This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Primeval

This story defined the Cybermen as they are today. Without this story, they would remain a continuation of the classic Cybermen who were slowly devolving into generic robots. This brings back the element of body horror present in The Tenth Planet and it makes for a horrifying 2 hours.

This is the second time I've listened to this and I was ready to come out of it thinking it was good but only praised because it's an early release that people have had plenty of time to think about and that's the only reason this story is acclaimed. I'm glad to be wrong and it's just as good as I remember it originally.

There's a reason this has inspired so many Cyberman stories. One of the characters, Yvonne Hartley, is a clear inspiration, atleast in name, of the ill-fated head of Torchwood, Yvonne Hartman who similarly gets converted into a Cyberman.

Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton put in a brilliant performances, especially the former. He sells the Doctor's fear and disgust at the Cybermen being modelled off him. Funnily enough, while the performances were great this was probably the weakest usage of the Doctor and Nyssa so far, especially Nyssa. In this story she could be replaced by just about any other companion and events would most likely turn out the same.

This is a phenomenal story, it has horror and drama and tension, there aren't any major plotholes or anything. It's a very tight story that just about anyone can listen to without prior knowledge which is probably one of the reasons it's so iconic.

Next Story: Creatures of Beauty