📝7/10

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

This time: Poor Man's Spare Parts I

MY SCATTERED AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT NOTES:

This two-part story takes us to a parallel Earth, where the London skyline is dotted with blimps, Pete Tyler (Rose’s dad) is alive, and Mickey has an alternate self named Ricky.

While the script draws inspiration from the Big Finish classic Spare Parts, it diverges significantly in tone and content. The focus here is on reimagining Rose’s family dynamics, critiquing the dangers of wearable technology, and creating a new origin story for the Cybermen, complete with a sleeker—albeit less effective—design. The main idea borrowed from Spare Parts is the chilling concept of everyday people being abducted from the streets and forcibly converted into Cybermen in a horrifying process.

The main cast delivers familiar performances: the Tenth Doctor is his usual mix of flirtatious, condescending, and energetic; Rose is caught up in her longing for an alternate version of her father while jealously guarding her connection to the Doctor; and Mickey continues to search for his place in the team. However, Mickey finally receives some meaningful character development when he meets his parallel-world grandmother—a touching moment that leads to his eventual decision to leave the TARDIS.

Roger Lloyd-Pack (rest in peace) gives an over-the-top performance as John Lumic, a feeble, Davros-like villain who serves as the creator of these new Cybermen. His portrayal falls into the category of “so bad it’s good” villains, much like Zaroff from The Underwater Menace.

Shaun Dingwall shines as Pete Tyler, while Camille Coduri gives a fresh spin on Jackie. However, these more successful (but personally unfulfilled) versions of Rose’s parents shift focus away from the more compelling elements of the story, leaving the narrative feeling overly crowded.

The subplot involving the resistance group—led by Ricky, Jake, and eventually joined by Mickey—is serviceable but underdeveloped. Ricky, in particular, feels more like a caricature designed to contrast Mickey than a fully realized character. The group’s role becomes more prominent in the second part, but they lack depth and impact in this episode.

The build-up to the Cybermen's rise is effective, though a moment involving "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" undermines an otherwise tense scene. The episode follows a classic Doctor Who formula: a slow burn leading to a dramatic cliffhanger, with most of the action reserved for part two.

Unfortunately, these redesigned Cybermen—clunky robots stomping around and repeating their catchphrase—are a far cry from the eerie, humanoid cyborgs of the classic era.

Overall, while the story has its moments of intrigue and tension, it stumbles in balancing its numerous subplots, and the new Cybermen fail to live up to their chilling legacy.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• This marks the second production within a year featuring David Tennant and Roger Lloyd-Pack, following Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), where they played father and son.
• Poor Mickey. He finally gets to travel in the TARDIS, only to be sidelined. Still, he has a poignant moment when he refers to himself as "a spare part," a nod to the inspiration behind this story.
• This is the first parallel-world story in Doctor Who since Inferno (1970).
• It’s also the revived series' first foray into the classic mad scientist trope.
• Mickey’s alternate self, Ricky, shares a nickname originally given to him by the Doctor in the regular timeline.
• Russell T. Davies’ decision to give the Cybermen a catchphrase ("Delete!") in an attempt to rival the Daleks’ "Exterminate!" feels unnecessary and diminishes their menace. Thankfully, this gimmick has been abandoned in more recent episodes.
• The introduction of the new Cyber Controller is a highlight, as its design is genuinely impressive.

One of the interesting things about the Cybermen is how drastically their design evolves over their appearances in the show. Their Tenth Planet appearance, for example, is completely different to their look in The Moonbase. Their 'Cybus' redesign is arguably the most radical change for the Cybermen.

Because of this, many Whovians are not fans of the Cybus look - in my view, however, they are forgetting how it has always been a staple of Cyberman history for the look to fluctuate between designs.

Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel has a good reason for the Cybus design too. The story takes place in a Parallel Earth, where Rose's (Billie Piper) Dad Pete Tyler (Shaun Dingwall) is still alive and is a successful businessman running a health drink business called Vitex - a subsidiary of Cybus Industries. The TARDIS falls through the time vortex and crashes in the Void, rendering the machine lifeless as it is outside the universe where it can claim energy from the rift. Mickey (Noel Clarke) leaves the TARDIS and finds they are in a parallel version of London. Meanwhile, the Doctor manages to find a small part of the TARDIS that is still alive and gifts it some of his own life energy. Elsewhere, Cybus Industries leader John Lumic (Roger Lloyd-Pack) is working on an experiment to upgrade human beings into Cybermen...

First, I'm going to come out and say it: I like the Cybus Cybermen. I think the design by Peter McKinstry works extremely well for 21st century Doctor Who. It's cool, it's modern and it works within the context of the two parter. These Cybermen aren't our universe Cybermen, they are parallel universe Cybermen where they were invented by John Lumic. They look like somebody's invention too. Some Whovians tend to forget that the reason for the cloth face in The Tenth Planet is because the production values at the time were poor. They couldn't afford a design like the Cybus one - and if you put a cloth-faced Cyberman in front of the cameras today it would look ridiculous (NB: Since I wrote this review, the Mondasian Cybermen returned in World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls, and I was completely wrong. They looked totally amazing under modern HD cameras.)

John Lumic is possibly one of the new series' best human villains too. He is absolutely despicable; an arrogant, cold and heartless businessman who ironically is not too brilliant to a Cyberman himself. He's pretty much the polar opposite of Pete Tyler and the exact kind of cruel man you could imagine inventing something like the Cyberman. John Lumic is played expertly by Only Fools And Horses actor Roger Lloyd-Pack and I cannot imagine anyone else in the role. When he becomes the Cyber Controller it is such a satisfying pay-off to his character.

It's not all about returning to the classic era with the Cybermen however. The story is also hugely inventive with the way it represents a parallel London. There's zeppelins in the sky, the UK has a President and everybody wears ear pods (before ear pods came a thing - this is a parallel 2006). In many ways it reminds me of Back to the Future Part 2's optimistic take on 2015, although in this case we have a parallel version of what the present at that time could have looked like had we gone down another path. Then again: maybe that's what 2015 really is in Back to the Future Part 2? Maybe we are actually seeing a parallel 2015 Hill Valley? Nevertheless this is probably among Doctor Who's most inventive settings. The optimistic outlook on what a parallel world would look like is a lot more interesting than a dystopian one and it's fun to see Pete Tyler's previously mentioned get-rich-quick schemes actually come to fruition.

Talking about fun, this is a Doctor Who episode with a great sense of humour. Writer Tom MacRae injects some great lines throughout, such as how the Doctor's line 'We fell out of the vortex, through the Void into nothingness. We're at some sort of no-place, a silent realm, a lost dimension...' is immediately followed by Mickey looking outside and replying 'Otherwise known as London'. Then there's the brilliant moment Rose discovers that in this parallel universe she is a dog, played with great humour by both Billie Piper and David Tennant (who are great throughout this two parter - David Tennant demonstrates EXACTLY why he is the best Doctor).

The second episode of the two parter, Age of Steel, even manages to do something better with the Cybermen than was done in the classic series. There's a great sequence that really highlights the horrors of Cyber-conversion, as you see how the Cybermen in this world are created.

It is a very dark sequence with blades and pincers swirling around in the conversion chamber. This is a scene that wouldn't look out of place in a horror movie: a true hide behind the sofa element, even if they likely wouldn't have got away with it in the classic series without Mary Whitehouse complaining.

Speaking of the classic series, this two parter features a brilliant companion exit that feels like one you would get in a classic series serial. Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith decides to stay behind at the end of Age of Steel in order to help fight the resistance against the Cybermen, an exit which bares many similarities to Susan Foreman's exit in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a companion exit that highlights his growth as a character: no longer is Mickey the 'idiot' from Series 1, now he's a full-grown hero. He's the underdog who against all those who doubted him has become a figure of bravery and nobility. Like the Doctor, neither cruel or cowardly. Mickey is perhaps the new series male companion with the most character development of them all. Over the course of series one and two you see him go on a real journey and Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel feels like a natural conclusion of that.

Overall, Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel is unfairly criticised for the redesign of the Cybermen but within the context of modern audiences and the story's plot it makes so much sense. The Cybus design is extremely effective and has a very modern, very cool look you wouldn't have got with a more faithful take on the Cybermen. This is a two parter that conveys the horrors of Cyber-conversion better than any Cyberman story that came before it; with John Lumic you've also got a villain who as with Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion is no more than a Cyberman himself, through the way he conducts his behaviour - unlike Vaughn, he even becomes one himself: a high-ranked Cyberman, no less, as the Cyber Controller. There's a wonderful sense of imagination and humour in this story's representation of a parallel 2006 London; seeing Rose as a dog is one of the highlights of the new series of Doctor Who.

Mickey Smith's exit is also perfect for his character, demonstrating how he has gone on a more impactful character journey than any new series male companion that has followed after. No longer the 'idiot', Mickey is now a hero and the brilliant conclusion to his character is one of many reasons I would recommend this story.

Mickey would later return in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and The Stolen Earth/Journey's End but unlike Rose Tyler his return appearances do not detract from his original exit from the show.

Unfortunately, I don't think Rise of the Cybermen holds up very well. There are far superior Cybermen stories out there that get into the horror of these characters. The Doctor and Rose feel underplayed here as the attention is kind of on Pete's World and introducing us to the Cybermen. It's not terrible content but it feels like it is trying a little too much with too little resources. Alternate universes is a neat idea, but marrying them to the Cybermen in their introduction feels, in hindsight, like a mistake. It feels like the effects are pretty underwhelming and even dorky at times but the Cybermen do look cool enough, I suppose. I'm sure I'll have more to say when I get around to Age of Steel.