Doctor Who Keeps Getting The Cybermen Wrong
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- čas přidán 5. 12. 2023
- In this video essay, we examine the history of one of Doctor Who's greatest foes, discuss how their core concept often remains underutilised and what could be done to fix this.
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I often think about that scene in Age of Steel where a cyberman comes up to Pete and is like "I was Jackie Tyler" but thinks nothing of it while Pete is absolutely horrified and like...that's one of the most terrifying things to think about
And then Pete and Rose make a note that they'll come back and rescue her, but can't remember which one she was. Age of Steel/Rise of the Cybermen was honestly my favorite story of Series 2.
Best nuwho cyberman story
Age of steel has plenty of subtle body horror. The sammy cyberman was genuinely depressing.
@@OscarOSullivan still world enough and time/the doctor falls for me. both great though
@@OscarOSullivan *thinks back to the machine with all the saws*
Subtle. yes.
The loss of the gloves on the original cybermen worked out for the good. When they first appear they seem like robots until the camera focuses in on the hands and we see a human hand. Added to the later scenes where we see the bone structure under the surgical dressing, the opening mouth and glimpses of an eyeball deep in the dark eye sockets, the overall effect is of the remnants of a human held together with technology. Which I think is creepier than just a brain in a tin.
The mindless cyborgs having human hands kind of reminds me of that robot arm that uses dead spiders as grabbing claws. Maybe the meatbags have some useful parts on them after all
If you enjoyed the proper cybermen. Big Finish - Spare Parts.
@@paulashe61a man of culture I see
Bill turning into a ciberman must be one of the most horrific and interesting stories. Cant rewatch the episode to this day.
Completely agree - that was horrifying
I like that idea, but I really wish they did more with it besides the reveal.
A shame that episode was so bogged down by the presence of not one, but TWO Masters.
My biggest problem is scenes like in The Big Bang where you see Amy fending off the mostly functional cyberman that doesn't have any organic components. It makes the audience ask why they need to get parts of people's bodies so badly if they can work fine without them. Anytime the cybermen are depicted as a robot that wants some parts put into them rather than a heavily augmented person it loses what makes them scary imo. The heavily robot designs we've been seeing since the 80s don't help with this
The cybus men were really stretching it
Like it worked because of the mesh keeping them together but the armour while practical removed that humanity
The nightmare in silver designs just said fuck it and gave them automated hardware updates
i like to think that all cybersuits have the one goal to first convert themselves and then convert others, as each without a body inside would immediately want to produce more cybermen, and obviously the first thing it would do is convert one human with itself
@@jmurray1110Cybusmen felt realistic. Indestructible suits of armor housing a human brain inside. They were feasibly industrial. The ones after the fact just felt ridiculously over the top.
Also, that Cyberman gets impaled by a damn sword.
They're literally meant to be impervious to bullets, yet Moffat made them killable with Roman weaponry.
@@Gojirawars03 I never liked the idea of it just having a human brain inside of it. It should be a person that's just been modified a lot. The second it's made into a robot that has a brain into it then it makes you ask why they don't just use a computer instead and that completely loses all of the body horror. There shouldn't be any separation between the organics and mechanics. It should just be one augmented person
Ideally, the Cybermen shouldn't be portrayed as "evil." They genuinely believe that converting you is for your own good. From a purely logical perspective you're better off as a Cyberman. It's just those pointless emotions that get in the way of you accepting that.
Edit: I would add that 'Attack of the Cybermen' (the Colin Baker cyberstory) does contain at least some of the body horror aspects with a couple characters being partially converted 'rejects' and Lytton in the middle of conversion at the climax.
Thank you for bringing up Attack of the Cybermen. Very underrated in my opinion.
Yeah but trouble is in the classic show they did start to become synonymous with Daleks because they often didn't care about converting humans they just wanted to dominate for domination's sake which is a very boring plotline cos then they don't have any depth to their motivations. In tom bakers one Cyberman story not only do they have zero interest in converting the humans they even allow them planned escape time after a mission is concluded involving the doctor and company
I loved the line where the doctor explains that no matter how many times the cybermen are stopped they just keep happening anew as the end point of a common development path.
That's a great horror aspect to explore in itself. You can wipe out every cyberman and every trace that they ever existed, but still they would independantly develop again at some later point in the future of humanity (or whatever similar species). How do you keep humanity from taking its own humanity away?
We survive
ITs kinda like how tons of species evolve into crabs over time. It's like the "peak" of evolution
Cylon type story lines where they can mate with humans? Till you can't tell whats what no more? Start talking about "beings" as many do today?
Ah, the good ol "theres nothing more human then inhuman mechanical death" philosophy.
If I ever wrote a cybermen story, I would incorporate the ship of Theseus within the story itself. That encapsulates the entire concept of why the cybermen are so controversial and scary.
Yes
Wow, with this kind of response, maybe I should write the story myself. I’ll do some research on Theseus and see if there’s opportunities to include the Doctor and the Cybermen within a story and present it to this channel.
if ever I was given the reigns, I think a concept basing initially off of the Ship of Theseus would work, but also go into the gradient of cybermen. At what point is it...cyber anymore? Showing a history of multiple cyberman factions which are disagreeing on how to handle their race, the doctor showing up to stop them at each turn causing frustration and unknowingly destroying the unity they had.
Some cybermen become more and more robotic as a militaric response against the opposition of armies and the Doctor, some of them choose to remain closer to human and "Upgrade" people out of a sense of warped justice that they are saving them from themselves and would simply take the side of fixing humanity from the sidelines, some would be an empire that believed it had achieved closeness to perfect form and thus had to educate the lower races into understanding this perfection of logical persuits and optimization, but all 3 ideologies would eventually collapse into extremes.
The Military ones fighting the Doctor and moving to conquer the doctor would be two seperate factions of cybermen that generally compete but do not fight one another often. Instead prioritizing on adapting to fight against their foes more and more until ending up becoming little more than mindless machines with no amount of flesh or biomatter remaining leading to the question of "is this a cyberman or just a robot that identifies as a cyborg". This would end up explaining the super cybermen from that episode with "Mr Clever".
The "Saviors" would upgrade people more and more, while being more and more aggressive, until they see themselves as saboteurs trying to outright destroy humanity as they do not see a reason to believe humans could ever be redeemed except through assimilation or control outright, this would comprise of a mix of Mondasian and Cybusian Cybermen and end up be a group that believes it knows best and that it would be the smarter of the three in the end, manipulating puppets that were once governments and people.
The "Educators" would start by assimilating with genuine sharing of their ideals and consent, but end up as infultrators similar to the "Saviors", but focusing on the benefits of their craft, trying to achieve perfect ideals and systems that turn out to be dangerous and harmful. "No Cost is too great" becoming a mantra for them. In the end they would have empty paradises and no movement, showing the true escapism in their intentions. They were aiming to escape imperfections of mortality only to end up losing meaning.
This would explore the "Ship of Theseus" concept but with how the Cybermen lost their meaning over time, and why. However, this is not a good perspective, I would probably butcher it.
The original Mondassian Cybermen design is great, super creepy and eventuates the body horror. I really liked seeing them in season 10 was awesome. Also my favourite season of the show.
They're the best modern Cybermen
Cybus men in their first appearance second
I wish they'd bring back the Moonbase/Tomb designs. That was always my favourite.
one of the greatest cyberman stories by virtue of also being one of the best stories of the whole show. (pro tip: if you're watching s10 for the first time and happen upon this comment, SKIP THE PREVIEWS: they'll spoil this particular episode completely. also this comment.) the way it recontextualizes the mondasian cybermen from that shoddy cloth suit making you go "wow, what a shoddy cloth suit" to it making you wonder what grotesquery could be concealed under it. incredible.
sure, it was kind of signposted that all the "healing" full conversion promised was less than so, but that surgeon guy going "this won't help the pain. but it will make you stop caring about it" and holding up the identifiably cyberman head handle thing as the final reveal that Yeah These Are Cyberman still makes me shiver. they made the HEAD HANDLES scary. going full body horror due to treating the actual cyberman part as a big twist was an amazing choice.
also the doctor falls follows this up by convincingly explaining away the many origins of cybermen in a way that's actually thematically cool and resonant and not just a handwave
@@minicle426omg yessss
The scene where emotional inhibitor blows and the cyberman starts talking about being ready for a wedding gets it so well
One of my favorite scenes from season 2. Hearing the Cyberman go "I'm so cold. Why am I cold..." in its monotone robotic voice is spine chilling.
@@KeesekuchenLP It doesn't make any sense though. If you were a brain in a box without any skin nerves connected to you, you would feel neither hot nor cold. The absence of sensation would be far weirder than just feeling "cold".
I like how they have actual human hands in the original cybermen costume, it looks like there is actual human components, and is actually quite disturbing, these cyborgs that are fully metal, have human hands, I like to think they kept them because they couldn’t replicate touch and they still need to be able to feel things
The bit about chasing the high of the Daleks coming out of the ship reminds me of the fact that those episodes has the coolest interaction between Daleks and anyone, ever. I've referred to "We would destroy you with ONE DALEK!!" with "Oh, to have the confidence of a Dalek!" for years now.
I rather liked one of their few comic interactions, just because it conveyed a lot with very little: Two characters who have almost no body language and were still able to convey meaning with the most basic of movements and no language. In The Power of the Doctor, where The Master is in full-on villain gloating and breaks out in a song-and-dance number by way of taunt. There's a moment representatives when his allies-of-convenience, a Dalek and a Cyberman, just turn towards each other in the background. A moment of face-to-eyestalk exchange that sums up their unspoken agreement: "I know he's a monumental prat, but just ignore it, we need him."
I like the cybermen because they're a threat the doctor can't ever get rid of. The cybermen coming from humans trying to reach some form of perfection or immortality means that wherever there are humans there will be cybermen. I think a good way to do a cybermen story would be making them the season's main villain rather then some side villain. Have a series where the doctor goes somewhere that prosthetics are common and encouraged so that they can explore what it would be like to have a large mass of people willingly convert because I think that aspect has been ignored by Dr who (ashad is dumb and I hate them). I feel like the concept of the cybermen could use a writer who's familiar with cyberpunk and its themes
It would be interesting to see a story where there’s a cyberman “civil” war, where two separate colonies of humans each individually became cybermen, and those two groups of hive minded cybermen clash over their ideals of what is the best way forward. Like, could be a message that there’s no real “perfection”, there’s always little things you improve by sacrificing others. Like maybe one of the cybermen have the guns, while the other is purely melee, but they’re more durable as a result. Could be interesting.
The funny thing is that the Time Lord process of Regeneration is basically what the Cybermen are after ultimately. The Cybermen are humanity's ill-fated attempt at becoming Time Lords.
honestly all the best doctor stories come from when he has to deal with an intangible threat. he could easily beat the daleks, the master, etc. but how do you fight the concept of self-preservation? how do you fight the concept of capitalism? there's a reason why episodes like midnight, listen, rise of steel/age of the cybermen, dark water/death in heaven, and world enough and time/the doctor falls, oxygen, and hell bent are among the most loved episodes of the show. because sure the doctor can escape, he can get people to safety, he can destroy the immediate threat, but he can't destroy a concept, and we see what happens if he tries with the timelord victorious (which i'm fully convinced is the only reason the waters of mars is as highly rated as it is). those kinds of episodes are where we see who the doctor really is. they're not perfect, not some overpowered being, they're just a madman in a box, passing by and helping out if they can
The funny thing is the Whittaker era was on track to deliver one of the best Cyberman stories of Nu Who....and then The Master hijacked the story
when i first watched ascension of the cybermen i really thought they were leading to something with the "cyberman that makes other cybermen scream" thing, along with the timeless child flashbacks i thought the idea was going to be that the dormant cybermen were being fed their old lives as a way of conditioning them with familiar imagery without completely getting rid of emotion, something along those lines leading to ashad making some sense as a leader since he found the value of using emotion as a tool for control
but no... ashad still just doesn't make sense and the other cybermen screaming didn't make sense cause they were literally just robots
Like He/She did post Moffat era for almost every Cybermen story...
Still one of the best. Only World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls is better imo.
Nah
Chibnal era. we will NOT let an innocent actress take the fall for his shitty writing just because he didn’t last long enough to have more than Doctor.
"The Daleks and The Master are alien threats. The Cybermen are us."
That's a really great way to put it. I wasn't a fan of a lot of Moffat's era, but I loved World Enough And Time / The Doctor Falls for really digging into their roots and putting a lot of emphasis on the horrors of the whole process of becoming a Cyberman. It's not just about what they end up as - it's about the journey from human to Cyberman, and what that means. Moffat was a so-so showrunner, but he's always been fantastic at telling short-form stories, especially if they're darker ones.
I love the cybermen. As a child, they terrified me, probably because of the death of Adric who was my audience surrogate - as I was also good at maths.
I remember there was a Dr Who exhibit at Blackpool, and every year the family would go for the illuminations, and I would beg my dad to go into the Dr Who exhibit.
And every year, I would take two steps in, see a cyberman, close my eyes and cling onto my Dad. Refusing to open my eyes until we had exited the exhibit.... and then repeat the same thing the next year.
I still have no idea what was in the exhibit.
Really hope when the Cybermen come back they’re not like robots again. Best Cybermen stories in the last few years are the Bill Cyberman episode and the Mary Shelly one.
The best critique I've heard is that nighmare in silver is a dalek story, and asylum of the daleks is a cyberman story.
Jesus Christ you’re right, and I hate so much that you are.
Excellent video! I completely agree; I think the Cyberman AND Daleks should only be used for stories that make the most of their respective concepts: The Cybermen’s horror of being altered and stripped of your humanity, and the Daleks being the embodiment of fascism and bigotry. Both have been used as generic enemies time and again, and I think it’s really taken the teeth out of them, so to speak.
We need another Cyberman story that really explores the horrors behind their concept, and I think it’d be interesting to explore that again through the lens of modern-day issues.
But the Daleks aren't really good embodiments of fascism or bigotry, if you think about it. They have had traits like empathy genetically bred out of them by their creator, they can't act any other way than how they do. The real horror of fascism, especially the Nazi strand of it, was how it was ordinary people, often decent and kindly ones in their personal life, doing terrible things.
@@Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs. I think that some of the best Dalek stories are those were they go after themselves and show the hypocrisy in the concepts they represent. Like the episode of the 13th doctor where the one recon dalek cloned itself and basically took over the world but was killed by the normal Daleks because they were "impure".
@@Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs. Daleks are supremacists. They are embodiments of the idea that "We are superior, all others are inferior". One of the things I love about the Daleks is that they are repeatedly self-defeating, because any time Daleks make moves to change and grow, the others immediately smack them down for being not Dalek enough.
I agree with you, we need them to treat the Cybermen differently from the Daleks. The Cybermen are an idea that was born out of a fear in the 1960s that people could replace their parts by prosthetics to the point of becoming unrecognisable, it's a fear that has its roots in iatrophobia and I think that's what they need to focus on. With a twist though, I think that instead of seeing technology and conventional medicine being taken to the extreme, it is more interesting that Cybermen have their origins in people who refuse to use conventional medicine and use alternative medicine, but not being experts in it damage themselves in irreparable ways by becoming Cybermen
I like your idea, but not for the cybermen. It should be its own thing, a new creature.
Cybermen should be body horror, based on humans becoming so integrated with technology (with a good thing taken to extremes) that they become no longer human. They lose a part of themselves. It's a nice transhumanism concept from classic sci-fi that's still relevant today, and will still be relevant in 100 years.
But if you add this "alternative medicine" thing in there, it's not going to help the cybermen. It's just going to add a bunch of baggage that goes along with the term "alternative medicine."
Especially after Covid, where people weren't following traditional medicine specifically because they didn't trust what became a politicized discussion about the institution. People aren't going to chop off their arms and replace them with robotics limbs just because of "alternative medicine" and not trusting the institutions.
I always thought the Cybermen were a Communist allegory? "You will be like us", individuality being consumed by the collective, etc.
@@Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs. sure, I can see similar themes there comparing communist society to a machine, since communism was created around the time of industrialization, and the mechanization of production in society. But it's really about transhumanism.
The 60s when Cybermen first came out was the time when sci-fi started really dealing with transhumanism, since Huxley had just come up with the term.
Apart from that, the guys who came up with the Cybermen was inspired by what was then a type of new medical procedure that was literally called "spare parts surgery," which is the replacement of organs or limbs through either transplants or artificial replacements. In the scientific world, they had just invented some sort of artificial heart/lung machine that everyone was hearing about. The writers were concerned about the technology that helps us actually leading to a loss of humanity.
Tie that to the inhumanity of the communist system and yeah, I can see parallels.
The problem is we no longer by and large fear transplants.
Technology making us less human is and that is why I love the age of steel story.
@@davidpo5517 The point is precisely this: I am not talking about current conventional medicine, but about a more sci-fi version, in which there are nanorobots and an increasing integration of technology into humanity.
Today, we no longer live in the 1960s: there is already a reality in which very few people can partially recover their sight thanks to a microchip under the skin, wirelessly connected to a computer that sends impulses to the brain, allowing them to see.
From today's perspective, the integration of people with technology is already a reality and will continue to develop more and more.
For me, the Cybermen come from the distant future and my idea of 'Alternative Medicine' is relevant. These Cybermen derive from people who use this technology even though they do not need it (such as those who perform surgeries at home or in other non-legal places) or those who do not trust conventional medicine and, instead of using the nanorobots prescribed by their doctor, employ nanorobots found on the dark web or the like (such as those who avoid vaccines by undergoing unregulated injections with serious consequences).
I imagine that the 'Upgrade' process of Cybermen is slower and comes from within, a change that can only be detected when it is too late. In the series we could visualise this transformation from human to Cyberman in a visceral way, through a moment in which the skin of one of the characters falls off, revealing underneath it muscles transformed into metal.
You hit the nail on the head with what makes good Cybermen stories good!
One thing i was hoping you'd touch on though was the weird tendency of NuWho to turn them into minions of the Master. We saw it with Missy in Death in Heaven, Simm in Doctor Falls and now again with Sacha using Cybertimelords. If they are one leg of the Big 3, shouldnt the Master be as reluctant to use them as minions as they would be to use a bunch of Daleks? To me it undercuts their danger if they become the go-to trooper for the Master's schemes rather than a major Big 3 threat in their own right.
Join the club, mate! I _hate_ how this weird association between them and the Master has kinda consumed them. Like, did Moffat just watch the 5 Doctors and get it in his head that that's what Cybermen are supposed to be? We need another Cyber Controller to speak for them, not someone who's not alligned with them at all.
In fact, this bizarre association got so bad that in the miniatures game (yes, there was 1 that was a bit like Warhammer 40k but for Doctor Who, but it got killed when it started referencing the Whitaker stuff) they had a Cybermen army box that was - you guessed it, "Missy and the Cybermen". The only actual Cyber character we got was the Cyber Controller from Tomb of the Cybermen in a 5-pack of metal figures.
this is where my cyberman fatigue came in, it was essentially the same thing over and over and I just got sick of it. I am hoping with the return of RTD he does good with them, if he brings them back
I think it's meant to be a reflection on the Doctor. The Doctor allies with the best of humanity and the master allies with the worst, the worst being the cybermen.
@@TheJonesdude But again, that's more about the Master than the Cybermen themselves. I think the last time they had a Master-free story to themselves was the one with James Corden in 2011...
You know what drives me the maddest about Cybermen?
Gold.
The weakness to gold was introduced into the series in Revenge of the Cybermen. Powdered gold would coat their respirators and they'd asphyxiate. Sounds plausible. But over the course of the rest of the series, the weakness got more and more prevalent so it started to affect Cybermen the way silver affected werewolves. The Doctor was able to cripple Mr. Clever by slapping a bit of gold foil on his face. Oh Come On. If they come back again I'm afraid they'll be defeated by throwing Ferrero Rocher chocolate coated hazelnuts at them.
personally, i think the best cybermen premises are the ones which lean into the fact that, in their own fucked up ways, the cybermen are *benevolent.* from their perspective, they are ultimately helping the people they 'upgrade'!
This show is awful and I hope it goes for another thousand years ❤
They just need to bring in Kroton. (And Frobisher. And Faction Paradox.)
Re:Gaiman, at least part of the issue there is that he wasn't super experienced writing for TV and budgets. In S6 Moffat could spend a lot of time going back and forth with him on drafts, pairing down what he was asking for, but in S7, with the 50th, he didn't have that time. So his original intention was to have it be set at an actual real life carnival, and you see Cybermen rising up out of the water, etc, rather than in space, but they couldn't do this for budgetary reasons. Somewhere in the process it was heavily rewritten, I *_believe_* by the script editor, not by Moffat, but that's tea leaf reading - Gaiman said it was heavily rewritten by _someone,_ and that he'd be willing to come back for Capaldi, so my guess is that it wasn't Moffat. (And Moffat didn't have the _time_ during S7b, due to the 50th coming up and Sherlock and an EP he hated, which is why it was such a mess. So it probably wasn't him. But that's largely a guess.)
Babe wake up Owen posted a new Doctor Who video 🥰
I feel like the initial Cybus Cybermen did exactly what they needed to do. The creative team wanted to make the Cybermen feel real and not just guys in rubber costumes running around on cheap sets. They feel like they r actually made of metal, streamlined and powerful which makes them work in that story. But it does fundamentally take away the body horror aspect by making them come off as robots and with a few exceptions throughout the new series, they still use this robot look which I think does a lot to damage the impact of these creatures.
I like Ashadd’s design cause wt least it reminds viewers that they r cyborgs and not just robots. I rly wish we could have another few stories with the Mondasian design or something along those lines
I can remember watching torchwood's cyber women with my brother. Lisa being left partially converted explained a lot for me
I always liked the idea that the human race keeps accidentally trending towards becoming cybermen over years and years, and it always takes someone to yell "stop!" and save us for it to not happen. This idea is so close in the show but never quite hit it right for me. Like starting as ear pieces, then why not also have a mic on it, then if you have a mic may as well get an air filter, then eye filters, then a neck brace, ect. Then the doctor shows up and stops it, but another few hundred years go by and someone else has come out with this great glove that lets you lift really heavy stuff. Eventually the glove gets upgraded to a full sleeve, and boots, ect and the cycle has started again. The idea of humanity slippery-sloping towards an inevitable end that is indisputably evil yet all the steps to that end seem good I think is really cool, and uniquely a cybermen story.
the times the cybermen are at their best is when the humans inside know what's going on, like the one lying on the ground in rise saying their "fiance can't see them like this" always makes my heart sink, same with the hospital modasian cybermen saying "kill me" and "pain" over and over again, but just getting muted
I think the Cybermen stories from the 1960s are their strongest portrayals. Tenth Planet, Tomb of the Cybermen showed how utterly creepy they could be.
If the Cybermen aren't terrifying then I'm not interested. When done right they're the scariest Doctor Who adversary *by far*
We saw how to fix the Cybermen in the first season of Torchwood. You make them sexy, cover them in barbeque sauce and have them do battle with a pterodactyl.
I love your analysis of how to make the Cybermen interesting, it hadn’t occurred to me how uninteresting it was to do “What if an evil Cyberman had emotions!” I also really enjoyed your humor and editing, this was a fantastic video.
The Cybermen for me peaked in the Troughton era.
I really enjoy Ashad conceptually. A human who fully volunteered to become a Cyberman plays into this fear of death/fear of helplessness that is at their core, while also exploring the greed and cowardice that often influences human actions. I always find the collaborator characters in Doctor Who quite interesting.
My main issue with the cyber men is that they seem to be forgetting their origin as emotionless human/technology fusion and making them more robotic. The only time in new who I was genuinely unsettled by them was in the age of steel, that scene where they just stand on the other side of the chainlink fence staring at mickey after the other guy gets shocked was creepy. The mondasian cybermen in world enough and time were also great.
One thing that doesn't help is the voice its again getting more and more robotic, theses a difference between 'robotic' and 'emotionless' I would LOVE for the next generation of cybermen to have a deep 'human' but emotionless voice, like the 456 in torchwood children of earth would be perfect for them or even like those AI voices you hear where something is slightly off.
The Modasian Cybermen were always the version that actually lived up to the description of what Cybermen are, humans replacing body parts. New Who Cybermen were just robots with human brains
The cybermen need to be treated like the ship of Theseus. Like with Bill, If you replace too much of what makes you human with machine or other parts, are you still you? Imagine having cybermen without emotional inhibitors, having to wrestle with the existentialism of losing themselves to technology and immortality. Like alchemy, there is an equivalent exchange and those with a fear of death lose themselves. Maybe have a regretful cybermen wanting to stop a conversion center after realizing the horror of what they have become
I liked the "believer" aspect of Ashad. I think there's something very chilling and rife with potential there if chibs was interested in that at all
The way i understood Mr Clever was that as he had not fully taken over The Doctor's mind and body, the way he acted was a result of the The Doctor's personality leaking through and affecting how he talks etc
Because The Doctor still remained in there, Mr Clever was just using his personality. If The Doctor had been converted fully, then none of that influence would be there, and Mr Clever would act like a cyberman as there's no emotions or personality left
I only saw The Next Doctor once, when it was first broadcast, and I can remember his tethered aerial release developed in style, and his sonic screwdriver which is sonic because it makes a noise when you tap it, but had literally no recollection of the cybermen
Great analysis. You've hit the nail on the head here - the Cybermen have such a unique and interesting concept so it's always disappointing when nothing is done with that and they are reduced down to their very basic functions as the story's villains, because they can be so much more than that.
I'm glad we agree that World Enough And Time, and The Doctor Falls were absolutely brilliant, and horrifying, and my god that cliffhanger broke me.
Also the bit in The Age of Steel (?) when The Doctor frees a Cyberman from its emotional inhibitor, and there's a woman inside who says she's so cold, and she was about to get married, then later when he removes them all and you can see one wailing at its own reflection in horror... those are the moments that make the Cybermen truly terrifying, not just when they have stompy shoes and big shooty guns.
The Time Lords being converted into Cybermen was done better in Supremacy Of The Cybermen comic in which they basically convert every species in the universe (including The Daleks) into Cybermen
Cyberman have got at least 25 years on the B word, so if anything Star Trek ripped who off with this.
I fully agree with both the premise of the article and the list. I didn’t fully appreciate the Mondassian design thinking it was just 1966 Who making another monster out of egg cartons and tissue paper (it probably was that)
Part of what makes that design so horrifying is it most resembles human beings who have upgraded themselves beyond their humanity. They don’t look like action heroes they look like nightmares, and when you add in the sing song voice I think you get an effect that few stories since have replicated.
I’ll be that guy and say while Earthshock is great, the standard evil monster villan voices aren’t actually a good Cyber story, since they’re clearly both angry and motivated by spite (when they should not have those emotions)
I’ll also defend nightmare in silver for making them an unstoppable terrifying threat and then deduct points for how much of a mess the rest of that story is
What I never understood was their motivations. They are power-hungry, often angered, those are emotions that beings with "inhibitor chips" shouldn't feel.
Always thought if they were portrayed as well-intentioned, utterly incapable of understanding people might not want to be like them, it would be scarier.
This channel is such a delight. I'm loving these videos so far.
Great vid!
I thinkt he issue with the Cybermen is that they're too iconic for their own good, they're basically one of the mascots of the show so whenever there's an assortment of Baddies they gotta be there, and I imagine that whenever someone pitches a robotic villain, someone in the writers room suggests they make it a cyberman story.
_Spare Parts_ is the best Cyberman story ever made IMO. It takes all the best things about the Cybermen and makes them much more disturbing thanks to being aimed at an adult audience rather than a family one.
_The World Enough and Time_ is a fairly close second (in fact, both feature someone having a botched conversion before reuniting with their friends and/or family, and both use the Mondasian Cybermen).
'Illegal Alien' is a very underated Cyberman story.
Idk if you ever listen to fan audio stories on CZcams, I basically gave a go at a Cyberman story for a series because of wanting to be more challenging with the Cybermen. For me, the big three are interesting bc they represent different aspects of us; the Daleks are our past atrocities, the Master is our present negativities on the other side of the coin, but the Cybermen have the most to play with as the manifestation of our potential missteps and horrors. I think a good Cybermen story should explore that ideology with more than just the physical and emotional change, but the sociopolitical change too.
Why have I only discovered you now? I love you. More Dr Who content please.
"Effects that looked fantastic when I was 7" I didn't deserve to be called out like this... I didn't have it coming :(
I've been bouncing this idea in my head for a while after watching this video and I think an important aspect to writing a good Cyberman story is to actually point out that the Cyberman's basic ideal (To upgrade) has no actual purpose.
Like sure the call for body horror is a good step but I think an element that's sorely missing is to acknowledge in the story itself that the Cybermen are just a rogue paperclip maximizer. Invading planets, subjugating its people, extracting its resources and using both to build better and better Cybermen but towards no purpose. That way, you can actually put the body horror, in fact all the horror in Cybermen into perspective.
All this pain, suffering, death and resurrection towards no goal. Even better if all this upgrading is actually unsustainable (you'll eventually run out of things to make more Cybermen) and worse not even uniform between different battalions of the same Cyberarmies. Worse than a civil war between two competing but separate armies, but a civil war between two sects of the same army because they've adapted and upgraded so divergently they deem each other unfit and must then upgrade them by force.
Like what else would they do? They have no individuality, no culture, they only have the desire to upgrade and eventually when/if they win they'll just be statues, and you most certainly cannot adapt to entropy as their relentless march towards an unspecified perfection takes its toll. Climate collapse erodes their steel, the flesh within (if there's any left) would wither away, civil wars between competing battallions shatter their numbers, and all that's left is a mad Cybercontroller unable to command or to kill itself as the stars themselves invariably consumes them in the heat death of the universe.
I liked the autism joke. So me
NGL, the Three Words were one of the best parts of Capeldi's cyberman stories. Because if the choices available are between experiencing a cremation from start to finish or being cyber-converted, there's not many people who WOULDN'T give up their humanity (and I wouldn't be able to blame them, not at all).
That's some proper horror right there.
great video owen!!!!! i love how tormented you are. never change
Another smash hit of a video - sending love and support for your continued brilliance!
In my opinion they peaked in the episode Dalek where they had a Tom baker Era Cyberman's head in a glass box looking awesome. Also that one time where a cyberman fucking smashed through rich Jackie's window. That was rad.
this was a great video, I'd love to see more Doctor Who stuff from you!
"The Master, who (has) also suffered from showing up in stories that they're not really needed in" as opposed to his debut, which consisted of him doing just that for a whole season
It's really telling to me that I like Rise of The Cybermen/Age of Steel & World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls far more than any other NuWho Cyberman story, but could never really put my figure on why; the closest I could say is that I like both appearing to have a much more emotional connection and relation in general to what it means to be converted, and that's seems like a touchpoint in your video that has me also realising everything else you said. Those two stories really are far better at keeping to the original point and origin of the Cybermen.
I do think Ashad is an interesting case in point in that he shares the self-loathing of others that have been partially converted or deconverted- but in the opposite way. He doesn't despair that he has been mutilated into a cyber-being, he angers that he is still human. To me that feels like a genuinely interesting position. Not only is it the inverse of what we usually see with part-converts, but it roots in the superiority ideology of cybermen quite well. We often compare Daleks to the Nazis, but there is a huge theme around eugenics when it comes to cyber-existence. You have to wonder who originally reached the specific conclusion that the most effiicient way to live was to become cybermen, and who implemented that, and Ashad's desire to become a cyberman seems to suit this theme well.
That being said, the execution of Ashad is pretty poor, and the cyber-master was terrible.
I think the problem with RTD cybermen is that he wrote them like upright daleks. They have catchphrases, they're just a brain in a metal suit as opposed to a mutilated human. also the stomping they do is stupid and I hate it
Huh? That’s still a mutilated human they literally cut the head open
@@chaserseven2886 still more boring than the person in a suit. They're one bodypart away from a robot
I agree. It's why I find the Cybus versions overated.
Perhaps a more chilling route to go with the CyberMasters' basic concept would be to reference one of 12's lines from World Enough And Time, where he says that cybermen are a phenomenon which repeatedly occur over and over across the universe.
Consider that by Series 9 the Time Lords had safely parked themselves at the end of time away from all other threats. What happens when the universe itself starts to fail and die, long after even the Toclafane have vanished? They could go back to the past, but that would more than likely start another Time War. They could leave for other parts as Division did, but, seeing as Division hasn't been associated with Gallifrey directly since the universe was young, they may lack the ability to. At the very end, Me's reality bubble began to collapse, and that would likely happen far sooner at a planetary scale.
what's the best option for them in this situation? To get an upgrade, to transform themselves into mechanical, infinitely regenerating horrors to survive. From there, some nutcase like Rassilon could go back in time to try to spread this "perfection" to everyone else before it's too late. The Time Lords spread a genetic virus to cause other species to evolve in their own image, so it's not out of character, and there could also be another dimension added to it, in that they're coming back from the end of everything as prophets with a warning, revealing that their modifications, though horrific, will prove to be the only way to stay alive in the end. As the last sparks of life in a cold, dead universe, their desire to convert others might stem from, or even be superseded by, a fundamental need to continue doing the one thing they've done since the very beginning.
Survive.
I love your editing and vibes
And I like all of your opinions, but of course that’s not the point. They’re all good videos/ essays.
thank you for adding subtitles to your videos!
Love these analysies hope to see more soon!
Used to not be a fan of the cybermen, and after this video i realize i just hated the writing of them bc you're right Capaldi's banger with the cybermen was really good (Not just because Capaldi) - Great video thx
Quickly becoming one of my favourite video essayists ☺️☺️💖🌸
Considering the changes to Davros by RTD... can the Cybermen even be used again? I mean, if old Davros showed people in wheelchairs as being evil, aren't the Cybermen a representation of the amputee and/or transplant community... or even plastic surgery recipients as being evil too?
Oh he'll retcon Lady Cassandra for sure.
Which is a stupid mentality, really. Why can't someone in a wheelchair be evil? Are we to believe they're all exactly the same and good at heart? Ridiculous stupidity.
Maybe a counter could be useful. Something to show that cyberware and such aren't bad on their own. But mistakes when utilizing them, implementing them, and more would lead down to such a dark path. I think.
Plot idea: the Tardis malfunctions and gets sent through the time vortex randomly. The Doctor can’t tell where they are and so they begin to explore and perhaps try to find help with fixing the Tardis. Through the episode (or 2) we see the Doctor interact with people who’ve started to get cybernetic enhancements (maybe with some Bladerunner/Cyberpunk aesthetics). The Doctor finds people who have more enhancements seem duller and less emotional in themselves and eventually discovers he is on Mondas and is witnessing the early development of the original Cybermen. From there it’s pretty open as to how it could end. Maybe the Doctor tries to intervene but causes a full conversion accidentally, or just runs away knowing he can’t change it
I would do many great and/or terrible things to see a story set during the Fall of Mondas. Imagine the desperation of an entire dying civilization.
Maybe they could steal some ideas from Frostpunk? 😯
@@affsteak3530 it would be fascinating, and would give us multiple things we haven’t seen in a long time: effective twists, impossible situations and a dark plot. Newer Who needs it
Good video! I don't quite share your level of enthusiasm for the cybermen so I'm less offended by them being used as background villains for other plots and I don't necessarily think thats enough to write an episode off as bad. That said, I do think you make a really good point about the potential for the cybermen as a unique villain and the show's failure to lean into that. I feel the same way about most of the Moffat and Chibnall eras -- with a couple notable exceptions, most of the antagonists were super forgettable and basically interchangeable. I wasn't quite as partial to the cybermen in the series 8 finale as you were. I feel like he really squandered the potential of the death sphere concept and ironically I thought that the best part of the story was Missy handing over the army because at least it felt like an attempt to address or wrap up the doctor's character arc throughout the season with his relationship with Danny and Clara and stuff, even if ultimately it didn't land. Anyways, yeah! This was mostly rambling and you probably won't read it but I enjoyed the video thanks
Great vid!! And thank you for reminding me I should rewatch World Enough and Time/Doctor falls now
16:58 gave me chills. The cybermen are my favorite villain too and I've been saying all this for years
I feel like Cybermen are more interesting the less powerful/technologically advanced they are. If you want a technologically advanced non-dalek alien conqueror just use the Sontarans.
The best Cybermen bit in all the RTD era was in Doomsday when they ar eon TV saying
"Cybermen now occupy every land mass on this planet, but you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex and class and colour and creed. You will become identical."
That's their triumph and their terror. Amd thays all we saw of it until Wprld Enough And Time.
You have somehow managed to encapsulate my inner monologue since the first time I saw Cybermen and I didn’t think I’d ever come across a video that is as bizarrely impassioned about Cybermen as my inner monologue tends to be
Solve it with a cyber schism, sounds cool and just have them upgrade in different directions with different concepts.
I completely agree! The concept of losing our emotions and the things that make us human is one of the scariest concepts in the show and the writers do need to remember that more 👍
This is the first of your videos I’ve stumbled across and I have to say the quick witty jokes at the ends of your lines had me cackling; they definitely won me over so have yourself another subscriber ☺️👍😆
SOMEONE MENTIONED BIG FINISH 🎉 gold star ⭐️
Rarely ever subscribe after one video or let alone comment but great video man! You’re humour is gold
the cybermens first 5 stories were their best, i believe. they understand the concept and play with it beautifully, like the design in 10th planet or the afraid cyberman in the invasion
Awesome video. Love your Dr Who content.
Love this video! You've got yourself a new subscriber
love your vids!
Dark water worked until the magic water turned every dead body ever into cybermen, that was so silly even for this show. World Enough and Time? Pure dead Brilliant
Omg I nearly made a comment about how much I loved Spare Parts just moments before you mentioned it lol
I always liked that Cybermen were a villain with branding. And I don't just mean the corporate C branding of the modern era, but the in the originals, their transport tubes had cyberman-head logos on them. Why? Who who for? It doesn't matter, I just loved it!
(I am specifically referring to the episode you had a clip from at 1:08, where (IIRC) the Cybermen were travelling as concealed cargo, fully branded on their transport packaging. So silly, but just the sort of thing that a no-longer-human entity could conceivably not understand why it probably isn't a good idea... Actually, I recall that being from a colour-era show, so possibly your clip shows this branding going back even further!).
Bro, that end line gave me goosebumps 🫨
i loved the story in Torchwood
good video id love to see more doctor who stuff from you!
One aspect i think they could alter to make the cybermen more interesting is to make so they refrain from killing. They are often shown killing people with kill lazers, electricying people or killing them with their bare hands. But as they want to take over by conversion itd be creepier if they always attempt to take prisoners alive (via stun settings etc). Imagine this unrelenting enemy coming to get you and if they catch you they will stun you with their wrist blaster or incapacitate you with their electric touch and then the next time you wake up you will be one of them. Much scarier than how they generally are shown when they keep just shooting people to death for reasons. Lol
I love the designs of the Cybermen of NewWho
Excellent video; I don't have much to add, but I agree with pretty much all of this! "If it works as a Dalek story, it's not a good Cyberman story" is such an apt way of putting it. Heck, a lot of Cyberman stories could've just as easily swapped them out for the _Sontarans_ and it wouldn't have made much difference.
I also think that the Cybermen would be much more effective if they brought back the desperation they had in their early appearances. They turned themselves into Cybermen _because they were dying._ They capture and convert others because they're on the brink of extinction and _need_ others so they don't die out. In the 60s, "We must survive" was basically their catch-phrase, and I think they should lean into that: Cybermen driven not by desire for conquest nor uniformity nor by a sense that they're superior, but by an unyielding determination to _continue existing at literally any cost._
EDIT: oh, and there's one Big Finish Cyberman story, in all but name, to rival Spare Parts: the third part of the first War Master series, The Sky Man. SPOILERS: it doesn't use the term "cyberman", but it takes that survival-at-all-costs idea and runs with it, and gives us an origin for Cybermen brought about not by a cackling megalomaniac nor a heartless computer, but by a good, honest, empathetic person who has just... run out of less-drastic ways to keep these people from dying. It's a really powerful story, and one of my favorites from Big Finish.
Attack Of The Cybermen has more than you remember. Silver Nemesis not so much, but both that and Earthshock do bring the organic back into the actual costumes design with the jaw.
I love the cybermen. My first introduction was in age of steel, which solidified them as imposing and powerful. Only in nightmare in silver did I properly understand them as an adaptive force that throws itself at your defences until you drown. If you crossed a bridge over a valley and then cut the bridge, the cybermen would fall in single file into the valley until they could walk across the bodies of their comrades to get to you.
My main gripe was how they seem to be associated with the master? 3 times, with Simm, Missy and the hot one whose name i can't remember.
It's not at all that "the production team forgot to give them gloves". The original Cyberman design actually _specified_ that the human hands were visibly attached to machine arms, to show how inhuman they had become.
I'm personally far more of a fa of Ashad given he encapsulates a part of the trope that of which is missed by some of the older ones - what if someone willingly became a cyberman? That's why he acts the way he does, with such vitriol, he wanted to be the way he is and lashed out when told that he had no choice, when it was his choice. Transhumanism of the future won't be "assimilate or die", it'll be lots of people choosing to become Cyberman esque.
Capaldi is the best actor who has played the doctor, he portrayed the doctor being horrified by cybermen the best imo
hey congrat on 10.000 subs:))
I found this channel today and thought this was a dr who analysis channel, but actually I just happened to be recommended all of the dr who videos in a row.
Well, world enough and time is a masterpiece and it was my first doctor who episode. If it wasn't for it, who knows if I would be here 6 years later having watched the entirety or new and classical who. The cyberman are a great concept and it's sad when they are treated as robots, cause they work the best when they remind you that they once were people.
I'm very hyped about DW at the moment, but I can always becoms more hyped when one of your videos comes out.
Cybermen are by far my favourite Doctor Who Villians, followed closely by the Ice Warriors.
I always find things that turn you into them are more scary than things that just kill you.