Saturday 30 September 2017

174 The Abominable Snowmen: Episode One

EPISODE: The Abominable Snowmen: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 174
STORY NUMBER: 038
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 30 September 1967
WRITER: Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
DIRECTOR: Gerald Blake
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 6.3 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume Four(1967)
TELESNAPS: The Abominable Snowmen: Episode One

"The Yeti were so rarely seen. Timid. Then, suddenly, they become savage. Did we not wonder why? Did we not wonder what or whom had brought this change? "

High on a Himalayan mountain the explorer Edwards Travers sleeps in his tent. He is awoken by screams, and calls for his fellow explorer John. Emerging from the tent he is confronted by a furry creature that twists his rifle and throws it away as Travers flees. The Tardis has landed in the Himalayas: The Doctor is pleased to be back in Tibet and looks for The Ghanta, a holy bell left with him many years ago. The Doctor steps outside in a huge fir coat. Jamie finds a scimitar in a chest which he's taken with before mistaking the Doctor for a hairy beast when he sees him on the monitor. Victoria finds the Ghanta, but the Doctor is concerned by a huge footprint he finds outside the Tardis. The Doctor leaves Jamie & Victoria in the Tardis as he takes the ghanta to the Det Sen monastery. The Doctor is observed on his journey by a giant hairy beast. Jamie & Victoria get bored and go outside to explore. The Doctor finds the remains of Travers' camp-site and John's body. Jamie & Victoria find the huge footprints and follow them. The Doctor arrives at the Monastery, now carrying Travers rucksack, and finds it seemingly deserted. He enters, standing before a Buddha statue where he's ambushed by a group of warrior Monks. Travers is with them and, seeing his rucksack, is convinced the Doctor murdered his friend causing the Monks to seize him. Their leader Khrisong imprisons him. Victoria & Jamie have followed the tracks to a cave. While inside something rolls a boulder across the exit sealing them in. Travers comes to see the Doctor accusing him of wanting to steal his discovery: He believes he is near to finding the Yeti. The Doctor suggests that Yeti attacked Travers but he says they are shy, timid creatures. The Doctor points out he hasn't the strength to do the damage Travers attacker did. Krisong, Rinchen and Sapan discuss if the Doctor is responsible for the deaths of John and 4 of their brothers when they had previously thought the Yeti responsible. Khrisong decides to put the Doctor to the test. Jamie & Victoria enter a chamber which has a pyramid of silver spheres in it but they are cornered by the creature that has returned: It is a Yeti which snaps Jamie's sword in two.

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Every so often Doctor Who wanders off and successfully raids older sources for ideas. Having done "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Curse of the Pharaohs" in recent stories we now get onto The Abominable Snowman. That instantly implies the Himalayas giving us the setting, and when you throw a British explorer in then you've virtually got the first episode written for you. This episode sounds OK without being anything special but better is to come and fortunately we can get a decent idea of what it looks like as there are telesnaps and the next episode, featuring many of the settings in this one, exist and is out on DVD!

There's a marvellous little scene between the Tardis crew to start the episode:

DOCTOR: I don't believe it. Marvellous. After all this time.
JAMIE: Oh, what's so marvellous about that?
DOCTOR: Well, don't you see, Jamie? It's the Himalayas. And I do believe we're in exactly the right. Now, wait a minute.
JAMIE: The Hima - what?
DOCTOR: Shush. Shush.
VICTORIA: The Himalayas, Jamie. They're mountains.
JAMIE: Aye, I can see that. Hey, is it the Earth, Doctor? I don't fancy another tangle down the Cybermen's tomb.
DOCTOR: Shush, Jamie, shush. Yes, of course it's the Earth. Yes, yes, I think I'm right. Yes.
JAMIE: Where are these mountains?
VICTORIA: Don't you know where the Himalayas are? They're in India. Well, at least I think so.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's it! I knew it, I knew it. It's incredible. Right. Oh no. No, not India. This is Tibet. That's where we are, Tibet. Now, there's no time to be lost. Come along, Jamie, we must find the ghanta.
JAMIE: The what?
DOCTOR: The ghanta, the ghanta. I put it here somewhere. Come along, Jamie, help me.
JAMIE: Hey, what am I supposed to be looking for?
DOCTOR: I told you it's. Good Lord, I haven't seen that for years.
JAMIE: Oh, that's the ghanta then?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. It's a. Well, whatever it is, it's nice to see it again.
VICTORIA: Oh.
Nope, I've not got a clue what the item he's found is either!

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The telesnaps don't preserve the Ghanta in the missing episode one but fortunately we see it clearly in episode two:

As was becoming quite common for Doctor Who a large set was constructed for the story and here it appears to be the main courtyard in the monastery. The telesnaps afford us a clear view right the way across it from the main doors on the left to the statue of Buddha on the right.

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This is Doctor Who's first onscreen association with Buddhists and Buddhism, although the story makes it clear that the Doctor has visited Det Sen monastery before. Buddhist themes will become more common in the Third Doctor's era when Barry Letts, a practising Buddhist, produces the program.

Our brief view of the Tardis gives us a look at a couple of the power station panels that seem to have appeared inside it:

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The one on the left is completely new, I can't find another picture of that anywhere. There's one in the middle which is impossible to see because it's obscured by the monitor. The one on the right I'm pretty sure is one of the ones which appeared in The Faceless Ones in the Chameleon Tours Hanger.

Cast as the explorer Edward Travers is actor Jack Watling whose daughter Debbie was already working on Doctor Who playing The Doctor's companion Victoria Waterfield. Watling has an an extensive acting CV but Doctor Who is the only thing I can really remember him in. Casting my eye down his list of roles I know I've seen Hancock: The Lift where he plays The Producer, and I will almost certainly have see him in Bergerac, created by Doctor Who author Robert Banks Stewart where he plays Frank in four episodes in the early 1990s. I know I have every episode of Jeeves and Wooster on DVD so I must have his appearance as Lord Wickhammersley in The Purity of the Turf

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Extensive location filming is undertaken for this story at Nant Ffrancon Pass in Snowdonia, North Wales.

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The area had previously served as the location for Carry on up the Khyber, also fictionally set within the Himalayas.

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While on location first time Doctor Who director Gerald Blake took some colour cine film of the location and the cast.

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This location film can be found as a special feature on the Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD which also features the existing part 2 of this story!

The audio of a trailer for this missing Episode also exists: it can be found on The Tomb of the Cybermen DVD, part of Doctor Who Revisitations 3 where it plays over the selection screen for the episodes.

Saturday 23 September 2017

173 The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 173
STORY NUMBER: 037
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 23 September 1967
WRITER: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Morris Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Victor Pemberton
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3: The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Three Doctors & The Robots of Death

"The energy levels are low. We will survive. You will help us. You will help us!"

Jim Callum throws himself in front of the Doctor taking most of the blast in his shoulder. In the chambers bellow, many of the Cybermen retreat to the tomb they occupied leaving the Controller with a smaller group of Cybermen. Klieg opens the hatch and summons the Controller and the partially cybertised Toberman to the surface. The Controller uses the revitalising machine to repower his weakening form. Attempts by the Doctor and Jamie to trap him in it fail. Controlling Toberman he gets him to strike Klieg down and taking his gun shoots Kaftan dead. Toberman flings the Controller into the console damaging him. The Doctor goes bellow with Toberman to seal the Cybermen in their Tombs but while everyone is tending to the wounded Callum, Klieg sneaks bellow and halts the process. The Doctor engages him about his plans for world domination

The Doctor: Don't you see what this is going to mean to all the people who come to serve Klieg the all powerful? Why, no country, no person would dare to have a single thought that was not your own. Eric Klieg's own conception of the, of the way of life!
Eric Klieg: Brilliant! Yes, yes, you're right. Master of the world.
The Doctor: Well now I know you're mad, I just wanted to make sure.
Klieg is ambushed by one of the remaining Cybermen and killed, while the Cyberman is killed by Toberman. They return to the surface, the Doctor electrifying the doors, hatch and console but as they leave the Controller reactivates and attempts to prevent them closing the doors. Toberman shoves them closed at the cost of his life as he's electrocuted with the doors completing the circuit as they close. Parry, the sole survivor of the expedition proper, leaves with Hopper, Callum & the rest of the rocket ship's crew.

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It's quite a bleak ending that with Toberman's body lying lifeless in the dust alongside an escaped Cybermat!

But the episode is great stuff again. The Cybermen retreating to the tomb has had some flack over the years but from the Controller's behaviour afterwards it should be obvious they've got energy problems and their plan relied on getting to the revitalising machine quickly. You have to ask then why they didn't have one in the tombs!

Klieg, who's not learnt at all from his experience, tries to exploit the Cybermen needing something on their side of the hatch by once again coercing them to do his bidding:

DOCTOR: You still think you can bargain with the Cybermen?
KLIEG: Certainly. And this time on our terms.

KLIEG: They're coming. And now, gentlemen, you will see how I shall use the power of the Cybermen.
DOCTOR: Use maybe, but you'll never control the Cybermen.
KAFTAN: Eric, behind you!
KLIEG: Stop. You know what this can do to you.

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KLIEG: That's better. Now you are under my control. We know you must be revitalised or you will perish. If you agree to my terms, I shall let you survive.
CONTROLLER: I will listen.
KAFTAN: Make them release Toberman.
JAMIE: If you think they'll listen to you, you're even dafter than I thought.
KLIEG: Silence. Sit down. First, you release our man.
KAFTAN: Toberman, it is good that you are back. Watch them.
JAMIE: Doctor, he seems er
DOCTOR: Yes, Jamie, yes.
KLIEG: Stay where you are! Now, do you agree to accept our plan?
DOCTOR: Plan?
KLIEG: The conquest of the Earth.
PARRY: What? You must be out of your mind.
KLIEG: Silence! Your answer?
CONTROLLER: We accept. We will give you some of our power devices.
KLIEG: Good. I knew an understanding could be reached. I shall let you be revitalised. To survive, it must be now. Come forward. Slowly.

His next step is to lock the Cybercontroller in the rejuvenation chamber where the Doctor tries to trap him in the rejuvenation machine like what happened to Victoria in the first episode:
DOCTOR: I think not. I think there must be some sort of internal timing mechanism. Jamie, I hope you made those ropes secure.
JAMIE: Oh, the King of the beasties himself couldnae get out of that one.
DOCTOR: Good!
You can guess what happens next: The Controller bursts through the front of the machine shattering it!
DOCTOR: Jamie, remind me to give you a lesson in tying knots sometime.
Even though this attempt at bargaining with the Cybermen goes wrong he still ventures back down into the tombs for another go:
KLIEG: And so you have forfeited your right to survival. I shall make an example of you to all who question my intelligence, and the supreme power of the Cybermen.
DOCTOR: You know, I've heard all this before somewhere.
JAMIE: You know your trouble? You talk too much.
KLIEG: Oh, you're stupid. You still think that your puny minds can survive against us? You're decadent, weak. Do you know that? Weak!
DOCTOR: All right. Go ahead, kill us.
KLIEG: No, I have a better idea. Much better idea. I shall leave you to the Cybermen. I'm sure they'll have some use for you. Or parts of you.

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Unfortunately during that frothing exchange he's not noticed what's going on behind him and meets his end at the hands of a Cyberman.

The dying Cyberman, with foam emerging from it's battered chest unit, drew criticism for the BBC at the time for being too gruesome and led to co-author Kit Pedler appearing on the BBC Talkback show to debate the issue.

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However the real horror in this episode for me comes from what's done to Toberman. First we see him controlled by the Cybermen:

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Then it becomes apparent that he's been figuratively altered with his right arm replaced by a Cyberman arm. Why just that arm isn't quite clear and to be honest not a lot of screen time is given to this alteration that spends most of the episode covered over. The intention was that Toberman's partial conversion would be prefigured by having him being deaf and wearing hearing aids, a small first step to the replacement of his body by artificial parts.

In the end it's his modification by the Cybermen, allied to his already great physical strength demonstrated previously, that allows him to overcome the Controller, close the main main doors and complete the electrical circuit at the cost of his life.

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I think Tomb's a cracking story: decent monsters & villains, fabulous sets and some really good lines for Troughton. For many years it was seen as the highpoint of the series but since it's 1992 return it's taken a bit of a battering from fans compared to it's previous reputation. Don't care. I love it.

The Tomb of the Cybermen novel, by it's television co-author Gerry Davis, was one of the first Troughton stories I encountered, possibly even THE first. My local library had two Troughton books, both in Hardback: this was one, Web of Fear was the other. Their copy of Web now sits on my bookshelf thanks to a withdrawn book sale. It's complete with a once again inaccurate cover showing like the Cybermen, the novelization of The Moonbase television story, the wrong sort of Cybermen: both covers feature the Invasion version.

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In 1983 the BBC held a vastly over subscribed 20th anniversary Celebration convention at Longleat House in Wiltshire. During the weekend a poll was taken to determine which story would be the first released on video. Tomb of the Cybermen won. One problem: Tomb didn't exist at the time. So the BBC went for the next best thing that did exist: Revenge of the Cybermen. The first Revenge video release upheld the "wrong Cybermen on the cover" tradition by appearing with an Earthshock Cyberman on it's front! We'll forgive them the neon logo as that was in use by the series at the time!

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As we've said previously, Tomb was eventually released on video on May 4th 1992. It had been planned as a missing story audio release but the story's recovery temporarily shelved that. The audio cassette, with narration by Jon Pertwee, was eventually released in June 1993. Tomb's recovery affecting the release schedules was rumoured to put a stop on further missing episode releases presumably because the BBC thought more recoveries were imminent. I'm not sure this theory holds up: The audio cassettes were selling very, very well at the time. A new Tomb of the Cybermen Soundtrack CD was released in 2006, with new narration by Frazer Hines, completing Season 5 on BBC CD.

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Tomb of the Cybermen was released on DVD on the 14th January 2002 and was the first release to feature Patrick Troughton or, indeed, black and white material. This release wasn't VIDFIRED to restore the video look due to the process being in it's infancy at the time. However Planet of the Giants was already out on Video and does use the VIDFIRE process and there's a small Easter Egg of Vidfired material on this release. Tomb of the Cybermen was the earliest Doctor Who DVD to be deleted. A new version, with VIDFIRE and loads of new extras was released in the Doctor Who Revisitations III boxset alongside The Three Doctors & The Robots of Death in late 2011.

The DVD has a lovely little extra on it: over the selection screen for the episodes plays the audio of a trailer for the missing next Episode, the first part of The Abominable Snowmen!

Saturday 16 September 2017

172 The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 172
STORY NUMBER: 037
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 16 September 1967
WRITER: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
DIRECTOR: Morris Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Victor Pemberton
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations 3: The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Three Doctors & The Robots of Death

"You will become the first of a new race of Cybermen. You will return to the Earth and control it!"

The Cybermen explain their plans for the travellers:

CONTROLLER: You belong to us. You shall be like us.
PARRY: How did you know that we would come to release you? You could have remained frozen forever.
CONTROLLER: The humanoid mind. You are inquisitive.
DOCTOR: Ah, I see, a trap. A very special sort of trap, too.
PARRY: What do you mean, special trap?
DOCTOR: Well, don't you see? They only wanted superior intellects. That's why they made the trap so complicated.
CONTROLLER: We knew that somebody like you would come to our planet one day.
DOCTOR: Yes, and we've done exactly as you've calculated, haven't we?
CONTROLLER: Now you belong to us.
DOCTOR: Excuse me. May I ask a question? Why did you submit yourself to freezing? You don't have to answer that if you don't want to.
CONTROLLER: To survive. Our history computer has full details of you.
DOCTOR: Oh? How?
CONTROLLER: We know of your intelligence.
DOCTOR: Oh, thank you very much. Ah, yes. The lunar surface.
CONTROLLER: Our machinery had stopped and our supply of replacements been depleted.
DOCTOR: So that's why you attacked the Moonbase.
CONTROLLER: You had destroyed our first planet and we were becoming extinct.
JAMIE: What difference does capturing us make? You'll still become extinct.
CONTROLLER: We will survive. We will survive. Now you will help us.
PARRY: What makes you think we're going to help you? That murderer doesn't speak for us.
CONTROLLER: You will become the first of a new race of Cybermen. You will return to the Earth and control it.
PARRY: Never! Never!
CONTROLLER: Everything we decide is carried out. There are no mistakes.
JAMIE: A new race of Cybermen? But we're humans. We're not like you.
CONTROLLER: You will be.
DOCTOR: Oh, no, no. Keep away! Keep away! Keep away from me!

CONTROLLER: To struggle is futile.

They will be turned into Cybermen and sent to Earth to create a new race of Cybermen. Victoria returns with Captain Hopper & Jim Callum. They work the hatch controls out, but Kaftan stops them from opening it until she is overpowered. Once the hatch is opened, Captain Hopper goes bellow. The Cybermen confirm their plans for their captives:
CONTROLLER: We have decided how you will be used.
KLIEG: Yes?
CONTROLLER: You are a logician. Our race is also logical. You will be the leader of the new race.
KLIEG: You will listen to my proposals then?
CONTROLLER: Yes, we will listen, but first you will be altered.
KLIEG: Altered?
CONTROLLER: You have fear. We will eliminate fear from your brain. Yes. You will be the first.
CYBERMAN: And you will be the next.
PARRY: I? No, no!
CYBERMAN: You will be like us.
(Hopper takes the pin from a smoke grenade.)
CONTROLLER: To die is unnecessary. You will be frozen and placed in our tombs until we are ready to use you. Your lives will be suspended. Prepare the tombs.
PARRY: They really mean it. They're going to freeze us.
JAMIE: Not me.
Captain Hopper lets off smoke bombs allowing the Doctor, Parry & Jamie to escape. Toberman is captured by the Cybermen but Klieg makes his way to the surface and is let out the Tomb but then imprisoned with Kaftan in the weapons test room. Hopper returns to the rocket to finish repairs while Callum remains with the party. Kaftan & Klieg work on freeing the weapon held by the dummy Cyberman. The Doctor wakes late for his watch shift: Victoria has let him sleep. They talk about his great age and family
The Doctor: Are you happy with us, Victoria?
Victoria: Yes, I am. At least, I would be if my father were here.
The Doctor: Yes, I know, I know.
Victoria: I wonder what he would have thought if he could see me now.
The Doctor: You miss him very much, don't you?
Victoria: It's only when I close my eyes. I can still see him standing there, before those horrible Dalek creatures came to the house. He was a very kind man, I shall never forget him. Never.
The Doctor: No, of course you won't. But, you know, the memory of him won't always be a sad one.
Victoria: I think it will. You can't understand, being so ancient.
The Doctor: Eh?
Victoria: I mean old.
The Doctor: Oh.
Victoria: You probably can't remember your family.
The Doctor: Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they... they sleep in my mind and I forget. And so will you. Oh yes, you will. You'll find there's so much else to think about. To remember. Our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing, that nobody in the universe can do what we're doing.
As Victoria goes to sleep the Doctor notices Cybermats moving round the room. Everyone is woken and moves back to the control console where The Doctor runs a cable round them electrifying it and destroying the Cybermats. Klieg and Kaftan enter the room threatening the party, and then a shot is fired....

That's cracking stuff: plenty of action, some sinister monsters and that superb chat between the Doctor and Victoria during the quiet of the night, inspired by the revelation of the Doctor's age in episode 1. Fabulous, loved it.

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OK, yes, you can see the Kirby wires holding Toberman up as the Cyberman flings him across the room but it's a small fault and one that probably wasn't visible at the time.

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The Cybermen we see here are essentially the same as their Moonbase equivalents, one of the few times in Doctor Who's history that they don't change between appearances.

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Their main weapon here seems to be electrical sparks, generated from their hands, which we previously saw in The Moonbase. As there it's used to stun people. We've not seen them use their guns at all here. The guns, rod like device poked through the chest units, haven't even been drawn. In the Moonbase, and it's predecessor the dish device in the Tenth Planet, these weapons are used to kill not stun so there could actually be some continuity with their armament going on here!

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We get to see a new addition to the Cyberforces in the form of their Controller: he has no ear handles, head light or chest unit, a darker body & face and an enlarged cranium with a clear brain like top. It's the Controller that does most of the talking here with an emotionless drone to his voice as used for the Moonbase Cybermen, provided by by voice actor Peter Hawkins, who voiced Cybermen for the Tenth Planet and The Moonbase as well as the Daleks in all of their appearance. He's making his penultimate Doctor Who appearance here.

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Inside the Cyber Controller costume is Michael Kilgarriff who'll be back as an Ogron in Frontier in Space, and the Robot in Tom Baker's debut story, Robot, before returning as the Cyber Controller in Attack of the Cybermen. In the intervening 18 years he'd put on a pound or 2 and thus the Attack Controller is a littler porkier than he should be just for the sake of a nod to the fans out there. A different Controller has returned in new Doctor Who but uses the exposed brain idea suggested by the enlarged cranium of the Controller seen here. If you want to see what he looks like at around this time then he's in the UFO episode Conflict as Joe Steiner. You can hear him in The Dark Crystal voicing The General.

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This episode also highlights the silverfish like Cybermats that we saw a smaller version of earlier on in the story. They return in Wheel in Space, where the Cybermen used them to consume a fuel supply, and in Revenge of the Cybermen, where they're used to spread a plague similar to that seen in The Moonbase. Here they're actual threat is a little undetermined.

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They do give rise to a very bad pun, possibly an ad lib by Troughton given Frazer Hines' reaction:

PARRY: What are those creatures?
DOCTOR: Well, they're a form of metallic life. They home on human brainwaves and attack.
VICTORIA: Are they safe now?
DOCTOR: Yes, quite safe now. The power cable generated an electrical field and confused their tiny metal minds. You might almost say that they've had a complete metal breakdown.
(Jamie groans)
DOCTOR: I'm so sorry, Jamie.
In later life Hines becomes very fond of similar jokes himself becoming a regular contributor to Toby Hadoke's Pun Jar on commentaries.

Last episode we saw Victoria leave a gun lying around next to her unconscious prisoner: that turned out well as we see in this episode when Kaftan uses it to attempt to coerce Victoria, Hopper and Callum!

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There's no evidence that anyone has learned from that experience as they now lock Klieg and Kaftan up in a room that they know contains guns!

KAFTAN: What are you going to do now?
KLIEG: Take command, of course. What do you think? With this I shall be able to deal with those people in there.
KAFTAN: Never mind about them. The important thing for us is to control the Cybermen.
KLIEG: Yes, I know but
KAFTAN: Isn't it, Eric?
KLIEG: You haven't been down there. You haven't seen those vile things.
KAFTAN: You're not scared, are you?
KLIEG: I have completely underestimated their power.
KAFTAN: But this time we have the power, at least you do. The gun, Eric, the gun. You have the Cybermen's own weapon, this laser to turn against them. Now they will have to obey. If they refuse, we shall destroy the opening device and seal them up in their tomb forever. Now do you understand?
KLIEG: Yes. Yes, you're right. I am invulnerable with this. I shall be master.
KAFTAN: Come, let us deal with these people first. Eric?
KLIEG: Master. The supreme moment in my life. It was logical.
KAFTAN: Eric, we have work to do.
KLIEG: Yes, yes, of course. But hardly work, more a pleasure.
KAFTAN: What?
KLIEG: The pleasure to test this on that Doctor and his companions. The others are of no consequence, but he will make a most precise target.
Onto the actors within ranks of the Cybermen in this story: Four of the Cybermen in this story will be back as a different monster in the very next story: Reg Whitehead, Tony Harwood, John Hogan and Richard Kerley are the four actors playing Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen. Interestingly none of them are Yeti in their second appearance, The Web of Fear!

Reg Whitehead has already been a Cybermen in The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase, and in addition to the aforementioned Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen he also plays the doomed explorer John in the opening moments of the first episode. He gets a name check in this story when Klieg refers to the fictional "Whitehead Logic"in episode 1! He's not the last member of cast or crew to get mentioned on screen in a Doctor Who story either!

It's Tony Harwood's first Doctor Who appearance here, and after his Yeti next story he'll be back as the Martian Rintan in the The Ice Warriors, in The Seeds of Death & The War Games as other unnamed Ice Warriors and in The Ambassadors of Death as Flynn.

John Hogan later appears in Blake's 7as a Scavenger in Deliverance while Richard Kerley has a recurring role as Sergeant Hinds in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)

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Charles Pemberton returns as an Alien Technician in The War Games - I'd like to think he's related to acting Script Editor Victor Pemberton but can't find any evidence that he is. You may have seen him as a Police Constable in Rentaghost or a Policeman in Sapphire & Steel and you can also find him as Prison Officer Miller in the Porridge film. There's a couple of episodes of The Professionals on his CV as Big Man in The Rack and Styles in The Acorn Syndrome so I know I've seen him in stuff but couldn't place his face!

Hans De Vries can be seen in You Only Live Twice as a Control Room Technician and UFO: The Psychobombs as a Security Man. Kenneth Seeger appeared previously in science fiction classic Quatermass and the Pit playing a Sightseer in The Halfmen, Dr. Klein in The Enchanted, a Man in Crowd in The Wild Hunt and a Sightseer in Hob.

One of these men is the poor actor who's cyber costume is shown to be ripped in the scene where he descends the ladder from the now sealed entrance hatch!

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We saw spaceship crewman Jim Callum briefly in episode one but having missed episode two he takes on a much larger role here. He's played by Clive Merrison who returns 20 years later as the Deputy Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers, and is a far better actor than either of his Doctor Who appearances will lead you to believe. Running down his CV I've seen him in Firefox as Major Lanyev, Yes Prime Minister: The Smoke Screen as Dr. Peter Thorn, the Minister of State at the DHSS, Drop the Dead Donkey: Drunk Minister as Nicholas Waugh and The 1990s Tomorrow People: The Living Stones as General Beaumont-Savage. The most recent thing I can recall him in is the Lewis story The Lions of Nemea as Simon Flaxmore. He was interviewed by Toby Hadoke in Who's Round #170.

In late Jan/early Feb 1992 one was having a tinsy bit of a bad run: I'd been involved in a serious car accident (write off), my then girlfriend and I had split up and I had fallen down a flight of stairs further injuring my already damaged back. All in the space of 2 weeks. The University health centre decided to admit me and I spent nearly a week as their guest with little contact with the outside world. (worse was to follow: a week later I went down with acute appendicitis and was hospitalised!) Fortunately some friends brought me a paper in most day (The Telegraph: Christopher Martin-Jenkins was writing their cricket and the crossword & obits were good) There one day in the paper was the news that The Tomb of the Cybermen had been found. Much rejoicing was heard in fandom, there's a very good issue of Celestial Toyroom, the Doctor Who Appreciation Society magazine commemorating the recovery.

On May 4th that year, my Birthday as it happens, Tomb was released on video (alongside Claws of Axos: Twin Dilemma had been intended for release, this then became a Woolworths exclusive so some time, also released that day). Checks calender..... May 4th 1992 was a bank holiday and back then most shops didn't open on bank holidays so I'm guessing we didn't get a copy till the next day. Off we all trooped to the Woolworths in Egham, handed our cash over and sat down to watch a Doctor Who story we'd never seen before. It was the first time I'd seen the sixties Cybermen as well: the surviving episodes of The Moonbase and The Wheel in Space weren't released till 6th July that same year as part of Cybermen: The Early Years. I loved Tomb when I first saw it, still do. The only thing that bugged me at the time were the voice: Being used to the 1980s Cybermen, the Peter Hawkins electronic drone comes as a bit of a shock! I really didn't like them then and still don't to this day. Of the Sixties Cybervoices I much prefer the sing song ones from the Tenth Planet, however this matter is a source of much debate in our house as my wife hates those!