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| The Cyberleader (Christopher Robbie) threatens the Doctor. |
4 episodes. Written by: Gerry Davis, Robert Holmes (uncredited). Directed by: Michael E. Briant. Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.
THE PLOT
The Time Ring returns the Doctor, Harry, and Sarah Jane to Station Nerva. They arrive centuries early, however, in the time before the solar flares, when the station is being used as a beacon to aid in space travel.
Nerva Beacon has been set up around Voga, a seemingly uninhabited asteroid that has been drawn into Jupiter's orbit to become a new satellite, creating a hazard to space navigation. All is not well. The station has been ravaged by plague, with only a handful of its original staff still alive.
The Doctor suspects that this is no natural disease - and when a metallic worm is caught attacking Sarah Jane, his fears are confirmed. The worm is a Cybermat, injecting the "plague" into its victims. The Cybermen are on their way. Their target: Voga, which is anything but uninhabited, and whose plentiful gold marks them as a threat to the Cybermen!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Tom Baker is noticeably more manic here than in most of the stories of this season (Robot excepted). I half-suspect that the actor, now comfortable in the role, recognized this as a weak script and decided to compensate by playing against as many lines as possible. Earlier stories already introduced his tendency to grin while making grave pronouncements. In this story, he does that several times, drawing out words a beat or two past their natural endpoint. This is not a complaint, as Baker's quirks make this vastly more watchable than it might have been otherwise.
His best moment comes in Episode Two. Shady Professor Kellman (Jeremy Wilkin) has been exposed as a traitor, but he is still protesting his innocence. The Doctor responds by using one of Kellman's items, which turns out to be a control device for the Cybermats, to threaten him. He observes that after the metallic creature strikes, Kellman will have about 10 seconds to give the needed information if he wants to live. It's a standard enough scene, but Baker turns it just enough askew to make it memorable, grinning maniacally and seemingly reveling in the game of threatening the traitor. It's effective, and just the tiniest bit disquieting, just how much he seems to be enjoying himself.
Sarah Jane Smith: She gets thrust into the role of "damsel-in-distress" early on, when she's poisoned by the Cybermat. She then plays companion to Harry, who very much takes the lead on Voga. Finally, she thrusts herself right back into peril by going back to the Beacon in Episode Four... just so that the Doctor will have to rescue her all over again. Though it's not a great story for Sarah, it is fun to watch the rapport that's developed between Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker. Their interplay is positively buoyant, each seeming to feed off the other's energy.
Harry Sullivan: "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!" Not really a fair summation of the character at any point, but he does spend this story as the inexplicable butt of the Doctor's ire. As early as Episode One, he's earning glares for little real reason (such as when the Doctor is dragged by a sliding door), and he even he seems to get a little fed up, asking, "What have I done now?"
This distracts from Revenge of the Cybermen being quite a strong story for Harry. He helps to save Sarah after she's attacked. Then he takes the lead on Voga. He observes the significance of the gold shackles, engineering an escape. When the Cybermen arrive on Voga and send their prisoners to the core of the asteroid with Cyber bombs attached to them, he determines that there must be a way to delay the Cyber bombs from being planted. His only substantial misstep is sending Sarah back to the Beacon, but that isn't so much idiocy as simply acting on incomplete information.
The Cybermen: This story marks their return after a five-year absence. Though the submission was by their creator, Gerry Davis, his scripts were heavily rewritten - and with regard to the Cybermen themselves, not for the better. The Cyberleader (Christopher Robbie) has a booming voice rather than the mechanical drone of previous stories, and he spends a lot of time gloating. He gives the Doctor the upper hand at one point by throwing a temper tantrum, literally tossing the Doctor at one of the Cyber bombs. The plan to destroy Voga is needlessly complicated; their backup plan seems both simpler and more likely to actually succeed! All told, it's not hard to see why it was 8 years before the next Cyber story. It's just a shame that, when they did return later, the Revenge Cybermen seemed to be the template, rather than the more effective 1960's versions.
THOUGHTS
Revenge of the Cybermen is a mishmash of barely-connected elements in service of a thin and derivative plot. Kellman's double-agent shenanigans make very little sense. The Vogans' plan depends entirely on there being only four Cybermen left in existence. The story can't seem to keep straight whether Voga is an asteroid or a planet. It's all ludicrous, sub-Buck Rogers nonsense, that by no reasonable critical standard could be labeled as "good."
It is also a heck of a lot of fun to watch.
For all of Revenge's many faults, it is never boring. The story keeps piling on incidents and set pieces, moving along with enough sheer verve that I find it impossible not to enjoy it. The Doctor's investigation of Kellman early in the story leads to an amusing set piece in which he avoids a trap involving an electrified floor ("the floor is lava"). Sarah Jane and Harry dodge Vogan troops, then a few minutes later join forces with them. The Cybermen attack Voga with a relentless force of... um, two. There are cave-ins and bombs and two countdowns to Doomsday. Then, when it's all over, the Doctor still has to avoid a massive collision in what looks like a primitive version of a Disneyland ride.
OVERALL:
It's a silly, ramshackle serial... but it also captures one of the enduring appeals of Doctor Who: even its weaker stories are often quite a lot of fun to watch. Revenge of the Cybermen is about as dumb as a 2-month-old beagle. It's not a patch on Genesis of the Daleks. But there are many times that I'd opt not for the gritty drama of Genesis, but for the amiable idiocy of this.
Rating: 6/10.
Alternate Version: Return of the Cybermen (not yet reviewed)
Previous Story: Genesis of the Daleks
Next Story: Terror of the Zygons
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