Forty Years of the Cybermen - 1966 to 2006

The First Cybermen - The Tenth Planet The Tenth Planet saw the Cybermen's first screen appearance, although the story was set in 1985. These original creatures were a haunting, monsterous creation with ghost-like faces of cloth. Their mouths opened and a stream of synthetic speech was heard, jumping high and low with no feeling behind the words. These first Cyberman arrived on Earth's polar base when the planet of Mondas, once Earth's twin, drifted its orbit back to our world. It was established at this stage that their Cybernetic scientists had replaced their body parts with metal and plastic and that all feelings had been removed from their brains. Although it passed without comment, the hands of these creatures remained human at this stage. Sadly episode four of this story is missing, and episodes one and three are lacking in Cyberman action. In fact, during this whole story the monsters had relatively little screen time, something that would be true of several stories in which they featured. Neverthless, this adventure is worth experiencing and can be bough on audio CD (link left). Also of fun is a CD available featuring the incidental music.

Missing Parts - The Moonbase / The Wheel in Space The Moonbase saw the appearance of the Cybermen upgraded from flexible cloth-like skin to their all-metal heads and plastic/metallic skin, which would be a form to last them to 1988. Their new voices were perhaps the most iconic, foreshadowing the BBC Micro computer text-to-speech synthesisers that we played with in school during the 1990s. Both this story and two stories later saw the Cybermen as cold, calculating, calm, methodical attackers, working slowly to achieve their goal, in both cases breaking into a space outpost. The Moonbase saw the introduction of two characteristics which would be the hallmarks of the Cybermen at various stages through decades to come: They extended control over certain humans through telepathic influence and their weaponry shot from their own bodies. In The Wheel in Space saw a long, complex, multi-phase plan evolve in which the Cybermen lured humans onto their ship before taking them over and sending them back on the space station as double-agents. The Cybermen were cunning, adapting to changes in their plans when needed and they were overseen by a Cyber-coordinator. The Doctor reinforces the fact that the Cybermen are all machine aside from their organic brains remaining, but having had all feelings removed so they are more robot than man. Sadly both these stories are now incomplete but their surviving episodes can be seen as part of the Lost in Time DVD collection (top right) and the audio of The Moonbase can be heard (right).

The Tomb of the Cybermen Between The Moonbase and The Wheel in Space came one of the classic Doctor Who stories, in which the Doctor and a group of archaeologists uncover the Cybermen's lost tombs on their second home, Telos. This story continued earlier continuity with the monsters' weapons being an electrical spark fired from their hands, and they have the ability to exert mental control over humans. In this story we also see a part Cybernetic conversion with the limbs of Toberman becoming those of a Cyberman. Tomb of the Cybermen also introduces the rather curious Cybermats, an almost inexplicable rodent-like metallic life-form whose origins are never fully uncovered.

The Invasion and then a Rest before Revenge of the Cybermen

Following adventures on the Wheel, the metal monsters returned for an eight part epic called The Invasion which saw a full blown attempt to flood contemporary Earth (well, slightly-in-the-future-Earth) with cyber forces. Once again the Cybermen were manipulative and calculating creatures whose plan in part was to use a broadcast signal to exploit their abilities to control the human mind. Their weaponry emerged from their chest units as in The Wheel in Space but they also carried guns that packed more of a punch.

Jon Pertwee never saw any Cyberman action and when they reappeared again it was in a story some would like to forget. Revenge of the Cybermen saw the Cybermen acting in an emotional and often comical way which began the decline of their legend as impassive killers. Even the story title includes the suggestion they are vengeful, which should be an alien concept to them! Their plan to destroy the planet of gold (a weakness to gold is a new, rather silly addition) lacked the subtlety of previous exploits and their leader, with hands on hips, is best forgotten.

Earthshock Earthshock saw the Cybermen appear in the 1980s after another long gap and, although continuing down a more emotional portrayal of the monsters, was an excellent adventure and undoubtedly one of Peter Davison's best. The Cybermen sadly have lost all their quirks though. Full of emotion in their voices, carry weapons like any other baddie, and showing none of their old power to control human minds. However they did construct an interesting plan, although lacking the over-complexity of the old stories! Despite its Cybermen continuity deficiencies, the story stands up well in its own right, with more action than you can shake a mathematics badge at, this DVD adventure is definately worth owning as one of the great Doctor Who adventures!

The New Series - Series 2 - Vol. 3 Limited Edition with Unique Dr Who Top Trumps Playing Card Finally the Cybermen returned in the new incarnation of Doctor Who. In Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel they are reborn in an alternative universe with many of their original characteristics: Taking control of humans and shooting electricity from their fingers. Marching in unison in huge numbers made them look more effective than they have ever been on screen before! This DVD is a must-have.