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The Tomb of the Cybermen Format Reviewed: DVD Review The Tomb of the Cybermen is one of the very few surviving complete adventures that were produced in this era. In fact, The Tomb of the Cybermen is the first complete adventure featuring Patrick Troughton in esistance. This is quite fortunate as it is held in high esteem with fans of the show, and generally lauded to be one of the best Cyberman stories from the entire series. We also here get to continue the Doctor Who tradition of using quarries as sets, doubling here as the landscape of Telos. The TADIS with new resident, Victoria Waterfield, travels to Telos, where an Earth archaelogical expedition is on-site trying to find the lost city of the Cybermen, who reportedly died out centuries previously. The Doctor helps the Earth team gain entry to the city, and they eventually end up in the labyrynthine structures under the main control rooms, where rogue Klieg kills another archaeologist and starts the sequence that will revive the Cybermen held in the tombs. It is then revealed that Klieg is part of an organisation back on Earth seeking the power to carry out their objectives, and plan to use the Cybermen to gain this power. Victoria then manages to overpower Klieg's ally, Kaftan and goes down into the tombs with the Earth ship's crew and some bombs. Kaftans servant, strongman Toberman, decides to help and is instrumental in killing the Cyber-Controller and aiding the Doctor in re-freezing the remaining Cybermen. In the classic series, incidental music is generally very rarely used. What is used here is done so to excellent effect, and, whilst still sparce, is used in scenes where the tension is really built with the music, in conjunction with the acting. The sets too add to the story, and this is probably one thing that benefits from cramped studios. The tombs appear to be claustrophobic, and add to the effect. Another good feature of this story is that the mnodel shots work quite well and fit in with the live action sequences. Throughout the classic series of Doctor Who, the model shots often let down a production. Here though they are barely noticable, even looking back in our age of near photo realisism in computer graphical animation, to a lot of credit should go to the designers and special effect artists. Joining the regular cast for her first trip in the TARDIS here is Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. Watling is a good screamer, and her character appears to be of a vulnerable young lady. There is a feisty element to her but this is largely unsuccessful, especially coming from the era this production does. It is stories like this though that really show how good Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines were as The Doctor and Jamie respectively, excellent performances. In the guest cast, Roy Stewart does well as Toberman in a quite stereotypical and unenlightened role of 'the big black fella'. He does well though and is dignified throughout. Of the others, George Roubicek and Clive Merrison are actually quite weak as Captain Hopper and Jim Callum respectively. There are stronger performances from Shirley Cooklin and George Pastell though as Kaftan and Klieg repectively. Overall though, as long as you ignore the bad American accents, it is a fairly strong cast throughout. A lot of the time, the success of a story can be put down to whether or not the viewer can be engaged by it, and whether it can therefore stand up to repeated viewing. This is where I think that The Tomb of the Cybermen really does score well. With it not just being a straight monster story, there is a real angle for the viewer to engage with the characters, and the story itself does segway nicely with previous Cybermen stories, and advances the story of their plight. This is very clever, and it is to the great credit of the writer that this is the case. Another clever device is that you can get into this story from both the angle of the rogues, Klieg and Kaftan or the heros, Includiong the TARDIS crew. Overall, The Tomb of the Cybermen is a wonderful adventure, and one that not only provides a good ninety odd minutes of television, but also advances the story of the Cybermen from the previous time they appeared in Doctor Who. There are a couple of slightly dodgy cast performances, but overall this is a well written, produced and acted story that rightly is considered to be one of the best stories of the era. Rating:  |