Rise of the Cybermen

A new and interesting way of telling a Cyberman story. Although not up there with the stronger Cybermen stories like 'Tomb of the Cybermen' and 'Earthshock', but it does rate above average.

I was pleased with the new look of the Cybermen, in the publicity stills which I saw last year the new look didn't really make me think 'Wow!' but actually seeing them in motion on screen has actually make me say out loud 'Wow!'. But I still prefer the look the Cybermen had in the 1980's. However I wasn't too big on the new voices they had, I much preferred how they sound in the Big Finish audio series.

The story was pretty good but I was disappointed that there was too much focus on Rose and Mickey meeting relatives that are dead in there own Universe, it kinda stole the thunder from this alternate Earth which seems to become totally dependant on the 'Human Upgrade'. Then again with any series that RTD is in charge of there is bound to be some family 'melodrama' somewhere.

The CGI airships where pretty cool, it made that difference to the London skyline you kinda knew straight away that this was a different place. Not many shows get the alternate universes right, shows like 'Sliders' and 'Star Trek' don't quite clinch it at times, but this story does.

This was also the first time in the new series that a cliff-hanger ending wasn't spoiled by a 'Next Time' sequence; they did that last year and completely missed the point of 'Cliff-hanger ending'.

The sequence with the people in the street freezing while they get the latest downloads was pretty inspired in my opinion, the last part of it when a new joke was downloaded was a nice touch.

Although a good episode for the most part it did have some things that spoiled it slightly. I rate this story 7/10.