Doctor Who, season 5 begins …

Season 5 begins with The Tomb of the Cybermen.  It lacks the strength of previous stories like The Evil of the Daleks, largely due to its setting.  These alien planet scifi-heavy stories that would become the show’s strength do pale a little next to the atmosphere of the environment-heavy setting of contemporary and recent-history Earth.

That said, though, The Tomb of the Cybermen is better than I remember it to be.  I remember when it was first released and I was quite disappointed because I’d been led by the hype to think it was better than it turned out to be.  However, having watched all of Troughton’s adventures up to now, and having been with him as he’s lost companions, gained new ones, and had to face other threats/enemies, The Tomb of the Cybermen seems to fit in much better.  I think it’s helped by already having seen The Moonbase, so we’ve been with the Doctor and Jamie in a previous encounter with the Cybermen.

Victoria doesn’t excel in this one – forever saying “Mercy!” at everything, and playing the “I can look after myself” card which doesn’t work given her previous incarceration, during which she relied heavily on Kemel (who bore striking similarity in character to Toberman).  Given that she’s only just been informed that her father is dead, she’s got over her loss incredibly quickly.  Such is her character that you’d expect her to lean heavily on her only friends (notably Jamie, as he’s the on who saved her).  But, no, she’s happy to be led off by a bunch of strangers, be left behind in the control room, and says “I’m okay” whenever anyone offers to help her.  It’s as though the writer is writing for a completely different character.

Nevertheless, that isn’t enough to detract from the adventure.  The Doctor’s manipulative nature is not really fathomable.  He’s not been this manipulative until now, and you would have thought that his recent experience with the Daleks (in which they turned the experiment around on him) would have made him less casual.

The Cybermen themselves are turning into a less credible foe.  As each adventure progresses, they become more statue-like and now they’re a military group obeying orders like the Daleks in the previous adventure.  I miss the original Cybermen from The Tenth Planet.  Their voices are also becoming even more difficult to understand.  Still, I guess it is difficult to continue an alien enemy that was originally written for a single story.

Next time … The Tomb of the Cybermen continues