I’m the Doctor…Mr. Robot Man!
The Doctor (Tom Baker), Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen), and Harry (Ian Marter) return to Space Station Nerva to find the space station has been quarantined and that the TARDIS has not arrived. The Doctor determines that the plague actually is caused by Cybermen creatures called cybermats. When Sarah Jane is bitten, the Doctor sends her and Harry to the planet Voga to save her. On Voga, the Guardians a war is breaking out over the gold which litters the planet and the Cybermen seek to destroy the threat to their systems. With Voga threatened by destruction, the Doctor sets out to stop the Cybermen.
Soooo…what’s new?
Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cyberman was the final run of the twelfth season of Doctor Who. It was a four part serial airing from April 19, 1975 to May 10, 1975. It follows Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks and is available as part of The Tom Baker Collection as Story #79.
Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen looks decent (it has a lot of sets), but feels like it should be more. The Cybermen are pretty good villains (at least the modern ones are) and it feels like they are a bit under-used here. The story becomes too convoluted and bogged down by the events on Voga and like many Doctor Who stories should have stuck with one story for more clarity.
We’re like Lego Men…but evil!
I wish the whole story could have been about the Cyberman invasion and the cybermats. I really didn’t care about the gold and the civil war/battle for it. I would often just kind of phase off in those portions of the story (though I do like adventures with Harry and Jane when they happen). The Doctor’s involvement with the Cybermen and the dramatic conclusion (where a model ship gets hit by a model rocket and has a little explosion), doesn’t do much, but the emergency call from Brigadier Lethbridge-Steart to set up the next adventure does show some hope.
Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen wasn’t the best of Doctor Who adventures, and it is too bad because I had a lot of hope for it. The show consistently overloads itself when simple could be better (the new series of Doctor Who does a much better job with balancing it). Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen was followed by Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons.
Preceded by:
Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks (Story #78)
Followed By:
