Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 417: Revenge of the Cybermen, Episode One 

Dear diary,

It’s odd how this stage of the programme goes through a period of looking back to the people who were involved with it during the early years. Last season we had Paddy Russell returning to directors duties for the first time since Season Three’s The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve, and with The Ark in Space John Lucarotti made his return (to some degree) for the first time since that same story. Glyn Jones, writer of The Space Museum turns up as one of the crewmembers in The Sontaran Experiment, and now we’ve got Gerry Davies back on the scene for the first time since The Tomb of the Cybermen. You’ve also got the old enemies being revived - the Daleks made their return after a five-year absence a few seasons ago, and now the Cybermen follow suit, emerging for the first time since The Invasion, way back in 1968. After this story, they’ll vanish for another seven years. It’s a wonder that they ever made it into the pantheon of Doctor Who’s most famous foes!

And yet, despite the fact that they’re making a triumphant return after more than half a decade away from our screens... it’s treated as just any old monster of the week turning up. I often complain about it during these diary entries, but you do play something of a game with Doctor Who. If the story features a returning villain, then their name appears in the title. You spend that entire first episode knowing that they’ll be revealed - pointlessly - at the cliffhanger... but that’s all part of the fun. Yes, it’s a bit cheesy. Yes, it’s a bit repetitive. But it’s what you expect.

So it’s a surprise when the Doctor twigs half-way through this episode that the Cybermen must be involved with the events unfolding around Nerva. It’s thrown into the dialogue as if we’re supposed to think ‘of course! Who else?’, but really it feels like it should be a bigger deal than this. Not long after, we get a shot of their spaceship while Kellman contacts them, and then we cut directly to a shot of them all stood around in their control room.

Now, I’m watching this and thinking ‘oh yes! It’s the Cybermen!’, but would kids at home be shocked by this revelation during first broadcast? We’re now deep in a period of the programme where the past is more accessible than it has been before - the Radio Times anniversary issue a few years before gave details of the Doctor’s old adventures, and the Target novels have begun in earnest - but it still feels odd to treat their big return after such an absence with such... dismissal.

I think it’s completely put me off the story right at an early stage, and Revenge of the Cybermen may be looking at a real uphill struggle to win me back round. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now, since it’s both the return of my favourite monsters, and coming at a phase where the programme has never felt so self-assured. I’m all ready for a Cyberman story told with the kind of edge we see in Genesis of the Daleks, but this first episode has left me almost entirely cold.

It’s a huge shame, too, because we start of with such promise. The Doctor, Sarah, and Harry arrive back on Nerva, but the twist is that we’re a few thousand years before the events from The Ark in Space. They need to make do with waiting around until the TARDIS can come back and catch up with them... but this being the Doctor, he almost instantly stumbles across a corpse and a mystery to solve. Ofcourse he does. He only has to open a simple door to find himself in trouble!

We’re then treated to a return for Nerva’s most iconic piece of scenery - that corridor. This time, though, it’s been strewn with dead bodies. It’s sinister, perfectly in keeping with the tone this programme’s now got, and a great hook for the start of the story. Add to that the idea that there’s a Cybermat moving around unseen amongst the victims, and a spaceship floating just out of reach from Nerva’s scanners... all the right pieces are here for a great story, but I’m just not feeling it. Still, I’m hoping my disappointment at the slightly bungled reveal of our old favourite monsters won’t overshadow the rest of the story, so I’ll be moving forward with an open mind tomorrow...