybermen taking their Cybermats for a walk in the park.

I agree with @craig that the Cybermen have got steadily more robotic over the years; which was why Neil Gaiman’s ‘Mr Clever’ was so much fun. The Doctor with his compassion removed; more terrifying and nasty than any robot. But they developed the ‘Cybermen are turning into robots’ theme in The Pandorica Opens, when you had the robotic part of a Cyberman capable of independent movement and decision-making. It didn’t need its human ‘donor’. (Incidentally, that moment when the helmet opened to reveal the decayed skull was seriously scary). So it’s a direction that the Cyber-race has taken – to become more and more cybernetic. Gaiman’s story, I think, is carrying the idea seen in The Next Doctor a bit further – the Cybermen now need a Controller with imagination.

Here, you can see that the Cybermen are still humanoids with an attached exoskeleton. The voice, especially, is very creepy.

I’ve never quite understood the ‘completely asexual Doctor’ argument. When you start off with a character being called ‘Grandfather’, it’s pretty plain that they’ve had a family. The Pertwee Doctor (and the Tennant Doctor) refer to a brother. I can easily believe that they’re considerably less sex-orientated than humans; as I’ve said before – if they were, the universe would be knee-deep in Time Lords! And here, the Troughton Doctor talks about his family. Later on, the Davison Doctor will strongly imply that he’s got/had two parents. The Master talks about his father; it’s a constant, running theme that Time Lords, like ourselves, have families and children.

 

 

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@fatmaninabox

Hope you don’t mind me dragging your comment over from part 2. As the scene you were discussing was in this episode, I guessed you may have raced ahead a bit, and thought I’d transfer it.

Yes – there is a real echo in a few scenes with Matt Smith with this exchange with Victoria. This came immediately to my mind when I first saw “The Big Bang”. Another one is in “name of the Doctor” when he tells River there is a time to live, and a time to sleep.

It’s a peculiarly intimate moment for the old series I think, but Troughton’s insistence that “no-one else can do the things we do” is so intense he still comes over as slightly mad and obsessed. It’s great stuff.

I also have to agree with @bluesqueakpip. Never understood the desire of the “Keep the Doctor Asexual” brigade. I always thought it was a mixture of the “steady on, there are children watching!” mentality and a few people who had overdosed on New Adventure novels, with an unhealthy obsession with “looms” and things. I genuinely have no idea. As far as I’m concerned Susan was his granddaughter. He got her the same way most organisms do. Sex.

I love the nice little bit of ironic scriptwriting with Klieg and Kaftan. Kleig is daydreaming about being ‘Master’, and Kaftan is – at the same time – telling him what to do.

That made me smile because, yes, who does Klieg think he’s kidding here? Kaftan is already wearing the trousers in that relationship.

A couple of other points:

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The Brotherhood of Logicians is the most rubbish name for a group of Supervillains ever.

• If this was a comment on a new episode of the Guardian, we’d be knee deep in comments about it stretches credulity and ruined the episode that the highly intelligent Cybermen would think of Sealing themselves in a Tomb with no Big Button to open the hatch from the inside. The Cyber-Planner was an obvious upgrade at this point I feel.

• You know, I used to love the voices for the Cybermen in this when I was younger, but as I’ve got older and lost a bit of hearing in one ear, it becomes quite difficult sometimes to follow their dialogue. I’m pretty glad there is a bit more modulation in other interpretations.
• Love Jamie doing a visible wince at the Doctor’s Crap Joke “You could almost say they had a metal breakdown”.

[stevethewhistle @steve-thorp]

I don’t have a lot to add on this one.

At least Victoria’s screaming had a positive effect for her as it startled Kaftan.

As my hearing is a bit lacking in the high-frequency range these days, I had trouble hearing a lot of the Cybermen’s dialogue. I nearly switched the subtitles on. (I later found out that there weren’t any.)

I would like to point out that the tail-waggling of the cybermats is actually a self-righting mechanism. They would have been even more vulnerable without it.

I think that the Cybermen must have sealed themselves in to await a time when human technology had developed to an extent where they could transport the Cybermen to Earth. The “Tomb” and the technology of the Cybermen seems very run down and it looks like a plan of last resort.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Just a side note, but I thought it was quite fun seeing Clive Merrison, who almost always plays stuffy civil servants these days, playing an American, gun toting, smoke bomb carrying, action hero. I didn’t recognise him in the first episode.

I found a pic of him and Deborah Watling (Victoria) having a “Tomb” reunion.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@craig

Oh – I’m glad you raised Clive. In a affront to topic sensitive people everywhere, I shall continue take your lead.

Shame, as you say, he’s been pigeon holed a bit in recent times. Does anyone remember his turn as unhinged newsreader Damian Appleby opposite Denis “Wedge Antilles” Lawson in “The Kit Curran Radio Show”? He was awesome.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@phaseshift We are so off topic but who cares? Kit Curran was almost a religion in my house during its short run. If I remember rightly Lawson had just been shot to fame by Local Hero (also starring one Peter Capaldi). Such a shame it was so short lived. Watching those clips brought it all back. Thanks.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

And just to get us back on topic, I found the BBC has posted the speech we’re talking about on YouTube. It really is quite something.

[Anonymous @]

@craig – the venerable @htpbdet always loved that speech with Troughton and Victoria.  It’s only with hindsight that I realise actually how much he must have identified with its sentiments about the memory of lost ones.

You too.

And all of us this week.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@Shazzbot Yes it touches me a great deal as well.

[Author]

Posts