Rise of the Cybermen

At Last! somthing a little bit closer to the spirit and excitement of last season's run. Okay, the plot was a little bit Sci-Fi by numbers, but "Rise of the Cyberman" more than made up for this by the quality of the script and by the performance of the majority of actors involved. So far in this series, the only real genuine scare factor was within the Werewolf episode, and all through the run it's lacked any real heart and soul (with the possible exception of the Doc playing the romantic hero in the last episode); this episode had a little bit of soul, but it wasn't as scary as it could have been.

It had a nice beginning, the Tardis dying, and a feeling of hopelesness. The next scene with Mickey discovering that the Tardis had landed in "London" would have been more effective if the trailers hadn't already given away that this was an alternative reality; thankyou BBC for spoiling the fun!

As alternative realities go this was nicely done, giving both Rose and Mickey a chance to explore the importance of their own earthbound relationships, thus injecting some much needed "soul" into this series, (sorry, I know I over use that phrase!). Mickey (Noel) was especially good, playing a dual role which gave him somthing to do for a change. And it was good to be grounded in somthing close to the real world, giving this episode a grittiness and an emotional depth which paid off, but was still oddly lacking.

The main problem, I'm afriaid, was Rodger Lioyd Pack's portrayal of the Cyber Men's creator John Lumic. Pack is a good comic actor, but he was just too "hammy" for this, a bit too "Ming the Merciless", as a result it became difficult to take the threat of the Cybermen particularly seriously. This was a shame, as the Cybermen were nicely designed, and the concept was both classic and scary.

As I said, a bit Sci-Fi by numbers, it lacked the depth of ideas which made last season so special. Good fun, and certainly a high point of the season thus far, but I'm afraid there is still somthing missing. Where are the ideas? Where is the soul? I think I may have said this before...