Revenge of the Cybermen
Revenge of the Cybermen is the fifth and final serial of the 12th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 19 April to 10 May 1975.
Following on from Genesis of the Daleks, the Fourth Doctor, Harry and Sarah use the Time Ring to return to Space Station Nerva.
Professor Kellman, a civilian planetary surveyor, has been using Nerva as a base for cataloguing Vogan geology, travelling there via a Transmat teleportation system.
It is revealed that Voga is inhabited by a race of intelligent domed-headed beings who live beneath its surface in a network of caves.
On board Nerva, a mysterious silver, snake-like creature attacks and kills Warner, the communications officer, by injecting him with poison.
Amid fighting between rival Vogan factions, Harry and Sarah explain their story to Tyrum and win his trust.
Kellman also transmats down to Voga, where it emerges that he is a double agent working for Vorus in a plan to lure the Cybermen to Nerva Beacon.
On Nerva, the Cyberleader orders immediate detonation of the bombs, but Sarah intervenes, creating enough delay for the Doctor to disarm his explosive pack.
The Doctor is forced by the Cyber-Leader to tie himself and Sarah up, where they will watch helplessly as Nerva crashes into Voga, while the Cybermen depart.
[2] The story was shot on the same set as The Ark in Space – representing a substantial cost saving – with location filming in Wookey Hole Caves.
[citation needed] The secret radio transmitter disguised as a clothes brush, used by Kellman, is the same prop that appears in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die.
He later told the Radio Times that the props master, not recognising Moore, had paid him two shillings and sixpence for the item: "I'd popped into the Beeb [BBC] for a cup of tea and spotted a notice about an upcoming "Doctor Who", so I thought the darlings would be so cash-strapped they'd need anything they could get their hands on.
"[5] The masks for the principal actors playing the Vogans were specially moulded to their faces, but for the non-speaking artists the BBC had to cut costs.
According to actor David Collings on the DVD commentary, who played Vorus, the masks for the extras were made using a facial mould of Dad's Army star Arnold Ridley.
This necessitated entirely new outfits,[6] which included chest panels constructed from the innards of old television sets and trousers which, for the first time since The Moonbase, were not tucked into the Cyber-boots.
Director Michael E. Briant opted to put the characters on the Nerva Beacon into contemporary clothing and have them use modern machine guns rather than attempt to depict the future through fashion.
Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping gave the serial a negative review in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), describing it as "a contradictory, tedious, and unimaginative mess", and considered the title to be "rubbish" too.
[12] In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker said that the story was neither good nor bad, but was a "disappointing way to end the season".
On the other hand, Berriman was positive towards the camp appeal of the Cyber Leader, the Doctor being strapped to a bomb, and the "reliably brilliant" main cast.
[16] In a 2010 article for Den of Geek, while choosing Philip Hinchcliffe as the greatest producer of Doctor Who, Alex Westthorp cited Revenge of the Cybermen as the least successful story of his tenure.
The DVD of this story was released on 9 August 2010 as part of the Cybermen box set, along with the Seventh Doctor serial Silver Nemesis.
[19] Music from this serial by Carey Blyton with additional embellishments by Peter Howell of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop will be released in 24 November 2023.
