By Ross Ruediger
“Rise of the Cybermen” marks the return of the titular foes that occupy the #2 spot (after the Daleks) on the Doctor’s list of most oft-encountered enemies. This two-parter is a more than worthy effort, and part of its success is its setting on a parallel Earth--the steely beastie boys get a clean slate over which to rampage, while their previously established history 
remains intact. Due to their origins, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Cybermen: Humans from the edge of our solar system who gradually replace their body parts with synthetics as a means of survival. This new story takes the concept to even darker levels by mixing it up with our over-reliance on technology and willingness to, without thinking, grab the latest cool gizmo and incorporate it into our daily lives, no matter what the eventual cost. This is a hard-hitting idea and frankly scares the piss out of me (not only in this story, but in real life, too).
The post-credits TARDIS scenario, wherein the time vortex completely disappears and the machine plunges into nothingness, is a doozy, and visually reminiscent of a certain sepia-toned farmhouse plummeting toward a certain whacked-out reality. The tip-off that they’re not in Kansas anymore? Giant, hovering zeppelins filling London's skyline. Once the Doctor (David Tennant) realizes it’ll take 24 hours for the TARDIS to reenergize and Rose (Billie Piper) realizes her parents are both alive and together in this universe and Mickey (Noel Clarke) realizes that his grandmother might not be dead in this place, you just know things are gonna go south.
Five episodes into the season and Rose finally gets a storyline to call her own--but it’s primed to revolve around her deceased father, Pete (Shaun Dingwall)…didn’t we do that last season? We did and she did, but Rose hadn’t accrued the smarts she now possesses. The Doctor warns against pursuing a meeting, but eventually gives in only because Pete (a successful millionaire in this reality) appears tied to Cybus Industries, a global corporation whose primary merchandise are EarPods, which download information (news, lottery numbers, “the daily joke”) directly into the brain. They’re as commonplace in this world as shoes are in ours.
Meanwhile, Mickey finds dear old Gran, who is indeed alive and insists on calling him Ricky. Their emotional reunion is short-lived when Mickey--mistaken for Ricky--is scooped up by a small band of rebels called the Preachers (rebellious enough to diss the EarPod fad). He bumbles along as Ricky until they make it to HQ where he’s confronted by his macho Doppelganger. But the Preachers--Ricky, Jake (Andrew Hayden-Smith) and Mrs. Moore (Helen Griffin)--are less interested in offing benign goofballs and more concerned with discovering the secrets of Cybus, so, after a thorough grilling and biological exam, they allow Mickey to tag along.
A third storyline involves the head of Cybus Industries--the disabled, dying and clearly insane John Lumic (Roger Lloyd Pack). His ubiquitous EarPods are only the first stage of an insidious plan, as Lumic’s second-in-command, Mr. Crane (Colin Spaull), is busy rounding up the homeless with offers of food and shelter, only to haul them off for "upgrading." Upgrading into what? (You only get one guess, Who believers.) And finally the President of Great Britain (Don Warrington) staunchly rejects Lumic’s ultimate upgrade proposal--a rejection Lumic doesn’t much care for. All three storylines nicely dovetail at the Tyler mansion, where a bitchy parallel Jackie (Camille Coduri) throws a fancy 40th, ahem, ”39th” birthday party for herself.
Rose: “They're people?”
The Doctor: “They were. ‘Til they had all their humanity taken away. That's a living brain jammed inside a cybernetic body, with a heart of steel. All emotions removed.”
Rose: “Why no emotion?”
The Doctor: “Because it hurts.”
“Rise of the Cybermen” is something of a mish-mash of numerous classic Who stories--bits and pieces are culled from Cyber tales of days gone by, most notably 1968’s “The Invasion”. However, it pulls even more liberally from both Tom Baker’s “Genesis of the Daleks”--the megalomaniacal Lumic’s motivations, actions, and rise to power are eerily similar to that of Davros, the Daleks’ creator, and Jon Pertwee’s “Inferno”, which partially took place in an alternate universe where the Doctor’s friends weren’t quite as he knew them in his world. It also owes a huge debt to the excellent Big Finish audio production “Spare Parts”; that story’s writer Marc Platt is even given a nod in “Rise’s” closing credits. Hardcore fans may feel the entire affair reeks of the “been there, done that’s”, though I’ll argue against that line of thinking next week.
In the past, the Cybermen look varied from story to story, and so it stands to reason that they receive yet another visual overhaul (unlike the Daleks). Showrunner Russell T Davies’ prime dictate for this new breed was to erase the word “silver” as a means of description. He instead wisely chose to stress the harder terms "metal" and "steel." The resulting concoction is a splendid bit o’ retro: A dose of Metropolis’ Hel, a pinch of The Iron Giant, and a smidgen of C-3PO all mixed together with classic Cyber-iconography = Brand new, bold, badass Cyberbullies. (Admittedly, though, the sound editing is at least half the menace of this incarnation.) It’s a brave stylistic choice in this era of Cylons and Borg; only Doctor Who could get away with machines sporting such a look.
The episode is mostly set-up and character development--the Cybermen don’t even appear in full focus until its final minutes-- though it's good to see Rose getting back on track. After two adventures where she played Invisible Girl to the Doctor’s Mr. Fantastic, she seems to initially play a subtle game of hard-to-get. If she’s not the most important person in his life, maybe he isn’t that important in hers either? A golden opportunity presents itself in the forms of Pete and Jackie Tyler. The Doctor senses her distance and perhaps feels some emotional damage control is in order. The Mickey-centric storyline was long overdue, and it’s great to see his relationship with Rose plateau. She’s with the Doctor and he accepts it. Mickey Smith releases himself and can at last be his own (tin?) dog.
The zeppelin imagery is breathtaking and, on the flip side, the conversion center--revealed to be inside Battersea Power Station--is chilling. Kudos to the use of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in that scene, but wouldn’t Pink Floyd’s “Sheep” have been about twenty times more appropriate? (I’ll pretend it was considered, but rights issues prevented it from happening.) If there’s a major downfall here, it’s in Roger Lloyd Pack’s hammy performance as Lumic--he never comes across as at all threatening and, really, the make-up team dropped the ball by failing to give him a moustache to twirl. And of course, I'd be remiss in not mentioning that Rose was a dog.
NEXT WEEK: Cybermen - loads of ‘em - in “The Age of Steel”.
Classic Who DVD Recommendation of the Week: “Inferno”, starring Jon Pertwee, Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney.
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Ross Ruediger is a San Antonio-based critic and columnist, a contributor to The House Next Door, and publisher of The Rued Morgue. For more writing about the series, see "Dr. Who" in the sidebar at right.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Doctor Who, Season Two, Ep. 5: "Rise of the Cybermen"
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8 comments:
Apropos of nothing, Davies' mandate about the Cybermen reminded me of that great exchange on "The Larry Sanders Show" where Larry is dressed up like a futuristic spaceman for a sketch:
Larry - "I look like an asshole."
Artie - (bolstering) "A shiny, silver asshole!"
Didn't you get the feeling, Ross, that when Rose asks about the reason behind the Cybermen's lack of emotion and the Doctor answers, "Because it hurts," that was a rarely personal statement? Given that the Doctor just experienced the pain firsthand in the aftermatch of his heartbreaking affair with Madame de Pompadour in the previous episode, a part of him must still be recovering from the sense of failure and loss.
Ross wrote: "Hardcore fans may feel the entire affair reeks of the “been there, done that’s”, though I’ll argue against that line of thinking next week."
Psssst - got news for you: even casual fans like me had exactly the same feeling - as you said in another part of your review, it was like watching the genesis of the Daleks and in the "who" universe, tht's been done to death.
I was very disappointed in this episode - it seemed disjointed and thrown together in a orgy of used up concepts and ideas. Destroyed TARDIS? Whoops, here's a little piece of the Time Vortex - just take a little while for it to regenerate. Meet another Rose? Nope, Rose is a dog. Micky/Ricky - B-O-R-I-N-G.. If you are going to do an alternate universe show, then do an alternate universe show, make it something similar but totally different.
I like the whole idea of rehasing concepts and ideas if they are done right, but this is just - well nothing - zero. The villians are uninteresting metal men, the heros are also uninteresting and dull. Why is it that the "resistance" is always somebody who is "pure" as Ricky said - without influence? What's their motivation - why are they the way they are - how did they recognise the threat while nobody else did? Missing people just isn't enough.
It's hard to fit all of that into 40 minutes, but without some exposition, there is vapor and this episode seemed to lack even vapor.
Peet wrote:
Given that the Doctor just experienced the pain firsthand in the aftermatch of his heartbreaking affair with Madame de Pompadour in the previous episode, a part of him must still be recovering from the sense of failure and loss.
I hadn't really thought of that, but I can certainly see why'd you'd make the connection, Peet. I (for better or worse) brought a lot of baggage to this story. At one point in DW history, the Cybermen were responsible for the death of one of the Doctor's companions, Adric - so I was probably looking at it in a picture bigger than even just this season or the new series itself.
Sheik -
I should've saved the free pass I gave you last week and handed it out here. There's no way I can let you off the hook two weeks in a row.
But you make some good points. I said to Joan in the Morgue talkback something I'll repost here:
The one thing I didn't mention in my piece was that probably more than any other first part of a two-part story (be it DW, FARSCAPE, BSG or whatever), my only real opinion of RISE after first seeing it was that I didn't/couldn't have an opinion until I saw Part Two.
It left me in a total state of flux. Actually I did have ~one~ opinion and that was that the finale with the Cybermen crashing the party was really cool. But that was it.
Everything in my piece is written from the perspective of having seen Part Two.
You're jumping the gun here and judging this set-up episode very harshly without having seen the followup. Now I'm not saying THE AGE OF STEEL will "make it all better", but I think it does a reasonably decent job of paying off much of what was set up in RISE.
One thing I've noticed far more clearly as I rewatch Season Two is how it's very much a slave to its characters. There's a definite ebb and flow going on in this season (I think far more so than last season) and it behooves anyone invested in watching to whole thing to reserve at least some judgment until the whole season has been viewed.
At least that's how I see it, anyway. In any case, your comments have given me further food for thought for when I craft next week's piece.
Couple more things, Tom (aka Sheik)...
If you are going to do an alternate universe show, then do an alternate universe show, make it something similar but totally different.
Isn't that exactly what RISE does?
If there were a parallel Rose in this universe, it would be an entirely different story - and not necessarily a better one. And if there were a Rose, then would there also be a Doctor? Does this universe even have a Doctor?? Nixing Rose altogether was probably a smart move. We got the Mickey double - two sets of twins wandering around may have been a bit much.
To do a story like this, whatever dramatic choices are made should reflect on the reality we're already familiar with.
Making Pete a success here and making Jackie totally unlikable were good moves. Anyone who tires of the real Jackie can at least acknowledge she's a much better person than this version. We're given some perspective.
It's not hard to imagine that the Jackie we know could likely have ended up as this person had Pete not died and instead lived to be successful and had she not given birth to Rose.
But the Jackie we know is who she is because she's a single mother who raised a daughter on her own. She's had to make her life work by becoming a strong, self-reliant person; in this other universe, she's never had to do much of anything except sit back and reap the benefits of Pete's success - hence she's barely a person. Indeed, the version of Jackie we're seeing in RISE isn't all that different from the Jackie we saw in FATHER'S DAY before Pete was killed. To me, that's pretty sound "alternate universe" fodder.
I also LOVED the scene with Mickey and his grandmother. That was just beautiful and a good example of doing something entirely different with the concept - presenting us with someone we never met in "our" universe. (I wonder if Odie is watching? When I first viewed that scene, I couldn't help but think of his stories of him and his mother.)
And speaking of Mickey...Ricky is a totally different person than Mickey. Is this is due to the fact that Ricky didn't have a Rose in his life? 'Cause it sure seems everything else is Mickey's and Ricky's lives was pretty much the same. So the fact that Rose didn't exist in this universe has potentially enormous effects.
This show is as much (if not more) about its characters as it is about taking us for a ride each week.
One thing I'm sure you and I can agree on is that alternate universe concepts are dodgy propositions at best. They pretty much always feel like a cheat on some level, but I don't think that means they should be shyed away from as a means of telling a story.
I brought up INFERNO and recommended it as DVD of the week; INFERNO is one of the best stories of this ilk I've ever seen. It's so good, in fact, that many (myself included) consider it one of if not the best story of Jon Pertwee's entire five year run (and that's saying something for a seven episode DW story).
Ross: I agree that the backstory of the Cybermen is a disturbing cautionary tale -- though depicted in a light, pop-y way, as per Dr. Who's norm. I also think it lines up nicely with the backstories of certain nonhuman races on the Star Trek series, particularly the Vulcans, who apparently were a passionate and even violent race who gave up (or more accurately, suppressed) emotion in order to survive long-term.
So my review was based on the BBC-transmitted cut of this ep. Am I to understand "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" bit was cut from the Skiffy broadcast? Can I get a confirmation on this? Was the Battersea Power Station reveal cut as well?
If so, that sucks.
I don't remember the "lion" or the power thingy you mentioned, so perhaps they did cut it out.
With respect to You're jumping the gun here and judging this set-up episode very harshly without having seen the followup. I agree, but in my universe, which I will readily admit is different than most who watch SciFi, you have to have a decent setup and I didn't see "RoTC" as a decent set up for the pay off. I can almost guess what the pay off is and that's just not interesting. I'll still watch it. Unless there is something way off the wall, it's just another scifi show gone off it's hoo-hoo.
With respect to this Season being a slave to it's characters "it behooves anyone invested in watching to whole thing to reserve at least some judgment until the whole season has been viewed." I would posit that you can only judge what you see as you see it. I have no freakin' clue as to what is coming up, thus I can only judge what I see - not what I think I'm going to see.
You wrote "To do a story like this, whatever dramatic choices are made should reflect on the reality we're already familiar with."
On the face of it, that is true, but consider this (and I'm gong to get a little metaphysical here - sorry) - alternate universes do not have to follow the same patterns and concepts as the original does. In the case of RoTC, it was obvious Rose wasn't going to be Rose, it follows that Ricky wasn't going to be Micky, Jackie was going to be who she was and so on. A well established philosophic concept is infinite choices leading to infinte realities leading to infinite universes. As some point, the concept becomes enourmous - the infinite variable will lead to something unrecognizable if only because of the sheer number of possibilities.
In this case, the universe was recognizable, but how likely, if the theory were real and we could actually visit the alternatives, would it be to fall into one that was so close to ours? I'lll give you a hint - the number has an infinite number of zeros behind it.
Which is why we're stuck with simple artificial constructs like the one in RoTC and that's the real reason I hate alternate reality shows - it's not a logical progression in term sof how an alternate reality would develop.
Which basically reduces the story to one in which you need to become invested in the characters and frankly, this one was a bore.
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