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“GOING OFF THE RAILS – CYBERMEN, CIRCUITS AND CHILD'S PLAY”

Going Off the Rails is a brisk, punchy tale with a delightfully bonkers premise: two kids building a model train set in their garage accidentally reassemble scattered Cyberman parts, unwittingly activating a lone Cyberman. As premises go, it’s classic Doctor Who—equal parts suburban and sci-fi. The idea of alien technology hidden in plain sight, especially amongst children, always feels at home in the Whoniverse.

But despite its promising setup, the story struggles to strike the right tone. It plays its central concept—children stumbling across and defeating a Cyberman—without quite balancing tension and believability. The execution feels more like a comic strip than a compelling short story.

CHILDREN OF STEEL

The two kids at the heart of the story are clearly written as plucky, brave stand-ins for the target audience, and the plot leans heavily into the idea that children can be just as clever and resourceful as the Doctor himself. That sentiment is noble, and certainly true to the spirit of Doctor Who, which has always thrived on empowering the powerless.

However, there’s a limit to how far you can push that premise before it begins to undercut your monster—and that’s where this story derails. These two children manage to fend off a fully functional Cyberman by distracting it and pushing it into circuitry that fries its systems. It's a resolution that feels far too easy, especially given the usually formidable nature of the Cybermen. These are supposed to be relentless, unfeeling nightmares of steel, and here one gets bested by a pair of tweens and a makeshift circuit board.

A CLASSIC MONSTER DEMYSTIFIED

The Cybermen are an iconic foe, but stories like this risk diluting their menace. Much like how The Chase made the Daleks look foolish, Going Off the Rails makes the Cybermen feel like minor inconveniences rather than existential threats. Of course, this is a story aimed squarely at children, so there’s a certain degree of licence given—but the balance isn’t quite there. We’ve seen children face off against Cybermen in Nightmare in Silver and even Closing Time, but those stories managed to retain the dread. This one doesn’t.

That said, there’s a charming sense of childhood imagination to the tale: model trains, mysterious parts, a garage turned battlefield. It's easy to see young readers getting a thrill from it, even if older fans might raise an eyebrow.

📝THE BOTTOM LINE: 4/10

A fun concept that fizzles in execution, Going Off the Rails tries to empower its young protagonists but ends up softening its villain too much. It’s a cute diversion with sparks of imagination, but one that forgets to respect the monsters it's playing with.

This suffers a similar problem to Mission to Galacton, it just makes the monster it's representing feel far too weak. Admittedly here the cyberman has just been fixed but it's still beaten by two kids and a model train set.

There is the threat of the children being upgraded, but the cyberman itself is still treated too robotically for me, being pieced back together and then repairing itself when it is.

That said, for a kids story, it's fun, I like that both kids get a bit to do as well and that they chose the girl to be the one that's more technically knowledgeable.