The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 2

The one where the Cybermen wake up from their tombs...

The reprise of last week's cliffhanger compounds just how rubbish the sequence was, making it even more obvious that it's just a Cyber-dummy and not the real thing. And then when the Doctor tries to reenact the cliffhanger (perhaps to show director Morris Barry how it should have been done?), I have to wonder how in the world they could have missed that whacking great cannon that slides out of a very wobbly wall at the back. This time the laser cannon does not retract, which is convenient on this occasion, and it's good of Victoria to reproduce her piercing scream from the first time around too.

Viner (played by the ever brilliant Cyril Shaps) begins to develop an acute fear of the building, which he says is alive and "watching us", which is reinforced by my own observation in episode 1 that the Cyberman iconography all around them acts as a sinister presence throughout, as if the Cybermen really are watching them somehow. As the episode goes on, Viner's fear of the building around him grows in intensity (he calls it deadly and sinister), and reminds me of the early symptoms of robophobia that we see much later in The Robots of Death.

Victoria continues to surprise me in this episode. She's an innocent Victorian teenager who has lost both her mother and her father, as well as her home and, let's be honest, her entire world. She's been whisked to an alien planet and bullied by barking metal tanks, then fled with two relative strangers in a time machine that's bigger on the inside than the outside. It must have been quite an overwhelming experience for the poor girl, and on top of all that, she's made to wear 1960s clothes (probably left behind by Polly) which reveal a lot more of her body than she'd ever be comfortable with. Still, despite all this, she remains quite chirpy, and shows early signs of feeling very loyal toward the Doctor.

But as demonstrated in episode 1 when she unwisely climbed inside the Cyber-conversion chamber and nearly died, she's not all that sensible. She finds the dormant Cybermat on the floor and asks the Doctor what it is. After consulting what I think is his 500-Year Diary (suggesting he's encountered them before now), he tells her to leave it alone, so what does she do? She sticks it in her handbag! Now, I know women's handbags contain all manner of worldly wonders, but she really does need to start listening to the Doctor's advice more closely...

Her insistence on keeping the Cybermat does prove beneficial however, when it later comes alive and leaps startlingly at the gun-wielding Kaftan's neck. The most astonishing thing about all of this is how Victoria seems to know how to handle a revolver and can aim and shoot small fast-moving objects at a distance. A gun-toting Victorian teenager as the Doctor's new assistant? If this was 2007 she'd have had a spin-off within six months.

Talking of Kaftan: what an awful woman (or "terrible woman", as Victoria might say!). She's one of Doctor Who's greatest villainesses, played with obvious relish by Shirley Cooklin (then producer Peter Bryant's wife). Her ongoing quest to scupper poor Victoria amuses me, but it's also quite pathological. It's not as if Victoria poses that great a threat, but for some reason Kaftan has it in for her, first trapping her in the Cyber-converter, then spiking her drink. By the end of episode 2 it's not clear if she is dead or not (at the hands - or teeth - of the Cybermat), but she's already proven herself to be one of the series' greatest villains.

As has her partner in crime Eric Klieg, played by the wonderful George Pastell who portrays the character's growing obsession well. The way Klieg looks longingly up at the frozen Cyber-tombs, with just a glint of megalomania in his eyes, is perfectly placed, and when the truth finally does come out - that he is a member of the Brotherhood of Logicians, who want to couple their own intelligence with the power of the Cyber-race - he seems triumphant and unstoppable. The way he coldly murders Viner, showing no remorse, is chilling.

Throughout the episode, the Doctor keeps a very close eye on Klieg, who he obviously suspects of wanting to achieve exactly what he does achieve - the revivification of the Cybermen in their tombs. And there's the rub - the Doctor is almost complicit in Klieg's plan simply because he refuses to stop him. Indeed, a couple of times he actually aids and abets Klieg's progress. The Doctor tells Jamie that he knew that the controls would revive the Cybermen, but he allowed Klieg to go ahead because he wanted to be sure what he was up to. Well, that's not really a good enough excuse, Doctor. The First Doctor would never have allowed things to get this out of hand, and standing by as Klieg revives the Cybermen, just so he can be sure that Klieg wants to revive the Cybermen, seems rather naive.

Patrick Troughton is excellent, as ever, peering over Pastell's shoulder, listening and watching silently, like a tiger biding its time to catch its prey. The way he playfully portrays the Doctor as humouring Klieg's egomania is fun to watch ("I think your logic is wearing a little thin"), and would never have come across on audio alone (so thank goodness they found those tapes in Hong Kong back in 1991!).

A quick mention for two other actors here. Aubrey Richards has a pretty sedate presence on set generally, but handles the scenes dealing with Haydon and Viner's deaths really well, showing natural compassion amid the chaos. When Peter Haydon is killed, Professor Parry is affected, he cares, he's troubled by it. So much so that he sits everybody down at the Cybermen's dinner table and insists on aborting the expedition, as two men have died already. When Klieg subsequently murders Viner, it's Parry again who leaps into action, pleading with the killer: "What kind of a man are you?"

Then there's Roy Stewart as big ol' Toberman, the second muscly black dude in as many stories (but whereas Kemel was mute, Toberman is able to speak, he just chooses not to very much). Apart from the fact Stewart (then aged 42 and a successful gym and nightclub owner) boasts the most amazing physique (marvel at his Toberbuns and Tobernips!), he does manage to create one of my favourite bits of the entire story which, if you're not looking, is easily missed. It's just before the six-minute mark, where Captain Hopper informs the group that "some character has balled up" the ship's fuel pumps. The Doctor, perhaps at this stage suspecting the Cybermen as the culprits, says "Or something", and in the background, the taciturn Toberman grins to himself with private amusement. Instantly we realise that it was he who balled up the ship, no doubt on Kaftan's orders (quite why Kaftan orders Toberman to wreck their one chance of escaping the planet isn't clear, but I suppose it demonstrates her obsessive personality).

Oh, and by the way, what's all this with Jamie turning yellow? Throughout Season 4 he was portrayed as a thoroughly courageous tough nut, demonstrated nowhere better than in The Evil of the Daleks during his trials with Kemel. Suddenly he's being written much softer, with a rising streak of cowardice - when the Doctor wishes to reenact the events leading up to Haydon's death, he asks that anybody who wishes to leave should do so now, and Jamie turns to go ("Not you Jamie"). Later, when the Doctor suggests Victoria and Jamie return to the safety of the TARDIS, Jamie seems mighty disappointed when Victoria says she'll stay. Since when did the hardy Highlander become a cowardly cutlet? Yes, it's amusing, but it's hardly in character.

The centrepiece of the episode is the revival of the Cybermen from their tombs, using a combination of nifty visual effects work from Peter Day and Michaeljohn Harris, and Martin Johnson's superb sets. The real-life tomb set is at least five storeys high and shot to its greatest advantage by Morris Barry. At first we see the Cybermen only in tantalising silhouette and from afar, never in close-up, and then we watch them emerge from their tombs, pushing through their Cyber-branded clingfilm doors and climbing inexorably down the ladders to the ground. All accompanied by that spine-tingling Space Adventure stock music by Martin Slavin that made the Cybermen such an iconic monster of the Troughton era.

It's an odd choice to have the Cyber-Controller revealed in his tomb crouched down, head in hands, like a frightened child, or as if he has a particularly searing migraine. But when he rises up to his full height (Michael Kilgarriff was 6ft 5in tall), the might of the Cybermen is plain to see, especially when they tower over George Pastell. That final moment, where the Controller intones "You belong to us. You shall be like us", is superb, reflecting the fact that these Cybermen don't acknowledge or appreciate what Klieg has done for them. The simple fact is that they are now awake and their immediate course of action is to conquer and multiply. Nothing and no one else matters. Great stuff.

First broadcast: September 9th, 1967

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Patrick Troughton's subtle performance as he plays with Klieg like a cat with a ball of wool is magnificent. Doctor Who was so lucky to have him.
The Bad: There's not much to dislike about the episode, but the depiction of Jamie as having a developing yellow streak doesn't sit right.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

NEXT TIME: Episode 3...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 3; Episode 4

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-tomb-of-cybermen.html

The Tomb of the Cybermen is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Tomb-Cybermen-DVD/dp/B00005R5DJ.