The Doctor: David Tennant
Rose Tyler: Billie Piper
Mickey Smith: Noel Clarke
John Lumic: Roger Lloyd Pack
Jackie Tyler: Camille Codouri
Pete Tyler: Shaun Dingwall
The President: Don Warrington
Jake Simmonds: Andrew Hayden-Smith
Rita-Anne: Mona Hammond
Synopsis:
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...?
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Series 1 Boxset:
Synopsis:
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...
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...