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Silver Nemesis Format Reviewed: VHS Review Silver Nemesis was commissioned and made as the 25th anniversary story, and was broadcast starting on the 23rd November 1988 which is the exact 25th anniversary of the show. For this, the production crew chose to have one of the most popular enemies return, the Cybermen. Apart from the Cybermen though, this special contains other foes and storylines that bring the struggle to control a statue to life. The story starts with the 'Fourth Reich' led by De Flores and medeval Lady Peinforte preparing to travel to 1988 to rendezvous with a statue contained in the comet Nemesis that the Doctor fired into space with a decaying orbit. Everyone travels to Windsor and the statue crash lands. There is a confrontation and the Cybermen arrive, and a firefight ensues with Lady Peinforte using gold tipped arrows effectively against the Cybermen, the Germans using automatic guns ineffectively and the Cybermen killing many Germans. The Cybermen then take control of the statue and rightly predict that the other parties will bring the rest of it to them, the bow and arrow of the statue. Eventually, it all comes to a head and Lady Peinforte committs suicide by merging with the statue, the Germans are killed and the Cybermen are destroyed by the statue. As a story, this was intended to be an epic. In many fan quarters, this story is often much criticised. As the American documentary at the end of the VHS recording, it details the shortness of time found especially on this story, and to be honest this may have helped in this particular story. I genuinely like this story, and feel that it really is one of the best of this era. The main reason for this is that it is really engaging from start to finish. Due to the sheer amount of story that is being crammed into three episodes, there is barely a minute wasted. This tightness of production is sometimes quite rare in this era of the show, and the lack of padding is really very welcome. For the Cybermen, David Banks reprises his role as the Cyber Leader and gives a very convincing performance. The legendary Anton Diffring plays De Flores and really adds an air of authenticity that the other actors playing Germans simply don't convey. The other major guest actors are Fiona Walker and Gerard Murphy who play Lady Peinforte and her man servant Richard respectively. They give very strong and authentic performances and both should be pleased. As for the regular cast, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred build on their excellent performances in Rememberance of the Daleks to produce more wonderful scenes, quite magical! The only real gripe I have about this story is the special effects addedin post production, that do not work in any shape or form. The images of the Cyber ship are really terrible and let the show down a lot. On the positive side, the live effects are very good and add real authenticity to the show. My final point about this story is the inference that the Doctor has deep dark secrets that others know. This has always been hinted at before but very blatantly here it is said that these secrets would destroy him. This is something I am not really sure about as a plot point, and in subsequent stories is never really touched upon so it can be seen as largely redundant in the end. Perhaps it was added so that they could do a big Cybermen and Time Lord story later on but never got the chance. Overall, Silver Nemesis is an excellent story for me and a fitting tale to tell on the 25th anniversary of the show. The various story elements really combine well to produce a tight story where there is very little padding to distract the viewer. Added to this is the facinating documentary that has been added to the end of the video that is well worth watching in its own right. A delightful story though that should rightly be held as one of the best of this era. Rating:  |