14 May 2013

The Cyberman Gambit (Review: 'Doctor Who' 33.12, "Nightmare in Silver")

The Doctor, Clara and her two charges travel to the biggest theme park in the cosmos, only to discover that it is not only closed, but contains Cybermen…

 

·         We jumped pretty much straight into this, although the reveal of the title sequence cliffhanger was more than a bit clichéd.

·         Matt Smith had a great time playing two roles – truly hamming it up as the Cyber Planner (not that he avoids the ham usually) in a turn that reminded me of performances of Jekyll and Hyde.

·         Clara didn’t do the best job this week – getting handed military command and reacting in that manner seemed a bit off.

·         Got to say that I liked the reveal of how the chess game was initially operated – look up the Mechanical Turk for the inspiration.

·         Warwick Davis did a great job as Porridge and I liked the reveal of his true identity; I’m sure many people in his position would have wanted to be ordinary just for once.

·         When is this set? I guess it’s one of the Great and Bountiful Human Empires.

·         Superb CGI work in this episode; you could never have had shots like this in the old days.

·         The military unit looked more than a bit unmilitary; while they may well have been a punishment platoon, no military would let the Captain have that fringe.

·         Really, really effective Cybermen – they came up with a counter strategy for nearly everything that the humans threw at them.

·         The final shot of the episode was again something that we’ve seen before many times before.

 

Conclusion

 

An enjoyable episode, but nothing stellar. Next week’s finale could be very interesting indeed.

 

7/10

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