28.05: Rise of the Cybermen

[Patrick Mahon]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

All those Zeppelins flying about gave it the story a real Michael Moorcock feel to it.

Has anyone else read Chris Cleave's "Incendiary"? (It's the book that was released on 7 July last year, and the publicity was cancelled because the storyline was about terrorists bombing London.) I ask because the cover image of the book shows barrage balloons over London (as an anti-terrorist measure), and when I saw the Cyberman episodes, this is what it brought to mind for me.

Patrick.

[the_faery_queen]

again i think im missing something. the concept was scarey enough, people chopped up and put inside metal things, but i just found it boring again. *shrug*

[I, Brian]

Missed the beginning - shame BBC couldn't keep the showing times the same each week - but now that I've seen some of it, not sure if I'll keep watching or not.

Maybe next time the Daleks come on they could give me a nudge.

[heron]

They really blew it with this one, it had none of the charm or inventivness of the previous story "the girl in the fireplace" and in my opinion suffered as a result of following behind what was possibly one of the best Doctor Who episodes ever. The casting for "rise of the cybermen" was just plain wrong, unfortunatly there is still a great deal of snobery in british acting and roger loyd-pack ruined this story with his hammed up oh well its good enough for sci-fi performance. The writers turned Rose's caracter from a strong female lead into a complete idiot, the Mickey/Rickey thing could have developed into a good little ongoing sidestory but they chickened out and poor david tennent seemed to be compleatly redundant. i just hope next weeks episode is better and that this isnt the begining of trend.

[speedingslug]

Agreed
I felt let down with the cybermen episodes.
I like to have to think about whats going on, like the fireplace and empty child.

[obcooke]

[Originally posted by Dave: Ricky needs your help: http://www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk/s2-04.htm]

I love what they are doing with websites! A great supplement to the story. Are other TV series doing this? I don't know of any, but I usually just stick to watching the shows and don't seek out a lot of trivia. I'm one of those people that the 6 hours of "extras" to a 2-hour movie is completely lost on. But this is a really clever idea that I haven't seen done or done so well before.

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[Originally posted by Dave: makes Cybermen a little too Dalek-like.]

REALLY! At the beginning I actually got confused for a moment and thought it was Davros! Then I remembered it wasn't Daleks. And y'all are right, the "delete" line was way too much - the writers should have edited that out themselves - maybe they didn't see how the scene sounded so Dalek-like. I know they were just trying to drag out the cliff-hanger ending, but they should have used some other way.

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And can I just say once again - ARE THEY ALL DAFT WHEN IT COME TO TITLES OF THE EPISODES?!?!

What is the blessed use of hiding the monster in soft focus and close-up shots of their feet for 30 minutes when you put their name in the freaking title?!?!

I hated it when they spoiled "Dalek" for me - I'm still not over that one. I don't get the media blitz so I'm very spoiler-free, which is the way I prefer to see Doctor Who since it's one of the few shows that surprises me again and again.

But I was really hacked off to see them not only put Cybermen in the title but then play tease-tease for so long - pitiful. Do the people who name the episodes read the scripts?

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[Originally posted by Dave: And Pete Tyler hasn't aged in the last 20+ years!]

Good Catch! Well, you know there are lots of ways to make a woman look younger or older with hair styles, makeup, clothes, etc. But a nearly-bald man in a business suit is very hard to modify. They might have used a beard or something, but if you change him too much than Rose wouldn't have been so obsessed with him - he had to look exactly like her father for the story to work well.

The snobbish Jackie was a nice touch. But the way our Jackie is known to gossip about others I wonder if she might not take on some airs if she were rich.

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[Originally posted by Dave: Finally some back-story given on Mickey, and Noel Clarke gets a chance to act.]

Ha! Ha! I was right.

[Originally posted by OB-Wan in 28.03: School Reunion: I don't see Micky adding much, in fact, I don't think he'll last very long.]

I didn't figure that the writer's went back on Mickey's "I don't want to go." attitude about space-time travel without having a purpose for him. And this show is very fast-paced in terms of story/character development, so I figured we would see it soon.

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[Originally posted by Dave: Also not sure on how they got there, the Tardis losing power, and the little power cell...]

Yeah, that is kinda wierd. I was still dealing with the implications of the last surviving TARDIS being dead! - when they find a little green light and - Oh, everythings okay, forget about the doom and gloom, just another stop-over in our travels.

What was that all about? You don't just drop a line about the TARDIS literally dying and then cancel the whole thing, do you?

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How does someone who regenerates give away 10 years of his life?

They are really confusing the issue of The Doctors age, his life span and the number of regenerations. Now, I know that there is an argument that the new series doesn't need to explain it all - they can just regenerate whenever they need to without regard to continuity now that it's post-Time War. I don't like that idea, but I understand it.

But they keep bringing it up themselves!

So let's get this straight - For the first 850 years or so of his life he lead a relatively quiet first (as far as we know) generation. Then his grandchild's teachers paid him a visit.

Now, he's 900 years old and has gone through 9 regenerations in the last 50 years. Didn't he say something in "The Girl in the Fireplace" about having to spend 4000 years on the "slow path". Or would that be 3990 years now that he blew away 10 years?

At the current rate, that's a little over 22,000 regenerations to go!

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[Originally posted by PTeppic: My biggest "gripe" would be how EVERYONE is wearing almost identical ear pods. Loads of people today have mobiles, but not everyone and not all have them switched on, etc.]

Oh, Oh I can answer that one. The ear pods were issued by Lumic and he didn't care about fashion, just functionality. They probably offered some other incentives than styling to entice people to change from hand-held devices, like free service period, cash back or some other sure-fire promotion.

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[Originally posted by PTeppic: the continued Mickey - Ricky thing from the first series]

That was cool. Micky was Ricky he just didn't know it yet. Although The Doctor seemed surprised by the development. I wonder if before the Time War The Doctor might have visited a different parallel world and met a different Ricky and that's how Eccleston knew about the name thing.

Wheels within Wheels.

[lordoftime]

This is the one I am looking forward to the most, well, aside from Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. The make it or break it as we finally reach a two parter for Doctor Number Ten. And I love the Cybermen, so I cannot wait to see their reinvention. Be kind of interesting to see them without David Banks and their silver suits!!!

[Krystal]

A great episode, I like it a lot. Looking forward to the next part.

[lordoftime]

And that would be tonight....