The Age of Steel

So we had ninety minutes of a very trad Dr Who story in many ways. Parallel Earth, Cybermen, evil supervillain but so much more than that. No previous Cyberman story has gone into such detail about the mechanics of the monsters and what happened to the people who become them. And Cyberwomen! The poor woman who became a Cyberman the day before her wedding and Jackie. You should have been able to spot the CyberJackie from the lashings of make up.

There were minor problems like the fact it was difficult to make out what the Cybermen were saying without subtitles and the usual James Bond thing about the baddies HQ blowing up for no particular reason but as usual with new Who the plot and everything else is subordinate to character development.

Roger Lloyd Pack didn't have much to do in The Age of Steel. His assistant Colin Spaull sabotaged his wheelchair and off he went to be converted. Battersea Power Station looked like the head of a Cyberman in one shot. The moon as a theme showed up again. A bright red moon was visible behind the Cybermen at one point.

The episode was apparently Mickey's swan song. Despite everyone doubting him he came good and saved the day. It's nice to see an assisstant having an arc and developing. Not many characters have. Sarah Jane and Leela did but all that happened to Mel was that she turned from a shrieking mororn to a shrieking moron who ran off with a mercenary and Adric developed from a live idiot to a dead one.

The episodes looked great, all grey and black. It was also genuinely creepy as the doctor and Mrs Moore walked through the tunnel. The cybermen stamping about was brilliant. I wouldn't like to see too many more trad stories this season because I would prefer to get thrown another curve ball like The Girl in the Fireplace. Anyway thank god for a decent Cyberman story at last. As a homage to the old stories they should have had one of the Cybermen with a beer belly but you can't have everything!