When asked about the scariest Doctor Who villains , fan have all sorts of responses . The Daleks are the go - to , but there ’s new - epoch villain like the Weeping Angels , or everything from Autons to Zygons . But this calendar week ’s Doctor Who was a chilling reminder that there ’s in reality only one true answer , though : The Cybermen .
When the Cybermen made their nu - Who debut in 2006 ’s “ Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel ” , they really only pay up really sassing service to their tragical , terrifying origin . The instalment spend more time have the Cybermen stomping around on the street with their own snazzy , Dalek - esque catch phrase ( “ Delete ! Delete ! ” ) than they did test the true revulsion that lie beneath their control surface . Their return and design upgrade in season seven ’s “ Nightmare in Silver ” went a step even further , grow Cybermeninto bum Iron Man emulator , all rocket salad boots and detachable limbs and superspeed , and even their return at the oddment season eight in “ Dark Water / Death in Heaven ” relegated them to empty goons rather than a true power to be feared . So for year now , they ’ve been relatively impotent as a threat to the Doctor and his friends . It has n’t helped that more often than not , modern Dr. Who has repeatedly decided the only way to beat the Cybermen is to flood out them with the power of love , a trope the show falls back on far too often .
But the Cybermen were never really think of to be whack - offs of the Star Trek : Voyager - epoch Borg . When they were first envisioned , they were meant to be a scarey extrapolation of what Jehovah Dr. Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis saw as the future tense of prosthetics and cosmetic surgery , humankind chopping bits of itself until what was leave was more auto than man . Only their very first incarnation , the Mondasian Cybermen — who only appear in a single Who series ( William Hartnell ’s last outing as the first Doctor , “ The Tenth Planet ” back in 1966)—has ever tangibly captured the ghastly , tragical roots that sit at the core of the concept behind them as monsters .
“ World Enough and Time ” brings the Mondasian Cyberman back , to chilling effect . Steven Moffat might have re - jiggered their origins a bit by caparison the Mondasian refugees on a time - dilated colony ship rather than on their original homeworld , but he nailed what make the scoundrel unique — the horror , pain sensation , and sheer gruesomeness of the physical process that turns human into Cyberman — perfectly .
The penultimate installment of Capaldi ’s final season is a masterclass in build - up and repulsion , from the initial shocking moment Bill ’s thorax is torn open by a laser blast , to its creepy geographic expedition of the shameful experiments being done on the lowest floors of the ship , and then to its ultimate revelation of the birth of the Mondasian Cybermen . Like the Cybermen themselves , it ’s slow , but stubbornly relentless , with the tautness always on the ascent until its climactic cliffhanger .
Crucially , their original 1966 designs make the horror of what the Cybermen are literal rather than just conceptual , from their skull - like masquerade to their wan , sarcoid hands . The Cybermen should never have been clad in armour : The dichotomy of human and robot parts together and visible at the same meter is what helped make them so incredibly unnerving in the first billet . Sure , that design might face a little retro in 2017 , but here it ’s used to spectacularly creepy-crawly gist . After all , this is the story of how they come to be , so these first Cyberman are supposed to be jolty . They ’re the production of a heroic the great unwashed seek to save themselves from obliviousness through an operating board . They ’re not supposed to look sleek ; they ’re hypothesise to look as rough and mangled and messed up , just like the factual physical process that converts humans into them .
By using Bill to settle down that repugnance on a personal level for the audience — we see her dice , horrifically , we see her saved , and then in the grievous second we see her possibly lost forever as one of the first fully converted Cybermen—“World Enough and Time ” also forge home the other aspect of what makes the Cybermen so shuddery in comparison to something like the Daleks : hoi polloi we know and people we love could be inside them . Daleks are alien parasite inside a tank ; the Cybermen are us . Chopped up , gouged , and scoop out - out leftover of humanity , a horrible mix of flesh and alloy , their emotions subdued to avoid the outrageous horror of live with your human nature replace by cold steel and colder logic .
Although “ World Enough and Time ” truly spend much of its prison term building up to the reveal and creation of the original Cybermen , it throws down another fascinating gauntlet for the finale to pick up : John Simm ’s Master being disappointed at the thought of his successor not being batshit wickedness any more . Turns out the Master has been involved all along in the creation of the Cybermen , and knew of Bill ’s tragical fate , although we do n’t get that much time to research it just yet .
Missy ’s slow evolution into a potential force-out for good is jump by the strong-arm manifestation of her retiring incarnation literally showing up and challenge her . It ’s a enchanting moral dilemma only Doctor Who can do , thanks to the deception of positive feedback . As mad as I am for the scenery - chewing cheese - off that will be Michelle Gomez and John Simm on screen together , their very literal argument about good and evil could be something very special to watch unfold .
There is a muckle going on here , all of it lead direct into the net instalment of season 10 . If it can stick the landing place , we could be in for one of Doctor Who ’s finest season finales in years .
Assorted Musings in Time and Space:
I ’m suddenly very miffed that the BBC cease up revealing the news of both the Mondasian Cybermen and John Simm ’s return ahead of sentence . On the one hand , there ’s a damn good chance it would ’ve leaked anyway , so they get to assure it . On the other hand , god , can you even guess how much softheaded this episode would ’ve been if you did n’t recognise either of them were coming ? Until the wrangle “ Mondas ” come on Missy ’s computer screen and John Simm pull off that disguise ?
It pains me to admit how long it took me to see that Bill ’s grungy “ friend ” down in the infirmary was Simm under layers of makeup . He did a blaze of a good job with that stress — I only pegged it as him when he first chance Missy .
If you require another excellent edition of the Cybermen ’s origins , I suggest take heed to the wonderful handsome Finish Audio Drama Spare Parts , by Marc Platt . asterisk the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa , it ’s that level that originally inspired their return in 2006 , but it ’s often considered by fans to be one of the classical stories about the Cybermen .
The last shot of this episode being a lone tear drop swelling out of Cyber - Bill ’s eye socket — produce the tear fall look later Cybermen design would add that the originals did n’t have — might be one of the most hauntingly brilliant shot Who has done in a very farsighted time .
I ’m sure it ’s all smoke and mirrors , but if the instalment ’s curtain raising scene is really how Peter Capaldi ’s Doctor is going to bow out , it ’s a beautiful recall to the first medico ’s exit from the show , also on a snow - c0vered major planet — and even because of the same Cybermen !
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