And so we come to the 1980s, ah that decade of fashion nightmares, synth music and fondly remembered, though sometimes not that great, movies. The 80s gave us three Cyberman stories and two are much better than Revenge thankfully. One, not so much. The 80s version of Doctor Who tends to get a lot of flak from fans, but honestly I’m fine with most of what it had to offer. Though I will admit the mid 80s did get pretty gruesome and at times it felt like someone in the team was trying to sabotage the series from the inside...which actually did happen, but more on that some other time.

First off Earthshock. I’ve already taken a look at this before on an earlier journal, so I will keep this quite brief. I admit my respect for this story has risen since then. Yes it does drag at the start of the climax; for 1982 this was very fast paced but its aged a bit badly here and there. That all said it holds up as a highlight of the entire run and a great way to get rid of a very unpopular character. The way Adric dies is down to his pure hubris and is kind of a comedic tragedy.

But, onto the second episode of this journal, Attack of the Cybermen. A story that is extremely polarising to fans. I myself am on the its a good story, after the sameyness of many of the earlier Cyberman stories, this and Earthshock were great breaths of fresh air, despite some issues.
Attack of the Cybermen has the Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri land on Earth when trying to repair a faulty circuit in the TARDIS. Meanwhile the Cybermen have captured a time machine in a London Sewer (Invasion reference) and plan on crashing Haley’s comet into the Earth in 1985 so it won’t get destroyed in 1986 (when The Tenth Planet is set). They send the machine to Telos (last seen in The Tomb of the Cybermen), where they have partially converted and enslaved some people who couldn’t submit to the mind wiping process involved and get them mining minerals. Also on Telos the natives called Cryons, who can only live in freezing temperatures and boil to death in heat, fight for freedom.

As you can see there’s a lot going on, and I’ve basically streamlined most of it. This makes it both fascinating and problematic. The biggest issue though is the references to older episodes. Not only do we have callbacks to previous Cybermen stories, but also we get Lytton, a henchman from a previous Dalek episode who, while a really great character with a brilliant relationship with the Doctor and a brutal death scene. Now I know who this guy is, but if you’re viewing this for the first time and never seen Resurrection of the Daleks, you’d be stumped. This is what makes watching the mid-80s episodes so tough to slog through with non-fan friends, the references usually twists their minds and you’re left there either confused or just awkwardly trying to explain everything to them. Also on a minor note the music is a bit meh, far too loud which seems to be a common thing in most episodes during this time.

But where this story really shines is in the action. Like Earthshock, you probably won’t get too much interesting new content or mind changing philosophy, this is a pure and gritty action oriented episode. The directing is very stylish and even downright brutal at times. This makes the Cybermen terrifying in a way that I think the New Series is too wimpy to do; have the Cybermen hurt people. A lot. There’s an infamous scene where two Cybermen grab Lytton’s hands and crush them into bloody pulps. Its disturbing and scarred many 80s British kids, but it really drives home the Cybermen as a credible threat. The Cryons may be seen as silly to some, but they are a fascinating alien design. They are very graceful and while the music is not that great in some places, the theme for the Cryons is a lovely mysterious and yet also rather sad high point. The Doctor also befriends a Cryon queen and there’s a tragic scene where she is killed mercilessly by the Cybermen. Also at the end, a downtrodden Cryon who is called stupid by the others redeems herself by sacrificing herself to save the others. Oh also they have a weird thing about feeling up Peri’s shoulders. Keep those hands to yourself!

So Attack of the Cybermen. Brutal, bloody and yet extremely entertaining. That is if you can stand the violence, the tinny music and those awful references. Actually I think the violence part stands for most of season 22. By this point the creative team had become very cocky and thought they could get away with anything. So the violence and cruelty was amped up, in some cases providing great social commentary and in others just a miserable episode. As said before this one is very polarising, you’ll either like it (I doubt anyone loves it) or hate it. I’m fine with it. Though the next story is a bit less polarising, but I’ll even try and defend that one a bit….emphasis on the word try!

Also I’m not going to cover the New series Cyberman stories. Sorry. This whole thing was a bit draining with the Wheel in Space and I admit I’m not really finding much joy in making these. So I will probably take a break and focus on story writing instead after Silver Nemesis.