It’s the Cybermen episode. The one that every single fan was looking forward to after so if there was one thing that the production team had to get right, it was the Cybermen.

Indeed, looking at the Confidential episodes for this two parter along with listening to the two podcasts you get an idea of how seriously bringing back the Cybermen was taken. At one point, there was a whole meeting taken up to just sit and design the Cybermen, which shows incredible dedication in a very busy schedule.

Once they are designed, they then get put in a casting process and after being chosen, they then go through a whole choreographing session to get the movement of the Cybermen looking right for the story.

After this process, we then get the voice which apparently went through so many different variations to get what ended up on screen.

However, there was one key decision taken by the production team which does bother me slightly. These Cybermen are created by the desire to upgrade and while this is true of the population that is being forced to have the surgery from Cybus industries, we do get the original aim of the Cybermen is being converted to survive.

John Lumic is seen dying throughout episode 5 before he actually bites the dust in episode 6, so in a way, he is using the original Cybermen aim of being converted to survive. I don’t therefore quite believe that they fully gave the idea that people have been upgraded into Cybermen.

While the effort shows off the Cybermen and they work superbly, I was a little disappointed by Rise of the Cybermen. I’m not quite sure it is. I don’t quite believe that the TARDIS has died at the start of the episode and there are just too many elements competing for screen time. There’s a man trying to make the Cybermen, the start of the upgrading, there’s a resistance group, Rose wanting to meet her parallel father, Mickey wanting to explore the parallel world and the start of Jackie’s 40 th birthday party.

While all of those elements just about come together coherently in the script and the direction, but none of them are given the chance to breath and they just feel far too rushed in the actual episode. Especially when secretly, all everyone really wants to see is a Cybermen going round killing lots of people and that doesn’t really happen until the final moments of episode 5.

However, if Rise of the Cybermen was lacking something, then The Age of Steel is a gazillion times better and probably goes close to rivalling Tooth and Claw for the best episode of the season shown at the moment.

We basically get the story of the resistance against the Cybermen with lots of little sub plots adding moments to character. The moment when Mickey turns after seeing the death of Ricky (and credit to Graeme Harper for making sure that we didn’t know whether it was Ricky or Mickey that had died) gives him probably the best part he’s ever had and a great way to leave the series.

There are also some fabulously iconic moments which will stick in the mind of everyone. The moment when the Doctor and Mrs Moore are trapped in the cooling tunnels with rows of Cybermen. Not only do we get the initial shock of the frozen Cybermen being there but we get the moment when the Cybermen wake up. We then get the death of Mrs Moore which comes as a complete surprise in the story.

We also get the moment when the Cybermen cancel the signal on the earpods and everyone realising they’re trapped in the conversion factories. It’s a horrible moment which sums up what the Cybermen are about. The fact that people are changed into the Cybermen.

There’s a tremendous amount of emotion, the moment when Jake realises that Ricky has been killed, while the moment when the Doctor breaks the emotional inhibitor on a Cybermen and she reveals that the girl is supposed to be getting married the following day. The ending shows off the talent of the Mill and the level of production as we get a stunning climax. We get a great big fire which engulfs the Cyber controller having just fallen off the ladder of a Zeppelin. The result looks incredible. It makes the episode feel epic on a scale that hasn’t been seen before.

These two episodes are a great example of the genesis of the Cybermen type storyline which the fans have been making up for years and will be remembered by fans alike for years.

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