I am a big Stewart Lee and Richard Herring fan. Real Time is the only time their worlds collide with Doctor Who - it also marks one of their very last (if not their last) professional engagement as an ongoing double act. On his website Stewart Lee describes a picture of him standing next to a Cyberman as a career low (he may have been joking) and Herring did not speak highly of this either on his RHLSTP podcast. I don’t think it’s quite as bad as they describe.

The main issue with this story is how thin the plot it. It could be stretched across 45 minutes but not 70. Various parties spend most of the run time trying to get through a couple of doors. Big Finish have done much better in audio, so it’s a shame that it’s this one that got the animation treatment. While the animation is much improved compared to Death Comes to Time, it is still ultra low budget.

The cast are quite good - Herring’s initially dodgy accent aside. It’s always good to see the 6th Doctor and Evelyn in Big Finish, not that Evelyn is given all that much to do.

The story has a slow paced charm of its own.

This is rough. Really not much to redeem this, but an interesting experiment regardless.

The blue suit! The Doctor’s out of his technicolour coat and into the blue! It’s a brilliant variant of his outfit and looks so incredibly striking. It says something that the only thing this story is remembered for is the outfit switch, but it’s well-deserved. Colin Baker is absolutely running rings around everyone else in this story – For most characters, the dialogue is atrocious, but he sells it unbelievably well. By far, he is the strongest performer in this adventure, always confident and imposing against the Cybermen, but gentle when he needs to be, comforting the humans and keeping them as safe as possible. But then, there are moments where he seems so callous – at first, he seems like he’s bluffing with the Cybermen, believing that he doesn’t care about the other hostages, but then when he speaks to Evelyn individually, it appears that he’s actually willing to sacrifice people for the greater good! I feel like Evelyn is also unfortunately shafted in an adventure which just doesn’t seem to fit her. I don’t know whether it’s the role she plays or the animation (if you can call it animation), but she seems out of place. Why is she always smiling with her hands in her pockets, even when she’s confronting the Cyber-Controller? Why is she facing the camera when she’s talking to people behind her? Maggie Stables is trying her best, but this isn’t the character we’ve come to love.

I have very mixed opinions on the Cybermen in this story. On the one hand, it’s a terrific design – it modernises the 1980s look and plays into the body horror more than they usually would’ve been able to in their BBC primetime slot. We have characters actually getting converted on screen and irreversibly so, and it’s downright terrifying. On the other hand, they’re written like cucks! They’re goofing around stupidly, asking each other questions about the plot and struggling to transport the TARDIS through a doorway. The central conflict revolves around the characters catching up with the plot, and it should be more compelling. They’re fighting a future in which the Cybermen are victorious, and yet most of the time, our heroes are just standing around doing nothing. There’s something so interesting about the climax  - as the Cybermen are defeated, the Cyber-Controller removes their faceplate, and it’s Evelyn! But then the adventure ends. I want more of that! If we’re doing a story that explores fighting time, actually play into that instead of just having it as a gimmick!

In fairness to Maggie Stables, the poor direction isn’t just on Evelyn. The animation is just very strange – rather a motion comic than what we’ve come to expect from the show’s animations. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn, but the characters don’t seem to engage with them in any way. We have very strange close-ups of people’s chins, people are positioned very awkwardly, and we have the same zoom-in on the Doctor’s cat pin about six times. It is really off-putting and difficult to watch, which – when you have an animation – is probably the most important thing!! This story is so poorly paced as well, with entire episodes of just exposition as we’re waiting around for something interesting to happen, but it never does.

It's not often I’m able to point out an actor as the standout for being the worst performer, but Yee Jee Tso is saddled with a really unfortunate role. I don’t think he’s a particularly strong voice actor anyway, but the dialogue is such a slog and it feels like he’s reading off a Wikipedia page rather than actively engaging with his surroundings.

The soundtrack of the story is excellent, it feels so authentic to the era of the mid-1980s and sets up this futuristic world effectively! The sound design is pretty strong, and the sounds of the conversions and torture are so brutal!

The quality of the dialogue is very mixed – for the most part, it feels really awkward and the characters are incredibly one-dimensional, but there’s a few sparing moments which I’d argue are among the Sixth Doctor’s best moments!

Favourite Line: “Against Cybermen, I’m always in an inferior position if we’re talking about might! But I’m talking about life! And my feelings, my love for Evelyn can never make me inferior. I begged you to stop if you threatened her or any of these people in fact, and you see that as weakness. But in proving that, you’ve given both myself and Evelyn a greater strength. Because neither she nor I would devalue our friendship, no matter what the cost! Something you see no value in, and that is my advantage.”

Favourite Cliffhanger: Part One

I cannot believe that the BBC saw this and the show got renewed a year later. It has its moments, but it’s a shame that the majority of it is a real chore to sit through. It's bogged down by its exposition and characters, almost entirely set-up for an adventure that never came to light...

I love Six, Evelyn and the Cybermen but this drags so much. If it were considerably shorter it would've been better, or if it had more of a plot. It definitely didn't need this runtime.