N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
I’m not going to dwell on the apparent uncertainty over the story’s authorship but Attack of the Cybermen feels like another example of the style of brutal, action-packed, seat-of-the-pants storytelling that Eric Saward employed in Earthshock and Resurrection of the Daleks — albeit one with a lot more references to Doctor Who‘s past in it.
Some of those references are subtle; some are essential to the plot.
There’s the junkyard (and the malfunctioning chameleon circuit) from way back in An Unearthly Child, the visual reference to Cybermen in the sewers from The Invasion and the return of Lytton and his two silent policemen chums from the aforementioned Resurrection of the Daleks.
More overtly, Attack of the Cybermen is both a sequel to The Tomb of the Cybermen and a sequel/prequel to The Tenth Planet.
So it’s fair to say it’s not light on continuity references.
My first thought was that, return of Lytton aside, how much of this would’ve been lost on the regular viewer in 1985? It’s hard to say. I’m not a casual viewer now and I wasn’t even a viewer then, but overall I think the story does a fairly good job of bringing you up to speed with its by-then near-twenty year old plot points!
The new 45-minute format works well here too, with the extended build-up in Part One being nicely paced — even if unfortunately we do end up with a surfeit of ‘No’s in the cliffhanger.
Whilst the updates to the tombs on Telos and the revivification of the Cyber Controller don’t work so well for me, what I do really like are the Cryons, whose appearance and floaty movement seem genuinely unusual and alien in a way that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in 60’s Doctor Who! Telos looks properly grey and grim too.
Indeed, after the success of Resurrection of the Daleks and especially The Caves of Androzani in the previous season and with a mad, bad, and dangerous to know Doctor at the helm of the TARDIS, it seems grim and gritty might be the order of the day for season 22.
It’s debatable whether the bloodied crushing of Lytton’s hands is gratuitous or not. It’s certainly shocking and much more realistic violence than we’d witnessed in Doctor Who for a while (probably since the fourteenth season).
It’s not the sort of thing we’d see on a Saturday tea-time in the 21st century, which makes it all the more the surprising that the BBFC would consider Attack of the Cybermen worthy of a U certificate (suitable for all) when far milder fare such as Planet of Fire warranted a PG. Then again, Star Wars included a limb-lopping and that was also a U, so who am I to know what the censorious mind thinks.
“This is me, Peri. At this very moment I am as stable as you will ever see me.”
The Doctor, Attack of the Cybermen: Part One
All things considered, Attack of the Cybermen makes for a solid start to the twenty-second season. The tone is darker and it’s hard to pretend I don’t know that this will continue, but I’ll try to reserve judgment on its merits until the end of the season.
Whilst it’s still difficult to know what to make of the Doctor’s new persona — he’s more arrogant and terse than he’s been for a while — at least there’s more meat here for Colin Baker to work on than he had with The Twin Dilemma.
Next stop: Varos!
