@tardigrade—

I think it’s the fact that the Doctor has been through a set of full regenerations that means we won’t see the Valeyard. Capaldi’s Doc strictly speaking is Doctor 1.1 rather than Doctor 13 (why does the War Doctor not still count as a proper Doctor? Surely he was redeemed and earns the right to be the Doctor again?)

I actually…[Read more]

@nick — Kroton featured in a few secondary strips in Doctor Who Weekly, mostly helping humans as he struggled with his revived humanity and he also ended up being a companion to the Eighth Doctor in his comic adventures for a while later too. They’re definitely worth seeking out. Quite a tragic character though.

@wolfweed—

and a fine example of the distinctive art style of the late, lamented Steve Dillon. Still at the height of his Veronica Lake fixation too. Did he ever draw a woman who didn’t have her hair falling over her eyes?

@nick

To me that opens the possibility that any cyberman could be freed

Yes, that definitely seems to be the case. There’s definitely other cases where Cyber-programming is defied. Toberman and Lytton from the BG series both spring to mind. And then there’s Kroton, who I think the Cyber-Bill plot was definitely channelling on some level–

I…[Read more]

@mudlark — you’re quite right, that makes sense. I suppose the reason why things like neural nets were not mentioned in the Tenth Planet was because Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis just could not have predicted that they would become a thing.

But, just for yucks, here’s the first meeting with the Cybermen back in ’66

@mudlark—

Bill said that she could feel the programming, and I got the impression that she was having to fight to retain her sense of identity.  I suspect that, in time, with nothing much left to sustain her sense of identity but her brain and a rudimentary nervous system, she might have succumbed.

Yes, I think you’re probably right. Although I…[Read more]

@wolfweed –nice finds. I was just thinking that this thread hasn’t seen much love of late.

I also quite like this one….

seems right #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/X00KYOZOb7
— valentina (@marshcaps) July 2, 2017

I notice a few enterprising souls have put up videos filmed of their screens and put them on YouTube but the quality really isn’t very good.

However, if you’re using Chrome, I’d recommend installing the ZenMate extension and changing the settings to the US and that should get round it….

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@nick—

The Cyber-Bill scenes add to the Doctor’s moral quandary with the Cybermen doesn’t it ?

It totally does. And unlike Daleks, or just about any other ‘villains’ who are making a conscious choice to be ‘evil’, justifying the killing of Cybermen is a lot more dubious. They have no free choice. They are ordinary people who have had som…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

Well, on reflection, that was just great. First of all, apologies for doubting anyone who thought Heather was going to make a return. You were totally right and I’m now happily convinced that that was indeed Heather that we saw in the window in the last episode.

Last week I was worrying about whether this was going to be too action-oriented but…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@wolfweed — good call. Seems to me that this episode had more than a few comic-related references. Cyber-Bill kept reminding me of Kroton and the reference to Planet 14 is an extremely geeky reference indeed….

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...