I see no reason to mince words: that was crap. Utter, embarrassing, ridiculous, slap-your-head-and-start-crying crap. Almost as bad as "New Earth", and definitely worse than anything the first series spewed up.

I apologise. This may seem hysterical. So let’s go through it calmly.

The opening scene is bad. Roger Lloyd-Pack (Only Fools and Horses’ Trigger, and The Vicar of Dibley’s Owen) is an appalling choice for megalomaniac John Lumic, and as he growls wide-eyed at his new creation (kept out of focus but obviously a Cyberman – thanks, title), hilarity ensues. The obligatory death of his ethical assistant is painful to watch, for all the wrong reasons: the man makes a silly shape with his mouth, dies in a shower of fake blue light and looks somewhere between faintly amused and surprised. This is camp Who. Silly Who. The kind of Who that Who-bashers are always convinced exists.

Then our heroes are plunged into a parallel universe, and writer Tom McRae has no logical explanation for it (holding a button on the TARDIS for half an hour? What?! Even the Doctor says "I dunno"). Budgetary restrictions mean it looks just like ours but with vaguely relevant zeppelins everywhere, and citizens all wearing chunky daft silver ear-pieces. Terrified of the scope a parallel universe offers, McRae focuses on Rose’s parents (both alive here) as Rose tries to come to terms with her father being alive again. At the risk of sounding cold, who cares? The Rose’s father plot-line was played out expertly in "Fathers’ Day". All that needs to be said has simply been said. Sean Dingwall's performance isn't a patch on his last one, as the character is here robbed of all that shining immediacy and sad doom. He's a futuristic Del Boy here, and I don't care. Similarly Jackie, irritating to start with, is now a Rich Bitch. Rose's attempts to unite them are tiresome, self-indulgent and annoying. I still can't work out why the Doctor lets her give it a go, despite constantly telling her she mustn't.

The typical differences are made between the two universes: the Tylers never had a child (they named the dog Rose, har-har) and Lumic controls just about everything. Mickey’s counterpart Ricky (oh, wit!) is taking part in a resistance against the hardly-set-up regime. Lumic is making Cybermen for all the usual megalomaniac reasons (why even ask?). And the Doctor and co have to wait for the TARDIS to repair itself, naturally creating an opportunity for Mickey to meet his other self and Rose to bother her not-parents. It’s all a bit contrived and more than a little narrow in vision, and the characters are handled lopsidedly. The Doctor feels totally irrelevant, Rose strops and repeats old script ideas, and the whole thing feels like a flabby prelude to next week’s conclusion. It’s joyless, meandering rubbish, and that’s ignoring McRae’s tendency for blatant bad film clichés. The bit where he "cleverly" juxtaposes the birth of the Cybermen with cheerful music is pseudo-clever awfulness, fifteen years too late to even be a dire rip-off of Tarantino. There's also the little matter of silly science: the Doctor breathing on a power cell to reactivate it, and yet another off-screen use of the psychic paper - Doctor Who's favourite lazy cop-out besides the sonic screwdriver. Seriously, if the writers don't start even trying to logically explain things, and continue to churn out layman's terms and "magic" explanations, I'll just give up watching. I know techno-babble is bad, but the exact opposite is just as useless.

The acting is a masterclass of crap. Lloyd-Pack sets the chucklesome standard as Lumic, constantly hamming it up with a silly voice and mental stare. Even worse is Noel Clarke as the "evil Mickey", the personality of whom lies entirely in his ridiculous angry eyebrows. Most of the extras, including some bloke out of a soap (who is impossibly tidy and hair-gelled), are going through the motions. And David Tennant overuses his mad-eyes to tiresome extremes. He’s so taken to the handle of "Jarvis Cocker in space" that the Doctor veers between "lonely wanderer", spouter of philosophical God-crap and prancing space-ninny. But the Doctor is such a casual and redundant presence here that this almost doesn't matter. The scene where Rose and Mickey both ignore him and strop off is painful; dump the spoilt shits on Earth and get better companions, already. Rose's monumental self-importance (Pete and Jackie only split because they never had her, obviously. It couldn't possibly just be their fate; no, she must intercede, because she is the centre of the universe...) just deepens my hatred for the character. That and the fact that her character arc is totally and utterly finished, and the fact that Piper continues to act with her teeth. Seriously, she looks like she's chewing an invisible gum-shield.

Lastly, out of sad obligation, we must come to the Cybermen. They don’t look too bad, despite the daft way the mouth-pieces light up blue when they speak (why?). But their voices are awful. They sound like flatulent ducks. They also lumber around pointlessly, talking instead of doing, and the excessive shots of their feet simply highlight the rather bulky and ill-fitting leg joints. All of this comes to a head with the final conversation between tuxedoed Doctor and a Cyberman, as one of the silver sods introduces us to the catchphrase of the Cybermen – something clearly intended to rival "Exterminate!" in playgrounds throughout Britain, and intended to be scary, chilling, even horrifying.

"Delete! Delete! Delete!"

Quite what the kids think, I don’t know, but my friends and I were rolling around laughing – and this was the cliff-hanger – completely unable to be afraid of these ridiculous creatures. They even have a silly little salute. And all things considered, don’t you think they’re talking too much? What happened to "you will become like us", punch, splat? The whole "electrocuting hands" thing is far less threatening than the Cybermen using their natural heft to beat their victims into submission. Immense effort is made to make them bulky, heavy-sounding and immense. It’s all wasted, as they kill the same way as dropping a toaster in the bath. And the obsessive build-up of their appearance is useless, thanks to the BBC's obsessive policy of spoiling everything weeks in advance, and the fact that the Cybermen are so fundamentally rubbish. (NB: They are created in an entirely different scenario to the Cybermen the Doctor knows, as they are only zombified homeless people and not malicious aliens; thus his recognition of them is entirely coincidental, and at the end of the day, they're not even really Cybermen. It's like if Lumic was building Daleks, they wouldn't really be Daleks at all, but Lumic slave-robots that looked a bit like Daleks. Thus, the Cybermen haven't returned at all.)

It’s a huge wasted opportunity, very often hilarious when it should be frightening, and so beyond nostalgic tongue-in-cheek that it has become – sorry to repeat – crap. It’s an embarrassment from start to finish. Bad monsters, bad acting, no logical sense. Now they’ve Risen, would they kindly Sit Down and Bugger Off? If we’re very careful, they might not take whatever goodness remains in Doctor Who with them.

I am willing to wait. Since this is a two-part episode, I am willing to wait and see if this manipulative, muddled mess was just a very slow lead-up to a grand adventure.

After the wildly imaginative GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE, the bar was set high for the return of the DoctorВ’s number two nemesis. What we received was a rehashing of old and new clichГ©s.

First of all, Rose and her father. Rose received a beautiful and sincerely touching second chance to establish some sort of relationship with her dead father in FATHERВ’S DAY. That episode gave us a real chance to explore why Rose is Rose and why she formed such an instant attachment to her father.

If you think about it, Peter Tyler and the Doctor are not that much different. They both hatch В“impossible schemesВ” and (at least in the end) are willing to sacrifice themselves for the people close to them. Of course, the DoctorВ’s plans always succeed. ThatВ’s why he gets his own show and Peter Tyler died in a car accident in 1987.

Peter Tyler should have remained just that, a sweet and satisfying memory. To dredge him up again in the context of an В“alternateВ” world seems like a cheap rehashing of that episode from the first series. It plays unnecessarily upon the character mythology of the new show. For Rose to go blindly after her В“third chanceВ” to be with her dad seems selfish and a little masochistic.

But itВ’s merely a setup so that we can learn more about the В“alternate universeВ”. The universe itself has some imaginative touches, but really doesnВ’t engage you as a completely different dimension. It seems that pretty much everything is the same except for the zeppelins, the earrings and the curfew.

Even the alternate Mickey, or Ricky, just grimaces more. I love the character of Mickey, and I really enjoy Noel Clarke, but we did we really need to learn his backstory? To add that on top of RoseВ’s baggage seems unnecessary В– and really defines why this episode is so sluggish. His past is so similar to RoseВ’s that it doesnВ’t add any differentiation or emotional depth.

And whatВ’s with Mickey going from competing with the Doctor for RoseВ’s attention to suddenly acting like a scorned boyfriend (В“You can only chase after one of us.В”)? It seems very contrived. Are we being prepared for Mickey dying heroically?

With so little action and so much emotional angst, you are ticking away the minutes until something really interesting happens. When the Cybermen finally appear, itВ’s visually interesting and they do look scary. But therein lies a bigger problem.

The Cybermen will always look like robots. They will always look like a human creation. The thing that has made the Daleks so gripping and wildly frightening was that they looked so alien. Nothing had looked remotely like them before. Their weird voices and flailing pokers form an instant odd dread of being near them.

The new Cybermen look updated. They pound across the screen and big booming bass music tells us they are scary. But when they speak, you crank up the volume. And when they emit their new catchphrase В“you are deletedВ”, you groan. It comes across as a pathetic attempt to put them on par with Daleks screaming, В“Exterminate!В”. And it just doesnВ’t work. It seems obvious that the real Cybermen are using Lumic as an agent to further their long-standing hatred of the planet Earth. Whether Lumic knows this or not is an interesting question, but really not that interesting. One hopes this is the case and that this isnВ’t an В“alternateВ” genesis story for the Cybermen. The Dalek mythology remains intact (blessedly without Davros, so far), so letВ’s hope the Cybermen are the same.

There is still time to pull this mess around with a boffo second episode, but this first episode В– viewed on its own В– does not merit much excitement or praise. Even if it is a lead-up to bigger things, it did little to generate enthusiasm for what is to come.

I'm an American viewer and a lifelong Doctor Who fan. Naturally I was very excited to learn that the Doctor was going to be brought back two years ago. I was relieved to see that the new series producers were taking the character seriously, and I greatly enjoyed season one. However, while I admire the way Davies & Co. have reintroduced the Doctor to a new generation, I still missed my favorite elements of the show. I missed the continuity from the original series, the eccentricity of the past Doctors, the planet hopping and "TARDIS family" of companions.

But with Rise of the Cybermen, Doctor Who, the real Doctor, can finally be said to be "back". A double length episode (of which this is only part one) featuring a classic enemy, familiar Whovian tropes (an Orwellian police state, underground revolutionaries), and an opening worthy of the most over the top Tom Baker adventure. But what I'm enjoying most about season two is: David Tennant. Chris Eccleston was excellent, but Tennant is the real deal. He obviously has an awareness of the Doctor's continuity, channeling different Doctors for different situations. Was I alone in detecting a touch of Hartnell in the Doctor's attempt to tell Rose & Micky to stay put & do as told? Speaking of Micky, I'm very glad to see the TARDIS-family concept restored. It just seemed kind of lonely when it was just the Doctor & Rose. Oh, and just for the record: bringing back K9 was almost as great as bringing Sarah Jane back!

Lastly, and I'm probably alone in this, but hasn't season two offered an inordinate number of episodes that would have been perfect for Sylvester McCoy? New Earth, Tooth & Claw and now Rise of the Cybermen - McCoy's Doctor would have fit into these stories very comfortably, I think.

Let's get one thing straight here: there's a reason why the Cybermen were considered second fiddle to the Daleks. To put it rather bluntly, they simply Were. Yeah, sure, they got a little street cred by claiming the lives of one Doctor (the 1st) and a companion (Adric), and the bit with them coming out of the sewers of London in the Patrick Troughton era tale "The Invasion" is one of the defining images of the old series. But at the same time, they looked like thrown together dogshit in "The Tenth Planet" and the look never really got better. The whole "vulernability to gold" thing they threw in during the Tom Baker years got to the point where Daleks-and-stairs seemed like a serious dilemma in comparison. And, despite starting out as a cool concept of a dying race becoming robotic to save itself and then trying to spread the word, they became yet another race of galaxy-conquering-wannabes but without the vicious racism and paranoia that really drives a galaxy-conquest the way the Daleks' did.

Let's get another thing straight here: Alternate universes are passe'. Well, at least to Doctor Who fans what followed either the novels, the audios, or both. Come to think of it, if you ever happened to see Sliders then it's pretty passe' too. The novels, in particular, had not one but two story arcs involving the bastards, with differing results. Contrast it with this harrowing thought: there was only one "AU" story done by the original series - "Inferno." One story in 26 years one television versus gobs of them inside of 15 across two differing media. Yeah. Uh huh.

So you can pretty much guess at this point why I was rolling my eyes quite a bit during "Rise of the Cybermen." Second-rate monsters in a worn-out concept. Huzzah. Mind you, both were better LOOKING than we'd previously seen before. The Cybermen in particular LOOKED nice and menacing and all that. And a zeppelin-filled techno-London was actually a pretty nice touch. (Although it does beg the question why zeppelins? In, say, Watchmen there was the obvious factor of Doctor Manhattan to make enviro-friendly alternative air transport *practical*, but why here?)

As far as the Cybermen go, that's about all that was good. The dialogue was atrocious and Tom MacRae needs to be smacked around for it. "DELETE! DELETE!" Oh, yes, THAT'LL make the Cybermen more threatening, if they talk in Computerese! Upgrade this, jackass. Besides which, how scary can the Cybermen REALLY be when everyone is wearing the Bluetooths of Doom? Why kill the President of Great Britain when you can take over his mind, the very precious organ John Lumic was obsessing over?

Oh yeah, let's talk Lumic for a second. So, I guess on this version of Earth, the Cybermen weren't really from Mondas (or Telos!) and they were instead created by some dude who's a cross between Davros and Tobias Vaughn who pretty much already DOES rule the world? Basically? Well, it would explain both the International Electromatics truck AND the wannabe-Dalek dialogue from the Cybermen, anyway.

Oh, yes, and let's not forget the regulars too! Thrill as the Doctor and Rose snark away and completely forget Mickey! Swoon as Rose and Mickey both do the Completely Obvious and follow Every Single Cliche About Being In An Alternate Universe! (Step 1, visit relatives who are dead in your world but not in this one. Step 2, if at all possible meet your alternate self. Step 3, since this is an alternate dimension it's OBVIOUSLY fascistic in nature, therefore immediately join the Revolution ...)

So, er, yeah. I mean, it was nice to see Rose get her ego deflated a little bit more (and I LIKE Rose but this season she's been BUGGING me more often than not). Although the whole serving girl bit is getting REALLY old REALLY quick. Plus, you know, Rose the Dog. HA HA HA.

Erm....yes it's only Part 1, but Part 2's gonna have to be a WHOLE lot better than this.

And as I asked elsewhere, can we PLEASE ACTUALLY go to an alien world? Please? Not parallel Earth, not "New" Earth, but Planet Nothing At All to Do With Earth? Well, til next week. I guess. Meh.

There was a lot of expectation regarding this major tent-peg episode in the second series. just as there was a build up to the rturn of the Daleks in Episode 6 of the first series, Episode 5 carried a similar weight of hype. Except this time the bar has been set by such a stellar reinvention of the Daleks. we now know that iconic villains can be made totally thrilling for a new decade and so we approached the Cybermen in the hope that we would be similarly impressed.

Do you get the idea that I wasn't?

For all the build up, I found this episode a huge let-down - particularly after the heady heights of Steven Moffat's "Girl in the Fireplace" the previous week. That episode still ranks as the best hour of television this year.

I was actually surprised after the quality of the scripts that preceded it at how derivative it all was. So here we finally see an (alternative) genesis of the Cybermen. And guess what - they are invented by a crippled scientist in a wheelchair. A scientist with huge power in government. A scientist that wants to upgrade his entire race into meetal bodies to prevent death and extinction. A scientist who then kills those in power when they challenge his experiments.

Is it a coincidence that Genesis of the Daleks was released on dvd the same month as this episode?

And let's not forget the TARDIS sub-plot. The TARDIS has managed to get itself stuck in a 'galactic lay-by' where it has lost all power. The Doctor resigns himself to the fact that the TARDIS is dead and is prepared to sit out eternity. That is until he discovers a smidgin of power in a long forgotten circuit that he can boost just enough to escape back into the real universe.

All the above of course comes from Vengeance on Varos, but you could be excused for thinking I was describing last weeks episode. You'd think he'd have learnt by now.

Interestingly enough, although the parrallel earth concept is as cliched as any other in sci-fi, it has only been done once before in Doctor Who. Ironically, that was Inferno which comes out on DVD next month! I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here... If Vengeance on Varos hadn't already been released, I'm sure it would have been rushed onto the schedules.

The other thing that bugged me about this episode was the sheer level of plot convenient coincidence. So Rose's Dad is alive in this universe. That's fine and dandy. But did he have to have close ties to the villain and be central to the first attack of the Cybermen? In this universe, Mickey and Rose never met. Well, there isn't a (human) Rose for a start. So it is a complete coincidence that out of every young bloke in London, it is Ricky that leads the freedom fighters in an attack on the very same mansion that houses Rose's Dad and is simulltaneously attacked by Cybermen. This level of coincidence is very sloppy writing - the type of writing the series has avoided up til now.

Finally, the last thing that bugged me was the portrayal of the Cybermen. Well, I should say their portrayal was fine - they look and behave fantastic. But Doctor Who has always been guilty of announcing the head monster in the title of an episode and then spending the whole episode hiding them in shadow or in blurred shots or obfuscating them in some way so they can do a big reveal at the end of the episode. I mean, come on. We know that blurry shape is a Cyberman. It's in the sodding title. The BBC have inundated us with pics for weeks. But no. We have to see lotrs of mysterious boots tramping past. Shadowy figures moving about. Little hints of metal here and there. Just show us the damn thing rather than pretend we don't know and should feign some kind of surprise when they appear on the Tyler's lawn. I just think this is such an insult to an audience that tunes in to see the return of the Cybermen. Give us the bloody Cybermen then. Not just five minutes at the end.

Richard Martin on the extras dvd for Genesis of the Daleks describes the criticism he received after episode one of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The BBC had hyped the return of the Daleks for weeks only for a single Dalek to appear out of the water at the cliffhanger - thereby disappointing an entire audience. It's a shame Martin's advice could not have been given a little sooner so the people responsible for this episode coiuld have realised the mistake they were making.

Having said all the above, the next episode looks like it may be the making of the story with this episode merely serving as an overlong preamble. I have a suspicion that the crux of this story is still to be revealed. I don't think it is Rose and her Dad. I don't think it is the genesis of the Cybermen as - being set in an alternative universe - that has no meaning and actually adds nothing to the metal meanies once our crew return to our world.

I think this is going to be Mickey's story. I think episode two will focus on a major turning point in his development and it is this point that we will remember these two episodes for. So much has already been hinted at in the Confidential episode on Saturday and there have been hints for weeks that Mickey is the one to watch this season. I think we find out why next week and my gut tells me it is going to be big.

I already have a theory as to what that might be but... nah. If it happens I'll just tell everyone I saw it coming. If it doesn't, then I can deny everything...

IВ’VE never reviewed the opening episode of a two-parter without seeing the denouement, so it feels like itВ’s only half-time, and I donВ’t know the final score. Which I donВ’t, of course! However, I can opine that this was a highly-promising first half, and another thoroughly-enjoyable episode.

As The Girl In The Fireplace was quite a long way from В“traditionalВ” Doctor Who, I felt Rise Of The Cybermen would be closer in tone to elements of the В“classicВ” series В– and I think thatВ’s exactly the way it panned out.

Tom MacRae did an excellent job with his first Who script В– it was an extremely-well-structured and easy-to-follow episode. Well-paced, too, with the benefit of the two-episode format, and there were plenty of good dramatic moments. OK, most of them had been seen in similar guises both in Doctor Who and elsewhere, but they fused together cohesively, and that's what matters.

Yet again, there was another fine pre-credits sequence, with just a background tease of the Cybermen. I also enjoyed the regularsВ’ opening scene in the TARDIS В– making the ship В“dieВ” as it plunged into a parallel world was a well-thought-out idea, which worked successfully.

As did the В“parallelВ” Mickey. Calling him Ricky (which was necessary for dramatic purposes В– couldnВ’t really have two characters called Mickey) was a neat link to the previous series. The notion that Mickey/Ricky in the alternate world was top of the Most Wanted list was also a nice twist, especially as В“ourВ” Mickey has effectively been growing in strength and confidence with each episode В– maybe he would have become a freedom fighter in his own universe given time.

Good as it was to see the alternate Pete and Jackie Tyler, IВ’m not sure they were hugely significant to the plot В– with the caveat that they may be more so next week! В– but, story-wise, it all made sense for Rose and The Doctor to be at the TylersВ’ party when the Cybermen В“crashedВ” in.

I enjoyed the lengthy wait for the revelation of the seriesВ’ greatest-ever two-footed monsters В– and it was worth the wait. The new-look Cybermen bursting through the mansion windows and their malevolent march in the grounds are likely to go down as iconic moments. And I loved В“you will be deletedВ” as their new mantra.

Although there was a predictability about the regulars being rounded up by a posse of Cybermen as a cliff-hanger, it still worked, and was a good way to round off the episode В– which surely did enough to entice the majority of casual viewers back next week.

The main hook of the episode was the return of the Cybermen В– so how were the 2006 versions? Visually, absolutely superb. I really loved the Earthshock-onwards Cybermen В– and didnВ’t think they could be bettered. However, I also loved the new design В– every bit as menacing as in their prime, and there was a real, powerful metallic look to them, hence The Age Of Steel title to the second episode, I expect. LetВ’s just hope theyВ’re not easily destroyed by melting them . . .

However, one major downside for me on an initial viewing (or listening, to be more accurate) was the Cyber-voices. I understood what was said because I strained my ears В– thereВ’s no way the mainstream audience would do that (nor should they have to) and I think theyВ’d have had a problem picking up all the Cyber dialogue.

Obviously, Nicholas BriggsВ’ voice had to be radically different to his excellent Dalek interpretation, and that was certainly achieved. My problem isnВ’t actually with BriggsВ’ version of the Cyber voice В– more the electronic trickery applied to it. Sure, it was distinctive В– but no point in being distinctive if youВ’re alienating the viewer by making it difficult to hear whatВ’s being said. The Doctor Who production team make very few mistakes В– but I think this was one. However, it may be a case of getting used to the voice, and I may feel differently next week.

Another slight negative for me was the casting of Roger Lloyd Pack as John Lumic. As a huge fan of Only Fools And Horses, Lloyd Pack is always going to be Trigger to me В– and I couldnВ’t really have him at all in this mad genius role. He wasnВ’t terrible, but nor was he hugely convincing. Pity, because on paper, the role was a potentially multidimensional one of a dying man trying to create not only extend his life В– but also shape the world by creating a new super race. Hints of Davros perhaps, but the layers in Lumic didnВ’t really come across anyway.

Shaun Dingwall and Camille Coduri were fine as (slightly) alternative Pete and Jackie, and making Rose a dog in this reality was an amusing touch. IВ’m not sure JackieВ’s heaving bosom wasnВ’t just as dangerous as the Cybermen, though . . .

IВ’m still quite happy with David TennantВ’s progression as The Doctor В– hasnВ’t reached his show-stealing heights of The Christmas Invasion for me, but itВ’s still quite early in his tenure. I thought Billie Piper was back on top form here, and this was much more like the Rose of Series One. I think the writers have struggled to know what to do with her at times (certainly in Episodes Two and Four) but there was a lovely moment when she delivered the В“puppy-dog eyesВ” to entice The Doctor into going to see her parents. There was a bit more evidence of the connection between The Doctor and Rose than has been evident in the whole series В– his initial concern that she shouldnВ’t meet her father (partly through his own jealousy perhaps?) and her usual jealously of any female that he even looks at!

Great stuff, too, from Noel Clarke, both as Mickey and Ricky. Must be a lot of fun for an actor to play a dual role and, although there was a hint of the Auton Mickey about Ricky, Clarke pulled it off. And there was a touching cameo scene with his grandmother which provided a rare В– but welcome - hint of back story to a character who has grown in stature with every passing episode.

Rise Of The Cybermen was shorter on humour than the others in the series, but not to its detriment, and it has set up The Age Of Steel perfectly. Vital to see the second part before one can fully place the story in Doctor Who lore, but the signs are really good that the rise wonВ’t be followed by a fall.