Customer Reviews

Doctor Who - Attack of the Cybermen [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Attack of the Cyberman starts Colin Baker's first full season off as the Doctor with a complex, if ultimately flawed, adventure. What makes the story work is the intelligent direction by Matthew Robinson, who really works to bring out the horrific qualities of Paula Moore's (more so Eric Saward's) script. Never before have the Cybermen been as horrific or fully realized as in this story, where they are allowed to be up front in their violent, quasi-emotional nature. The actual creation of the Cybermen is finally dealt with in its full, gothic nature, with plenty of information about body part manipulation and replacement. Even though the episode deals with an enourmous amount of Doctor Who mythology, it's still reasonably accessible for novice viewers, who will probably want to check out the other Cyber titles in the canon. Colin Baker's performance is one of his best, and Nicola Bryant manages to come across as less forced than usual. Where the story may fail is in its lack of motivation involving the characters. Lytton -- a fine, devious character introduced in Resurrection of the Daleks -- is never completely clear in his motives, and that makes some of his decisions seem a bit farfetched, especially his seeming change of mercenary heart. The subplot involving the two escaped prisoners attempting to steal the Cybermen's captured time ship is also a bit weak. Since the attempt seems to be doomed from the start, its only reason for existence seems to be to enhance the sense of dread that permeates this production. If there's a legitimate complaint, it's that Warner Brothers video has yet again decided on a less-than-perfect transfer, with colors bleeding and shading too dark. At least Fox Video seemed to care about its product. Obviously, if you enjoy this program, you should look into the other Cyber titles (except Silver Nemesis, which is a pure disaster). On the whole, Colin Baker never seemed to get the stories necessary for his Doctor to really break out. This season is similar to Tom Baker's first, with the return of some long-term monsters in an attempt to capture a new audience. What's missing are the masterpieces like Ark in Space, which solidified Tom Baker's Doctor in the minds of the audience. Unfortunately, Colin never got his masterpiece, the show was reworked for the worse, and then he was fired. Too bad. With more stories like this, he might have been able to emphasize his portrayal of the Doctor, and would have lasted longer than two seasons. As is, we get a few minor successes like this one and Vengeance on Varos, and then he's gone. Attack of the Cybermen is a fine story, one that overcomes its seeming reliance on previous mythology, and works as an attempt to recreate the gothic properties of some of Tom Baker's best. It doesn't always succeed, but is still very entertaining.

"This looks familiar," says the Sixth Doctor, as he steps outside the TARDIS. It should be: he has come full circle to I.M. Foreman, 76 Totters Lane, site of his TV debut. When he sees that sign, he says to Peri "Look, Susan." Links to the past aren't too overdone in this story, which is kind of a sequel to Tomb Of The Cybermen. Or, given how we learn that the events of The Tenth Planet took place the following year, maybe a prequel to William Hartnell's last story.

The Sixth Doctor's only encounter with the Cybermen has him answering a distress call beamed from Earth. He encounters the Cybermen as well as Lytton, the mercenary he first met in Resurrection Of The Daleks, as well as Lytton's bodyguards, disguised as constables like last time. He is taken to Telos, where during his second incarnation, he defeated the Cybermen and Cybercontroller. The 6'5" Michael Kilgariff, who played the Cybercontroller in Tomb and the title role in Robot, returns 18 years later as the Cybercontroller, where it's clear that he has gained a bit of weight in the tum-tum. Maybe that's one rare side effect of Cybercontroller repair.

Colin Baker has his usual great dialogue as usual. He says that the chameleon circuit, which he is trying to repair, is capable of amazing things, not unlike himself. He berates the seemingly ungrateful Peri, telling her "A little gratitude wouldn't irretrievably damage my ego." He makes a pun when trapped in the freezing room with Flast, who tells him he's looking very blue. He asks, "Depressed or cold?"

Prerequisites for this story include An Unearthly Child, The Tenth Planet, Tomb Of The Cybermen, Logopolis, and Resurrection Of The Daleks for the respective items: Totters Lane, Mondas, Telos, the chameleon circuit, and Lytton.

One new thing we learn about the Cybermen here is that they share a quality with the Daleks, they have an inbuilt distress signal and come to the aid of one of their own (q.v. Planet Of The Daleks.) It is also the first time when we see people undergoing the Cybernization process. It's kind of like the robotization in Dalek Invasion Of Earth.

The late Brian Glover, who plays Griffiths, appeared alongside Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor) in the brief series Campion as the detective's valet, Magersfontein Lugg.

The Cyber march which first appeared in Earthshock comes out here as well. Also, this was the first story to be broken into 45 minute episodes, which don't work for Who.

The concept of the Web of Time, finally mentioned here, is kind of referred to by Vicki in The Romans, when she accuses him of deliberately interfering with history (inspiring Nero to set fire to Rome) when she was expressly told not to. Earth was not destroyed by the Mondasian Cybermen, but the Doctor is still worried about the Cybercontroller's plans. Does this mean that history isn't set in stone by the Web, but can be altered, or will something happen that prevents the Web from being ruptured?

Any story with the Daleks or Cybermen are bound to be winners, and this is no exception.

This is the 6th Doctor's Cybermen episode and while it is not a great story, it isn't bad either. As a stickler for continuity, I enjoy this episode for its ties to many previous episodes including "Unearthly Child" (1st Doctor), "10th Planet" (1st Doctor), "Tomb of the Cybermen" (2nd Doctor), "Resurection of the Daleks" (5th Doctor), and others.

Storywise, the Cybermen are back on Telos where their "tombs" are located and where the Doctor had defeated them before. This time, they want to change history to prevent their original home planet (seen in "10th Planet") from being destroyed when it traveled to earth (they modified it to fly through space). The Doctor, with the help of unlikely ally Commander Litton (last seen in "Resurrection of the Daleks") do what they can to stop this plan.

For those who are aware of previous Doctor Who episodes, all of the little nods to those episodes are much appreciated, especially the spot where the TARDIS lands -- 76 Totter's Lane. This was where the first Doctor kept his TARDIS in the 60's. For these little touches, I give this four stars.

people who don't know what continuity is shouldn't use it as a put-down (and that's most of the fans who criticise this story!).
There is only ONE story which this one relates back to the events of, The Tenth Planet, and the ONLY facts from it are Mondas explodes in 1986, while attacking Earth!
The fact that they are in the sewer...that's their hiding place. The fact they take the Doctor to the telos...that's their home planet! And why is ther Controller there? Why not, he IS their leader!

The "causal viewer" has a lot more intelligence than "fans" give him/her credit for, too! And by the way, CONTINUITY is very good in this story, not once does the Doctor's shirt change color from one scene to the next.
Oh yes...IF you know Dr.Who's past really well, you'll know the Cybermen used the London sewers as a means of sneaking about in a story called Invasion (1968) and the Doc met the Controller on a previous trip to their home planet in Tomb of the Cybermen (1965) but the events of those stories are NEVER mentioned and you need not know ANYTHING about them to understand this! If the Cybermen had taken him to Skaro to meet Davros I would have been confused but they took the Doctor to their planet to meet thier leader and THAT made sense to me. Overall, this is a good stoy, which gets insulted and criticised in ways it does not deserve. It also adds a lot of new back story ideas to the Cybermen by suggesting they hijacked Telos from an icy blooded female race called the Cryons to steal their refridgerated cities. This gives it a metaphorical touch of male persecuting females throughout history and also the fact that some races were displaced by ruthless colonists who tried to commit genocide. This is an underrated story in a big way. It's no Earthshock, but it's very good!

First off, why are almost all the Doctor Who videos incorrectly marked as being made in 1975? This was made in 1986.
I actually don't think I ever saw this one all the way through when it come on one of my local PBS stations, I must have had something else to do at the time.I was not disapointed
in the least. this story has elements of two earlier cyberman stories, "Tomb of the Cybermen" and the first apperance of the cybermen "The Tenth Planet". I found the story to be very engaging and it also shed a little more light on the history of the cybermen. The only problem is had with this video was the pointless interviews at the begining of the tape which seemed to be done on a british version of QVC. The quality of added material has really gone down since Warner Brothers took over the Dr. Who video releases from CBS/FOX.

In 1985 the Doctor & Peri land on Earth to investigate a spacial distress signal, only to discover that some old enemies are waiting for them in the dark. "Attack of the Cybermen" both succeeds and fails at the same time. On one hand it is a fast paced action yarn with lots of explosions, gun play and violence. On the other, the casual viewer will be totally lost, as this serial is a sequel and/or a follow up to several Who serials. Let's just say that Who continuity and mythology are jackhammered into the plot, that nothing more original can be added in. Well, the Cryons are new, the inhabitants of Telos, the Cybermen's adopted homeworld, and it's nice to see Terry Molloy sans Davros mask, and the Cyber conversion is shown for the first time. A vastly improved story compared to the 21st Season's close, but also a sign of bad and good things to come...

Continuity is key to 'Attack Of The Cybermen.' While this story is a marked improvement over 'The Twin Dilemma,' it is weighed down both by a negligence and an over-indulgence of continuity.
Set in 1985, the Doctor and Peri become involved in a plot by the Cybermen to change history and avert the destruction of their homeworld.
John Nathan-Turner's tenure as producer is often criticized for relying too much on Doctor Who's past history rather than creating enough of its own innovations. 'Attack Of The Cybermen' is certainly produced as evidence in any such debate. This story references a great number of previous stories; the TARDIS lands in the same junkyard as it was found in DW's first episode 'An Unearthly Child,' the plot circles around events that transpired in 1966's 'The Tenth Planet,' much of the action is set on the planet Telos from 1968's 'The Tomb Of The Cybermen,' the character of the Cyber Controller from that same story returns, as does the character of Lytton, last seen in 1984's 'Resurrection of the Daleks.' It's as if the writers couldn't decide which story this would be a sequel to, so they settled on a whole slew of them. While this may have been confusing to viewers in 1985 who probably had never seen some of those stories, it's slightly less bewildering now that all of them are on videotape. Still, very little effort was made to visually match this story to its predecessors (the Cyberman tombs on Telos are nothing at all like those in 'Tomb...', Michael Killgariff doesn't even try to play the Controller like he did originally). Lytton, while admirably portrayed, is given a 180 degree turnaround as his character changes from the villain in his last story to a hero (albeit an unpleasant one) in this one. Taken as a standalone story, the plot of 'Attack...' would almost work if it didn't both rely on and contradict DW stories past.
The acting and characterization is uniformly high. Lytton, the Cyber Leader (played as usual by David Banks), the Telosian natives the Cryons and the roguish prisoners Stratton and Bates are all well-written and acted roles. Colin Baker's portrayal of the egotistical and unstable Sixth Doctor is very frantic and larger-than-life. While it's often unsettling to see the Doctor have wild mood swings and be as unpleasant and even happily violent as he is in this story (and season 22 in general), it is entirely refreshing to see those behind the scenes of Doctor Who took a chance like this, and it's my opinion that Colin Baker's is the most underrated of all the Doctors. Nicola Bryant's Peri on the other hand continues her downward spiral as a hapless, frustrated and whining sidekick, very little like she was when paired with Peter Davison.
The pacing of 'Attack...' is quite good. As one would expect from writer and script editor Eric Saward's influences, the action-quotient of this story is quite high, as is the level of violence and gore.
In the end, 'Attack Of The Cybermen' is a very exciting entry into DW canon, and the Cybermen regain some dignity and menace (having infamously lost much of both in 'The Five Doctors' and later faring just as badly in 'Silver Nemesis'). The acting is very good and Colin Baker makes an indelible impression for better or worse. Where this story fails is in its lack of original thought in plotting - unnecessary and distracting fall backs to a great many old Doctor Whos. The occassional nod to the past is fun and even welcome, but not to this extent. While still worth buying and certainly enjoyable, 'Attack Of The Cybermen' does seem a rather desperate effort to ride the coat tails of stories past.

The Doctor and Peri answer a distress call which brings them to the Earth of 1986, shortly prior to the Doctor destroying Mondas, the original home of the Cybermen. The Cybermen have stolen a time machine and are intent on stopping the destruction of Mondas. The Doctor is surprised to find that the mercenary Lytton is on Earth and apparently in league with the Cybermen.

Funny how Eric Seward who wrote the classic cyberman tale "Earthshock" returns to Who with this clunker.

Tried to give this episode a chance in 1986, but I still remember two things that ruined this episode.

Previously, the Cybermen were virtually indestructible, especially in the earlier stories they could stop a tank. In this episode a Cyberman is dispatched with a 9mm pistol shot to the head. Granted, you could say "lucky shot," but alas there is nothing in the head unit of Cyberman; their brain is in their chest unit.

Fat Cybercontroller, nuff said there.

Stories like this doomed Colin Baker's Dr. Who and almost ended the series for good.