An Hour of Who a Day

April 3: The Ice Warriors Five & Six

So, not the most dramatic cliffhanger resolution ever, as the Doctor just says, "All right! All right!" and agrees to back down and answer Varga's questions. But we do get a nice moment right after, as the Doctor enters, sees all the Ice Warriors, and tries to go right back out.

But this is the episode where things start to come together. Penley returns to the base with an injured Jamie, which means that he can start to have it out with Leader Clent. "Don't you spit your stupid liberty in my face, Penley," Clent says. "We know your kind of freedom. Freedom to run away from responsibilities, from service, from moral judgment. I may be a physical coward, Penley, but you're a coward in the mind." "Well at least I have a mind and not a transistorised junction box," Penley replies hotly. "I would act, but you daren't. And so you're going to be destroyed along with your mechanical master." And before that is the scene where Clent decides to wait and puts a brave face on it, making himself busy and talking with the personnel: "Well, what do you feel about all this, Walters? Bet you didn't think you'd have ice monsters and things like that to deal with when you volunteered for the job, did you?" "I didn't volunteer," Walters replies, which wrongfoots Clent (rather wonderfully, the way it's played): "Ah, yes. Well, good man, anyway."

And the Doctor is inside the Ice Warriors' spaceship, and so he can learn about their propulsion system -- as well as learn that the Ice Warriors need fuel for their engines. Varga seems to believe that they'll find what they need at the base, and the Doctor only agrees because they're holding a gun to Victoria's head. This means that the Ice Warriors are heading to the base -- but first they're going to fire their sonic cannon at it as a show of force. The Doctor tries to stop the remaining Ice Warrior with the ammonium sulphide he picked up in episode four. "Ammonium sulphide? It's only a stink bomb," Victoria protests. "Yes, you've had the benefits of a classical education," the Doctor responds drily. "...Harmless to humans, but to aliens very possibly deadly!" The stuff does overpower Zondal, but not before he can manage to fire the cannon, despite the Doctor's efforts to stop him. Well, that's the idea anyway, but it really looks like Patrick Troughton is trying to help Roger Jones find the control while making it look like maybe they're struggling. He's not terribly successful.

Varga threatens Clent with death while Miss Garrett protests.
(The Ice Warriors Six) ©BBC

But episode six opens with a massive explosion, as the sonic cannon demolishes the records wing of Britannicus Base. With this show of force, Varga and his fellow Warriors arrive, ready to take the fuel they need from the humans. Clent insists that the base doesn't use the mercury isotopes the Ice Warriors need, but Varga doesn't believe him and forces him to shut down the Ioniser and dismantle the base's reactor so that the Ice Warriors can take its isotopes for fuel. But the Doctor has rigged up the sonic cannon to fire at a frequency that affects fluids, which therefore has a greater adverse effect on the Ice Warriors, who retreat to their spaceship to plan their next move. Meanwhile, the Doctor returns to the base and sends Victoria back to the TARDIS (who's off camera at the moment -- apparently she had somewhere to be the evening of recording, so all her crucial scenes were filmed in the afternoon), and then he and Penley both try to convince Clent to use the Ioniser, even though the computer can't come to a decision either way. Clent and Miss Garrett both refuse to make a decision, so it's up to Penley. The Ioniser is used, the Ice Warriors' spaceship explodes (though only a minor explosion), and the base is saved from the oncoming glacier. And then, rather touchingly, Penley allows Clent to keep his dignity: "Clent, will you check these readings with me?" he asks. "And you've a report to prepare." And in the aftermath the Doctor and Jamie slip away.

It's not quite as slow as The Abominable Snowmen, but there's still a general feeling of a story being stretched out beyond what might be considered its natural length -- but Brian Hayles chooses to fill these spaces with character moments rather than an excess of circling action: those bits of incident that come right back to where they started when they're over. It's a real boon for this story, which at its heart is about the conflict between man and machine; the Ice Warriors are there as an additional threat, but they're not really at the heart of this story. This story is ultimately about the viewpoints of Clent, Penley, and Storr, with the way forward shown as being able to use machines but not to become completely dependent on them. Granted, this argument isn't always played out in the most subtle of ways, but it's still entertaining to watch. And then add on that the Ice Warriors themselves, who through Varga (and actor Bernard Bresslaw) are given more specific characteristics than we might otherwise expect. Thanks to Bresslaw and the other actors inside those fiberglass shells, the Ice Warriors come out as a distinct race, rather than a generic monster. No wonder they made a return appearance.

(Well, that and the costumes were probably expensive, so they'd likely want to get as much use out of them as possible.³⁸)

³⁸ See Genesis of the Daleks Part Two for the ultimate fate of one of the shells.

April 2: The Ice Warriors Three & Four

As I mentioned last time, not much happens in terms of plot in episode three. The Doctor figures out how to stabilize the Ioniser (using Penley's notes), and Arden is killed by the Ice Warriors, while Jamie is left for dead. But this misses out on a number of character moments, such as how Miss Garrett goes after Penley to try and persuade him to come back to the base, to help them out, first with words and then by gunpoint -- although that bit doesn't last long before Storr jumps her and takes her gun away. It gives us more insight into Penley's point of view, as we learn he was concerned about being "sucked into that computerized ant-heap you call a civilization."

The Ice Warriors shoot down Arden and Jamie. (The Ice
Warriors Three animation) ©BBC Worldwide Ltd.

But the really nice moment in episode three comes between Clent and Arden, as Arden feels bad about bringing the Ice Warrior back and starting a lot of the trouble (although the spaceship would still be buried in the glacier, ready to potentially explode when hit by the Ioniser). Clent goes up to him and tells him not to feel too bad about it: "Don't be too hard on yourself. Scientists must question, you know. I mean, if I'd been in your shoes I think I'd have done the same. I'd have-- I'd have brought it back." It shows a more human side to Clent, and it makes us sympathize with him and his position, even if his overreliance on the computer is a poor decision.

Back to video for the last three episodes (and thanks to Philip Morris, we can now enjoy a run of 11 episodes straight, from The Ice Warriors Four to The Web of Fear episode 2 -- virtually unthinkable even just a year ago). Episode four, again, doesn't have a lot of plot in it (so in this respect The Ice Warriors has something in common with The Abominable Snowmen) -- Victoria escapes from the Ice Warriors (for a bit), Jamie's paralyzed, and Storr is killed by the Ice Warriors when he tries to go to them for help (under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, which clearly doesn't work out for him). And then the Doctor has to travel to the Ice Warriors' ship to find out what kind of engine they use, to see if the Ioniser can be safely deployed.

The Doctor meets with Penley and Jamie. (The Ice Warriors
Four) ©BBC

There aren't as many nice character moments in this story, but there are a few little ones, such as the Doctor urgently needing to use the chemical dispenser so that he can, it turns out, get a drink of water. But a large part of the episode consists of Victoria being chased through the caves and crevasses in the glacier by an Ice Warrior -- it's directed quite nicely, but there's not a lot of story going on. (Yet, as with The Abominable Snowmen, I still don't mind, as what we do get is highly enjoyable.) That chase ends with the Ice Warrior crushed under an ice fall and Victoria trapped in its (literal) death grip. I have to say though, that while Victoria is admittedly under a lot of stress here, she doesn't come across very well, seemingly crying and whining her way through most of the episodes so far -- which also seems like a far cry from the girl who was determined to investigate the Inner Sanctum in the last story. When Storr finds her and rescues her, you're relieved that she won't be screaming anymore...except then he takes her back to the Ice Warriors and gets killed for his trouble. And thus ends the virulently anti-science point of view for this story. We might consider reading into it a moral about how a complete distrust of science is just as likely to get you killed as an overreliance on it, but more likely author Brian Hayles just wanted to get rid of the character and let Penley and Jamie do their own thing in the next couple installments.

And look! Derek Martinus gets to direct another cliffhanger where one of the regulars is trapped in an airlock as the villains slowly drain the air from inside (see "Air Lock", if you've forgotten)...

April 1: The Ice Warriors One & Two

After a little time away we're back on video for episode one of The Ice Warriors, with a special credit sequence too! We've arrived in Earth's future, where a new Ice Age is threatening civilization. The British side of things is bustling with activity (and really quite astonishing fashion), as they're only just holding the glaciers steady -- apparently without the help of their computer expert, Penley, we learn. Into this environment the TARDIS materializes on its side, and the TARDIS crew have to climb out of the ship (with doors that open out for once, just like a real police box). "Oh no, not again," Jamie complains as he sees all the snow. "Tibet was bad enough, but I think you've put us down just further up the mountain." And thus this running gag continues.

It's fun to see how quickly the Doctor inserts himself into the running of Britannicus Base, as he follows the base's leader, Clent, around the Ioniser Room and realizes the Ionizer is about to explode -- but fortunately he's able to avert disaster. In this scene and the next we learn about how the Ice Age came about (an elimination of plants led to an elimination of carbon dioxide; er...) and how dependent Clent is upon the computer. He basically won't do anything without the computer telling him what to do. "Every decision is checked to eliminate risk of failure," Miss Garrett tells them. "Because, of course, all decisions, all actions, must conform to the common good." The Doctor clearly isn't convinced that such a reliance on computers is a good thing, but he doesn't immediately jump in and tell them all they're wrong, of course.

And the other major event in this first episode is that scientist Arden has discovered an unknown type of prehistoric man in the glacier. Except the Doctor notices that his helmet appears to have electronic connections. And as they start to thaw the strange man out, the creature awakens...

Episodes two and three are still missing from the archives, but the DVD has some rather nice animations in their place. From a different company (Qurios) than the last three stories we've encountered (all by Planet 55), they're actually quite good, other than being a bit paper doll-ish. And you can tell they've made an effort to use the telesnaps as close reference, which is a welcome move.

It's been remarked that you can lose episodes two and three and move from one to four without really losing much of the plot; this is true, but you also miss some character moments. In episode one we've been presented with Leader Clent as someone who relies completely on science and technology (as represented by the computer), with the clear suggestion that this is not a good thing. Episode two gives us Penley's friend Storr, who's so suspicious of anything technological that he won't even take medicine to heal his injured and infected arm: "You'd have stuffed me to the eyeballs with anti-this and anti-that. I'd have been flat on my back for weeks... Don't try scare me [sic] with all that scientific guff." So writer Brian Hayles is making it clear that the opposite extreme is just as bad.

Episode two also gives us the set-up that's going to drive the plot for the next five episodes: the Doctor tells them all that the man in the ice, the Ice Warrior, is from another planet -- which means that his spaceship is still out there and could cause a terrible nuclear explosion if the Ioniser interacts improperly with it. The rest of the story is going to be concerned with this worrying possibility. And then added into the mix is the Ice Warrior himself, Varga. He has a presence and a personality that comes through even in animation, and he doesn't feel like a stereotypical "monster", but rather a fully-formed character; he's concerned with rescuing his comrades in the glacier and contacting his home planet of Mars, and he's not going to let anyone get in his way. It's a determined characterization, and the cliffhanger reveals that Varga is thawing out four more Ice Warriors just like him...

March 31: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes Five & Six

Yes, no change to the glacial pace; thankfully though, Padmasambhava's comment from the end of the last episode is delivered at a normal speed. But this time around we get an attack on the monastery by the Yeti, Victoria hypnotized by Padmasambhava, the Doctor going to see his old friend Padmasambhava, and the Great Intelligence working on taking over not just the cave with the pyramid, but the whole mountain as well (and presumably from there the world).

Padmasambhava pleads with the Great Intelligence. (The
Abominable Snowmen Episode Five - from Doctor Who
Photonovels: The Abominable Snowmen - Episode Five) ©BBC

The Doctor's conversation with Padmasambhava is quite touching, as the Doctor realizes there's nothing he can do for his old friend, who's been under the influence of the Great Intelligence for nearly two hundred years (a number which causes problems when we get to 2012's "The Snowmen", but that's a long way off). And the bit with Victoria is nicely effective, especially when she's been "programmed" to respond to the Doctor's voice with pleas of terror: "Doctor. There is great danger. You must take me away. Take me away, take me away!" His deprogramming of her has a nice moment too: "Look at my eyes. You're feeling tired, very sleepy. Drift away. Let yourself drift away into sleep. Deeper. Deeper. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Oh, not you, Jamie," he adds crossly, as Jamie also starts to drift off.

And the Yeti attack! Granted, it doesn't seem to be much of an attack, concerned more with property damage than killing people, but one of the monks, Rinchen, is killed when the Yeti knock a giant Buddha statue on him. And still, after four episodes of seeing the Yeti generally standing around looking menacing, it's good to see them put into action. And meanwhile, more of the mountain is being consumed by the strange glowing substance that apparently makes up the Intelligence.

Episode six begins quite violently. The Doctor realizes that the Yeti are being controlled from inside the monastery, which leads Khrisong to confront Padmasambhava and save the Abbot Songsten from his power -- Khrisong not realizing that it's too late for Songsten -- and so he ends up with a blade in the back for his troubles. The Doctor convinces the monks to evacuate while he faces off against the Great Intelligence (along with help from Jamie, Victoria, and the monk Thonmi), which leads to a mental battle between Padmasambhava and the Doctor (with some help from Victoria), while Jamie and Thonmi smash everything they can, eventually destroying a giant sphere and a large pyramid -- thus severing the Intelligence's control of the Yeti and preventing it from taking corporeal form on Earth by way of an exploding mountain. And Padmasambhava is finally allowed to die.

So yes, The Abominable Snowmen is rather slow, but I find I don't really mind. There are enough character moments and interesting set pieces to more than make up for any slack in the plotting. Yes, it's another base-under-siege tale, but we haven't quite had one like this since The Moonbase (allowing for the fact that The Tomb of the Cybermen, although sharing many characteristics of a base-under-siege plot, is different enough to not quite qualify), so it's ok. The only real concern is how the Buddhist monk part seems a bit grafted on. Other than the idea of a monk's mind exploring the astral plane and getting caught up by an alien Intelligence, there's nothing here to really justify this being in a Tibetan monastery. But to be honest, this isn't a major concern, and I find that in the end I quite enjoy The Abominable Snowmen. It's not the greatest tale, but it's by no means the worst, and the fact that it remains relatively interesting over the course of six episodes, despite the paucity of story, is an achievement in itself.

March 30: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes Three & Four

The slow pace continues, but it still hasn't become a problem. I'm not sure why that is, to be honest; earlier I was condemning The Web Planet for moving at a glacial pace, but The Abominable Snowmen isn't moving much faster. I suppose it could be as simple as the fact that here we have characters we can latch on to; Khrisong's frustration at being unable to adequately protect the monastery is much easier to comprehend than the Menoptra's struggles against a large vaguely arachnid creature.

But let's be honest; this is another episode where there's not much actual story development. We do learn that Padmasambhava is the one controlling the Yeti, and that he's doing so for the benefit of something called the Great Intelligence (though it's still not clear what determines which voice is used when -- I thought the evil whisper might have been the Intelligence speaking through him, but that doesn't seem to be the case). He's even got a little board with small carved Yeti to move around. And the Abbot Songsten is clearly under his power, and so he takes a small glass pyramid up the mountain, accompanied by Yeti. But beyond that, there's not much incident. We saw the silver control sphere moving as the cliffhanger for episode two, and it takes all of episode three for it to reach the deactivated Yeti, such that its coming back to life is the cliffhanger for this episode. But everything else consists of nice character moments, such as Khrisong's decision to give the Doctor and Jamie a little trust, or the spirit trap that the monks construct around the captured Yeti. Although Victoria seems to be rather nosy this time around, trying repeatedly to enter the Inner Sanctum of the monastery just so she can see Padmasambhava, more out of idle curiosity than anything else. It's not the most successful characterization for her, to be honest.

The Yeti gather. (The Abominable Snowmen Episode Four) ©BBC

Episode four is more of the same: the primary story advancement consists of the reactivated Yeti leaving the monastery, Abbot Songsten placing the glowing pyramid in the cave with the control spheres up in the mountain, the Doctor and Jamie investigating the Yeti some more (with a signal tracking device this time), and Victoria continuing to be nosy, this time finally making her way into the Inner Sanctum. And Travers has a bit more to do this time, as he follows Songsten into the cave and discovers the pyramid, just as it cracks open and begins spewing out some sort of substance (Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #36: The Missing Episodes - The Second Doctor Volume 2 -- aka the magazine with the telesnaps for this story -- refers to this substance as "an ectoplasmic goo", but chances are good that it was the BBC foam machine being put to use). And as we've come to expect, there's a fun scene between the Doctor and Jamie, as they find a Yeti standing guard by the TARDIS. "Have you thought up some clever plan, Doctor?" Jamie asks. "Yes, Jamie, I believe I have," the Doctor replies. "What are you going to do?" "Bung a rock at it."

The most interesting part of the episode comes at the end, when the Abbot Songsten, who has returned from the cave, tells the monks that they must abandon Detsen. But Khrisong refuses, insisting that his warrior monks can defend the monastery against the robotic Yeti. And Victoria, as mentioned earlier, finally enters the Inner Sanctum and sees Padmasambhava face to face, revealing an old yet babylike face smiling serenely at her, which leads to the slowest cliffhanger yet: "Come............in....................." Padmasambhava slowly says. "You........ have.................... no.............. al....ter...........na............................tive............."

March 29: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes One & Two

Episode one is audio + telesnaps again...well, it was nice watching actual episodes while it lasted.

When you think back on this first episode of The Abominable Snowmen, you realize that not a lot happens; the Doctor goes down to Detsen monastery to return the Holy Ghanta which he took for safekeeping three hundred years earlier and is arrested under suspicion of murder, and Jamie and Victoria wander around the Himalayan mountainside and find a cave and a huge hairy beast -- presumably one of the eponymous abominable snowmen. (Jamie having earlier been concerned that they were actually still on Telos: "Hey, is it the Earth, Doctor? I don't fancy another tangle down the Cybermen's tomb." -- this is going to start a running theme for the next couple stories.) And that's really about it. Yet when you're listening to it, you don't really notice. There's a deliberate pace to this, which means that there's no real sense of longueurs pervading the episode, because the entire thing's like that. There are a lot of talking scenes, as the monks debate what to do about the Doctor, and Travers, the explorer looking for the Yeti, insists that the Doctor must have been the one who attacked his campsite and killed his companion. But they're interesting talking scenes -- and Troughton is wonderful when he's defending himself over attacks he knows nothing about: "Me? I haven't attacked anyone!" the Doctor protests, but he's led away nevertheless. And meanwhile, Jamie and Victoria are trapped in a cave by a Yeti...

It wasn't until the release of the 1981 Winter Special of Doctor Who Monthly (as Doctor Who Magazine was then known as) that fandom learned of the sheer number of episodes of Doctor Who missing from the archives, with a staggering 136 episodes seemingly gone forever. Episode two of The Abominable Snowmen was the first episode recovered after the publication of that magazine, returned to the BBC in 1982. It's more of the same as episode one, with a deliberate paceyness that works to its advantage. Jamie buries the Yeti in a rockfall and discovers a strange pyramid of glowing metal spheres. But the Yeti is only stunned, not killed, and so it chases Jamie and Victoria down the mountain, where they run into Travers. They convince Travers of the Doctor's innocence, but in the meantime Khrisong, leader of the warrior monks at Detsen, has tied up the Doctor outside the gates to use as bait for the Yeti. But the Doctor has told one of the monks about the Ghanta, and he tells the Abbot Songsten, and then both of them listen to the voice of the old master, Padmasambhava (that's [pæd.mə.'sɑm.bə.və], in case you were wondering), who talks alternately in a slow calm voice and a faster, more sinister whisper -- although it's not quite clear what determines when each voice speaks. Presumably the whisper is meant to indicate an "evil" voice, but it's rather tough to work out the differences between the two sets of dialogue.

And so the Doctor is set free, thanks to the intervention of Abbot Songsten, which means they can get to work capturing a Yeti. "Hey, Doctor, if you really want to capture one of these beasties, I think I have an idea which might just work," Jamie says. "Victoria," the Doctor replies, backing away, "I think this is one of those instances where discretion is the better part of valour: Jamie has an idea." But Jamie's idea works and they capture a Yeti in a net, and when the Doctor studies it, he learns it's actually a robot -- but with a round sphere of some sort missing. And by the statue of the Buddha, a silver sphere rolls of its own accord...

So like episode one, episode two also has that deliberate sense of pace that nevertheless doesn't feel like it's dragging; instead it's exactly as quick as it needs to be. And there are definitely some mysteries going on in this second episode, including the nature of Padmasambhava and why robots are wandering around 20th-century Tibet, which are intriguing and leave the viewer wanting more.

March 28: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episodes 3 & 4

Having announced at the end of the last episode that "you belong to us", the Cybermen appear ready to make good on their proclamation. They tell the expedition that the surface rooms were designed so that only intelligent people could come down into the tombs and thus become Cybermen -- hence all the logic puzzles and such. Then the Cyber Controller explicitly marks Klieg and Parry as the first and second people to be turned into Cybermen. We're sort of used to the idea of people being turned into Cybermen now, but this is the first time it's made explicit; yes, there's that moment in The Tenth Planet where the Cybermen announce that the crew of Snowcap Base will be converted into Cybermen, but that never feels like a legitimate threat. But here, the idea of being turned into a Cyberman is a very real threat, and it's only the intervention of Captain Hopper and his smoke grenades which saves them from this fate.

The rest of the episode is a tense waiting game, as Parry's expedition is only sticking around while the rocket crew repairs the damage done by Toberman in episode 1. The Cybermen are trapped down in the tombs, unable to open the hatch (um, bit of a design flaw there, not having an opening lever down in the tombs), so they send Cybermats, little metallic "caterpillars" (to use Jamie's description), up small ramps to terrorize the people above. But before this we get a nice little scene between the Doctor and Victoria, where they talk about the Doctor's family and Victoria's father. And the Doctor reassures her and tells her, "So remember, our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing. There's nobody in the universe can do what we're doing." It's nice to have a quiet little scene like this in the midst of all the action. But then the Cybermats attack (well, scuttle about), but the Doctor's quick thinking saves them. "You might almost say they've had a complete metal breakdown," the Doctor puns, to which Jamie groans -- massively out of character for an 18th-century Highlander, but still entertaining. And then Klieg emerges from the testing room in which he's been kept prisoner by the others, holding an x-ray laser. Nice work, guys, locking him in a room with working weapons.

Episode 4 isn't quite as entertaining as the others, since it's concerned more with finishing up the story rather than maintaining the mood like the other three have been. The Cyber Controller orders the other Cybermen back into the tombs "to conserve energy" -- a move which seems to come out of nowhere (Cybermen need to regularly recharge?) but which means that our heroes only have to deal with a couple of Cybermen, rather than a city's worth. The Cyber Controller arrives to talk terms with Klieg, but he's clearly weakened too, so they lock him inside a cabinet with a revitalizing machine and then tie down the door. "Jamie, I hope you made those ropes secure," the Doctor says. "Och, the King of the Beasties couldnae get out of that one," Jamie replies, right before the Controller smashes through the door, the ropes easily falling away. Another fun moment. Then the Controller reenters the main room upstairs, ordering Kaftan to open the hatch to the tombs. When she refuses, he kills her with the x-ray laser, leading to possibly the least convincing death fall in all of Doctor Who, as Shirley Cooklin gingerly lets herself down onto the floor, rather than just falling down dead. This upsets Toberman, so he kills the Cyber Controller (or, at least, a dummy version of him) by throwing him against the control banks.³⁷ The Doctor then goes down into the tombs to freeze the Cybermen forever.

But Klieg, clearly off his rocker by this point, insists that the Cybermen will work for him, first via strength (because of the x-ray laser) and then because their Controller is killed by Toberman (who's been half-cybernized by this point -- a stark reminder of the fate that awaits the others should the Cybermen succeed). Still, this does lead to the wonderful "now I know you're mad" moment from the Doctor. Then Klieg is killed by a Cyberman, who is then himself killed by Toberman (with, it must be said, a really gruesome death, as a huge amount of foam spills from its chest unit -- was this what the deaths in The Moonbase were like? It is the same director...), and so the Doctor can finally seal up the tombs. He then reelectrifies everything, but the Controller, it turns out, isn't quite dead, so Toberman sacrifices himself by closing the doors and taking a massive electrical shock in the process. But the Cybermen are sealed inside their tomb once again. "Now, that really is the end of the Cybermen, isn't it?" Jamie says. "Yes, Jamie. On the other hand, I never like to make predictions," says the man who declared "the final end" of the Daleks last story.

When The Tomb of the Cybermen was recovered in 1991, there was a sense of letdown once people could actually see the thing again, and they noted things like the ropey special effects (dummy Controller, obvious Kirby wires on Toberman, the polystyrene door the Controller bursts through) and the rather variable performances from the guest cast. Prior to 1991, Tomb had been hailed as a perfect classic, so you can see how people were a bit disappointed when they could watch it themselves. But the thing about The Tomb of the Cybermen is that it still hangs together quite well. There are some moments of lesser quality, certainly, but no more than in any other Doctor Who story. The lapses in story logic are a bit less forgivable, but again, no worse than, say, The Evil of the Daleks and its "mirrors + static electricity = working time machine" stuff. The sense of dread and tension that pervades the serial makes this quite a standout story, and you can definitely see why it made such an impact on children at the time (these were, after all, the people who later enhanced Tomb's reputation to such a high degree). Only in the last episode, where we're denied a climactic battle between the humans and all the Cybermen and have to be content with fighting off merely two of them, do things start to really disappoint. Everything before is marvelously entertaining.

³⁷ Toberman's upset by Kaftan's death, I mean, not her lousy acting -- although I guess we can't rule out the possibility that Roy Stewart is channeling his rage at her performance in his attack on the Cyber Controller.