Pretty summed it up for me as well. The one point that the doctor could have really laid into the Cybercontroller was that if you put everyone into a machine, and everyone is the same, then there is no variation, no adaptation. In our universe, this is what caused the downfall of the cybermen..a single failing cybermen had to gold that humans were able to exploit. One race, one empire..one single point of failure.daniel thomas wrote:Just saw the latest episode after some bt trouble. As much as I'm a Cybermen fan, and I am glad to see them back, I thought this episode was a dud. It just didn't do it for me. For the most part, this week's show was a collection of cliches, and it just felt, well, mechanical.
The thing is, this could have been a monster-chiller-horror-theatre classic, with Cybermen nighmares in everybody's heads for the rest of their lives. Perfect example is the scene in an underground sewer, which was lit only by flashlight. Please, please, please, I begged. Just let one of the monsters snap his hand out. Boom!
Scaring people, really, is pretty easy when you know how. It's cheap, too, but if it works, you've got them paranoid for the rest of the show. You can really work an audience over. Isn't that the point to a villian like a Cyberman? It plays not only on our fears of mortality, but something even worse: the loss of our humanity. Instead, all we get is a load of marching. Spare me; I feel like I'm watching a Michael Jackson video. I'm just waiting for one of them to start the dance moves.
And what happened to the politics? The pop satire was one of Davies' best tricks with the new Who. There hasn't been a single political jab since the Christmas episode, which was completely ruined because of that hideous fight scene at the end. Why are they all trying to become Jerry Bruckheimer all of a sudden?
I still think this second season is a good one, but it just feels like they're playing it safe, treading water, when they should be taking risks.
I think also that it would have been better had the cybermen not been destroyed. In real life, the cyberarmy would have rapidly overwhelmed any resistance, given their ability to communicate with each other over wireless. The doctor would have had to fight a retreat back to the TARDIS knowing he'd lost. And they didn't make a lot of the fact that Jackie had been assimilated. That would have been even more chilling had it been done right..it did seem very throwaway in how it was handled. I've seen more emotion at an Oscar presentation..
Perhaps it's the time slot. At 7pm, you can't scare the kiddies senseless, or leave them traumatised with people being processed through a cannery..
I hoped for SO much ..... dissapointing.
, wasn't the point that the cyber army were too busy going (understandably) FREAKOUT BATSHIT MENTAL at the realisation of what had been done to them to start worrying about military strategy? That was about the only part of the whole 90 minutes of series-nadir rubbish that I liked.