SEASON 2. 13 May 06. BBC 1, 7:00 p.m.
WRITER: Tom MacRae DIRECTOR: Graeme Harper
CAST: David Tennant (The Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Roger Lloyd Pack (John Lumic), Camille Codouri (Jackie Tyler), Shaun Dingwall (Pete Tyler), Dom Warrington (The President), Andrew Hayden-Smith (Jake Simmonds) & Mona Hammond (Rita-Anne)
An accident aboard the TARDIS results in The Doctor, Rose and Mickey being stranded on a parallel Earth where a sinister inventor is about to unleash a cybernetic menace...Last year The Daleks returned to the show in grand style, and now it's the turn of another favourite nemesis – the Cybermen. Writer Tom MaCrae debuts on the show with an interesting twist to the established Cybermen mythology, with his parallel Earth premise allowing a rethink to the Cybermen's origins. In this parallel world, technology is more advanced, the London sky filled with luxury airships, and the population able to receive information downloads via ear-pieces.
Roger Lloyd Pack plays John Lumic, the founder of Cybus Industries -- a firm at the vanguard of this technological revolution – who also has an interest in implanting human brains into metal exoskeletons. Of course, there is a small underground movement against Lumic's methods of abducting homeless people to aid his procedures, led by a parallel version of Mickey (called Ricky). But can they expose Lumic nefarious plot to create "Cybermen"...
There's a lot to enjoy in Rise Of The Cybermen, particularly the restyled Cybermen themselves and the increasingly enjoyable chemistry between The Doctor, 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 this reality. It's an intriguing dynamic played well by all actors involved in the 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 been ignored in the show since The Christmas Invasion.
However, while Rise Of The Cyberman has a few good sequences and interesting character moments to savour, there's something a little frivolous and weak about the execution. Roger Lloyd Pack seems to be badly channelling Christopher Lee in his clichéd mad scientist in a wheelchair role (shades of Dalek creator Davros, interestingly). The reasoning behind his scheme is also difficult to rationalize.
Lumic's clearly near death and seeking immortality… so why not create a benign method to transplant your own mind into a robot for survival, instead of creating killing machines from homeless people? I'm hoping this ambiguity will be dealt with in part two's The Age Of Steel, but for now it robs this episode of a tangible reason for any of the events to be happening. All too often the episode contains too much exposition and ancillary moments that eventually all rush to a climactic attack on a mansion by the Cybermen…
Elsewhere, Billie Piper's character is in serious danger of becoming dull for the first time in the show. As I mentioned earlier, this episode plays on the same emotions as last year's Father's Day, with Rose in anguish over the possibility of meeting her dead father. Once again, her mother and father don't recognize her and this leads to feelings of abandonment -– all stuff 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 new series, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the writers are struggling to give Rose anything meaningful to play on. She's no longer in awe of time-travel, just excited to be on the journey (which is fine), she's no longer hung-up about leaving her boyfriend to go on these adventures because he comes along now (although she doesn't seem to fancy him anymore), so the only thing meaningful to her to latch onto is the loss of her dad before she was born. But there's only so many times you can play this "daddy card", so the character needs a shake-up soon.
David Tennant has now settled entirely into his role, giving a much more grounded and believable performance -– particularly in a scene when he's pulled between spending the day with Mickey or Rose… and choosing Rose, despite hurting Mickey's feelings. His scenes with Mickey in the TARDIS are also solid, as it's just nice to see The Doctor interacting with someone other than Rose. Later scenes with The Doctor and Rose posing as waiting staff are also nicely played and bring a sense of friends having fun that works very well.
The special effects are pretty strong, although the sight of airships circling London is a little overplayed and blurry. The costumes for the new Cybermen are also far better than the publicity photos would have you believe, too. I particularly like the "teardrop" design of their eyes, giving the metal men a subliminal sadness. I also found it intriguing that the Cybermen, a clear influence on Star Trek's Borg, have now been restyled to be more Borg-like in their quest to "assimilate" humans… or electrocute them with an iron grip…
Overall, a fun and enjoyable episode with moments of brilliance (the foreshadowing of the Cybermen's "head-bar" in the ear-pieces is fantastic), some great character moments, and good effects. Where Rise Of The Cybermen falls down is in a somewhat messy plot, unclear motivations, a clichéd villain, 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 a decent episode worthy of your time…
NEXT WEEK: Can The Doctor defeat the age of steel...?
