Rise of the Cybermen

Back into more traditional Who waters now, with guns, marauding robots and a shouty megalomaniac В– which, coupled with В‘old seriesВ’ pacing courtesy of the double episode, by rights should make the В“old is good, new is bad brigade happyВ” (though you know as well as I do itВ’s not going to happen).

The whole thing has a very Troughton-esque feel, probably due to the similarities with Invasion В– though it perhaps shares more DNA with comic book fiction, in particular the character of Lumic and the new cyberdesign, which is certainly beefier than the old jump suits/wet suits sprayed silver look. I was unsure about them at first, they looked far too stylised, but seeing in the context of the show they have a lot of presence and menace.

David Tennant and Billie Piper are as good as ever, though Noel Clarke manages to steal the show as Ricky/Micky, which is no mean feat with Don Warrington and Roger Lloyd-Pack to compete with.

Cybermen have always essentially been walking Daleks В– once-human brains trapped inside metal bodies but stripped of all emotions to make them more efficient killing machines В– and in this story they get their very own Davros in the shape of wheelchair-bound Lumic, and their very own catchphrase too. The link between mobile technology and mind control is nice enough (if a little fuddy-duddy), but we could perhaps have done without В“Delete! Delete!В”

But, having said that, it was nice to enjoy the slower-build up, and the lines of cybermen stomping across the lawn was a good scary moment that should give the kiddies a scare. And itВ’s all a damn sight better than Silver Nemesis. I liked it.