One of the best Cybermen stories in NuWho, imho. Can't wait to see the conclusion.

I just have to mention it again, the visuals are top-notch in this error, kudos to the vfx teams. Nearly every vfx shot felt weighty and looked gorgeous.

I also liked how Graham and Yaz get to be their own team this episode, it was fun seeing how much they've learned from the Doctor.

This isn't a terrible episode, it just feels sort of...empty. there's a universe in which we spend an entire episode on that initial planet, getting to know the side characters and watching them and the fam build up defenses together. There's a version of this episode in my mind that is actually about the aftermath of this massive war. What we get instead is an awful lot of meandering.

The story within a story here, with Brandon the guard, is the most interesting part of the episode, and most of that is due to intrigue. I can say I was very confused watching it for the first time, but I generally enjoy stories set in the past more than ones set in the future, so it's the part that really kept me watching.

Well that was a whopper of the first part of a Cyberman story. Like with World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls, you really got the sense of the Cybermen as an unstoppable threat and no idea how Yaz and Graham are going to survive. Only criticism is that Jack really needed to be there, because his warning about the Lone Cyberman linked him too closely with the Cyberman story. He has to be in the eecond part, otherwise his warning makes no sense; you have to know about something in order to be able to warn about it in the first place! (NB: Jack did not return in The Timeless Children).

I wish I could say I had fun with Ascension of the Cybermen, but I barely get anything out of this episode. After all the high energy of The Haunting of Villa Diodati, everything sort of fizzles out here before face planting hard with the Timeless Children.

I do like the almost procedural way we set-up the battle against the Cybermen, that's a good example of where the Chibnall era could have some energy and fun to it. But then the drones, Ashad, the supporting characters, all the intrigue, it all kind of just falls apart. The planet this takes place on looks interesting enough but the budget around the Cybermen and the battle in general felt pretty underwhelming - all build-up and no substance. That disappointment, unfortunately, is what I take away most from the Ascension of the Cybermen.

Ashad's performance was the only one I found interesting here, and even then, he felt underused. Yet another Chibnall era episode that is just a big nothing burger of story.