Spare Parts
I listened to Big Finish's Spare Parts last night, in which the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa witness and become a part of the origins of the Cybermen (it could easily be called Genesis of the Cybermen). I intended to listen to the first episode before bed but wound up listening to the whole thing in one go. It's brilliant.
Cybermen are for me on paper the scariest Who monster. Unfortunately their potential rarely gets anywhere on screen. They take out your brain, remove all emotions and you live the rest of your life a cold metal drone, and that's if your lucky. If you're unlucky, the Doctor comes along, plays with your emotional inhibitor chip and the realisation of what you are causes you so much trauma you explode. I'd rather be exterminated. (The resolution of Age of Steel is up there with the Family of Blood punishments in the 'Doctor, you bloody hypocrite!' list).
As criticised as it is for not being very good, I like Rise/Age just because it get the closest to driving this horror home by doing all of the above to poor Alt!Jackie. Rise/Age isn't much like Spare Parts at all (even though its supposedly based on it), however, the taking an innocent person, turning them into a Cyberman and watching them die with the realisation of what they are - that was the biggest similarity. And the Cyberisation of Yvonne Hartman has to be a shout out to poor Yvonne Hartley (who is a cheerful teenage girl).
The big difference in Rise/AoS the Cybermen are a result of one megalomaniac's struggle against death. In Spare Parts, the Cybermen are a result of a civilisation's struggle against extinction (or as the Doctor theories at one point, the natural progression of plastic surgery - I don't really agree with this logic). It seems that a major thesis in Doctor Who the most horrific monsters are created in a struggle for the survival of a species - the Daleks and also the Toclafane fall into this category. I really don't think it's done on purpose by the writers, but it is interesting that some of the Doctor's actions that fandom has found most objectionable have been undertaken by him in an attempt not to let a person die, such as what happened with Ursula in Love and Monsters and River Song. It seems like 'everything has it's time and everything dies' is a cardinal rule of the Whoniverse and it's breaching this rule that creates the most problems.
The whole thing is set in an underground city, reminiscent of an Orwellian London, with the planet slowly crumbling apart. I think it's in large part the setting as well as the story that makes it so chilling. Rise/Age suffered in that the world had to be one we would not mind Rose and Mickey living in.
Anyway, I thought Spare Parts was just great and what I would really really love to see an actual adaptation of it on television. Or just bring back the Mondas Cybermen, because knowing their origins, it make them just a little bit more interesting than the parallel Earth Cybermen.
Cybermen are for me on paper the scariest Who monster. Unfortunately their potential rarely gets anywhere on screen. They take out your brain, remove all emotions and you live the rest of your life a cold metal drone, and that's if your lucky. If you're unlucky, the Doctor comes along, plays with your emotional inhibitor chip and the realisation of what you are causes you so much trauma you explode. I'd rather be exterminated. (The resolution of Age of Steel is up there with the Family of Blood punishments in the 'Doctor, you bloody hypocrite!' list).
As criticised as it is for not being very good, I like Rise/Age just because it get the closest to driving this horror home by doing all of the above to poor Alt!Jackie. Rise/Age isn't much like Spare Parts at all (even though its supposedly based on it), however, the taking an innocent person, turning them into a Cyberman and watching them die with the realisation of what they are - that was the biggest similarity. And the Cyberisation of Yvonne Hartman has to be a shout out to poor Yvonne Hartley (who is a cheerful teenage girl).
The big difference in Rise/AoS the Cybermen are a result of one megalomaniac's struggle against death. In Spare Parts, the Cybermen are a result of a civilisation's struggle against extinction (or as the Doctor theories at one point, the natural progression of plastic surgery - I don't really agree with this logic). It seems that a major thesis in Doctor Who the most horrific monsters are created in a struggle for the survival of a species - the Daleks and also the Toclafane fall into this category. I really don't think it's done on purpose by the writers, but it is interesting that some of the Doctor's actions that fandom has found most objectionable have been undertaken by him in an attempt not to let a person die, such as what happened with Ursula in Love and Monsters and River Song. It seems like 'everything has it's time and everything dies' is a cardinal rule of the Whoniverse and it's breaching this rule that creates the most problems.
The whole thing is set in an underground city, reminiscent of an Orwellian London, with the planet slowly crumbling apart. I think it's in large part the setting as well as the story that makes it so chilling. Rise/Age suffered in that the world had to be one we would not mind Rose and Mickey living in.
Anyway, I thought Spare Parts was just great and what I would really really love to see an actual adaptation of it on television. Or just bring back the Mondas Cybermen, because knowing their origins, it make them just a little bit more interesting than the parallel Earth Cybermen.