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Revenge Of The Cybermen
daveyboy7472
Posts: 16,418 Forum Member
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With Genesis Of The Daleks, it's a popular story I'm not keen on. With this story, it seems from reading things here and there that it's possibly regarded as the weakest story of Tom Baker's era-but I still do actually like it-sort of! 
It is however imo the worst of all the Cybermen stories. Their return after seven years away is not exactly a spectacular one. They appear a lot more emotional than usual and the 'South African' accent of the Cyber Leader is quite clear. (Maybe he was South African before he was converted!)
If anything it was the Cybermats that had the better comeback even though it's obvious the actors are holding onto them as they are being attacked!
I enjoy all the scenes on the Space Station Nerva but not so much in the cave scenes. Sarah and Harry have another great story together and Harry's friendship with The Doctor is seriously put to the tests at times. (Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!:D)
The Vogans do spend lots of time arguing with each other but they are a useful addition to the story. The whole bomb plot adds some tension in the latter episodes but perhaps the best part of the story is that The Doctor and Sarah are heading for the Biggest Bang in history!
So yes, not a great story but better perhaps than it's reputation deserves.
It is however imo the worst of all the Cybermen stories. Their return after seven years away is not exactly a spectacular one. They appear a lot more emotional than usual and the 'South African' accent of the Cyber Leader is quite clear. (Maybe he was South African before he was converted!)
If anything it was the Cybermats that had the better comeback even though it's obvious the actors are holding onto them as they are being attacked!
I enjoy all the scenes on the Space Station Nerva but not so much in the cave scenes. Sarah and Harry have another great story together and Harry's friendship with The Doctor is seriously put to the tests at times. (Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!:D)
The Vogans do spend lots of time arguing with each other but they are a useful addition to the story. The whole bomb plot adds some tension in the latter episodes but perhaps the best part of the story is that The Doctor and Sarah are heading for the Biggest Bang in history!
So yes, not a great story but better perhaps than it's reputation deserves.
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I actually love Revenge, and would certainly rate it higher than Attack and Silver Nemesis , Kellman, is a wonderfull villain and the design of the Cybermen is one of my favorites. And the Doctor's bating of the Cyber leader with his "pathetic bunch of tin soldiers" is one of the best and most memorable Doctor quotes. Of course like most stories it has his plot holes the allergy to gold was one of the worst things ever thought up and made absolutely no sense at all when the Cybermen were walking around on Voga.
can't say I've ever noticed the accent but the way he walked around with hands on hips made him the campest Cyber leader we've seen.
However, it's a watchable tale, with some good bits (brilliant use of location at Wookey Hole caves, the intense scenes on the space station, the developing relationship between the Doctor, Sarah and Harry), and some bad bits (the Cybermen aren't terribly convincing in this, and the Vogans are pretty dull, plus the story drags at times). Perhaps, like The Sontaran Experiment, this would have worked better as a 2-parter...
A nice idea but poorly realised. Like 'Genesis', it might be interesting to see how it would look if it were remade today.
Uncomplicated and undemanding it does include some good moments and regulars are on good form as ever. I think if this wasn't surrounded by so many good stories it wouldn't have quite the reputation it has.
I can't really agree with that. I love Attack Of The Cybermen and to an extent I don't mind Silver Nemesis either. At least the Cybermen were more like Cybermen in both. In this they seem a pale shadow of their former selves and even their voices, accent or not, sound almost normal.
Do agree about Kellman though, he was a good villain even in the end not everything was as it appeared with him.
The shiny flashing nerve thing (if you know what I mean) that happens to all the victims of the cybermats is reasonably good effects I always thought!
This is a great scene and quote, it is the quote from this story. :cool Although I like the Bunch of tin soldiers quote for it's wind up value.
This is the problem with this story, it's just too unbelievable. Gold tipped bullets anyone? Yet in Silver Nemesis, Ace with a catapult and gold coins takes out a whole group of them!
There is still lots going for it, it is quite dramatic and Tom is continuing to shine even with a less good script and story than the previous stories.
This is truly awful. I hate Attack and Silver Nemesis, but even they're better than this.
Think Tom should have had at least one more tale with the Cybermen, Daleks (only 2??), and certainly The Zygons
Well, there we are; I loved The Next Doctor. For me it's the best of the Christmas specials. Proves yet again that there will never be consensus on anything.
Indeed
Just rewatched this again and still stand by my point this story, though it has a lot of negativity towards it, isn't quite as bad as it seems.
For a start, I think it has three very good cliffhangers. The first one, despite the dodgyiness of the Cybermats 'being held' to the actors throat, saw Sarah in some peril that looked irreversible. The second one it seemed The Doctor really had copped it and the best one was the third. Thought that one where The Doctor could have been killed by 'friendly fire' so to speak was an unusual one.
I agree with a post above that Kellmann was an unusual villain. I like characters that appear bad and turn out good and vice versa, so it was a neat twist and perhaps he didn't deserve the fate that he had.
There are a few things that could have been improved. The Cybermen, especially the Cyberleader, were a little too emotional for Cybermen and as mentioned above, they had accents and they sounded almost normal. Whatever the faults of later Cybermen stories, this problem was rectified. I'm also surprised the Cybermen had no record of The Doctor. Maybe as this was the last of them, they didn't have any records anymore but thought they may have known he was.
I also thought the cave sequences clashed with the beacon ones and also, considering one bomb hardly blew anything up in the last episode that three may not have done as much damage as was predicted.
One other thing, Michael Wisher really must have been a busy bee during this period. Having just played Davros the previous story here he was again as one of the Vogans and one of the relatives of the crew in the first episode.......
Anyway, this story may not be one of the best, but it's one of those stories that I like watching. I wouldn't classify it a guilty pleasure as such, but there's not too much to dislike about it, but it has got poor production values at times. It's like a 70's version of The Chase, which I find has similar problems, albeit, not as bad obviously.
Well from the Tom Baker era, (my favourite Doctor.) I find Underworld the hardest to sit through.
I don't even think Underworld is bad, just very plodding.
Revenge is good for me, but should have been great. Best Cybermen design, Well the tear eyes. Although they were virtually the same as the Invasion ones. Cybermats, glowing veins, a good villain.
The story sags in the middle though.
It's not the worst Cyberman story, that's Silver Nemesis and it's not the worst Tom Baker story, that's Underworld (and Invasion of Time and The Armageddon Factor and The Horns of Nimon and Meglos).
But it's got Tom, Lis and Ian in it and they're as great as always it's a solid if unspectacular story but has some lovely dialogue,
'Harry Sullivan is an imbecile' and the Doctor and Sarah facing the biggest bang in history are also favourite scenes of mine. Sarah and Harry on Voga are great as well.
That was only the secondary explosive triggered by removing the buckle, the actual cyberbomb itself did not explode.
THe chase is a classic adventure compaired to this.
I agree The Chase is a better story but it still has bad production values, worse than than this story though.
But it could have been so much worse.
Barry Letts planned to bring the Cybermen back to ease in the transition to Tom Baker's Doctor. And so he called up Gerry Davis, co-creator of the Cybermen - the plan was to set the Cyber story in the same space station as featured in another adventure that year, thus saving money on sets, and Barry knew that Davis, as a former script editor, would understand the requirements of a small budget story.
Davis duly turned in a story set entirely on the space station, but the preceding story fell through. However plans were so far advanced with sets etc that Robert Holmes had no choice but to come up with entirely new story using the same setting - The Ark In Space.
Davis' script was set at a later point in time when the space station was being used as a Space Casino. The Cybermen were using Cybermats to spread a space plague via the Casino - fortunately the Casino contained a lot of gold, which would be used to defeat them. (You'd think that the Cybermen might have considered this, when attacking a Casino, but then sensible plans were never their forte...)
Robert Holmes grew concerned that Davis' script was aimed at a younger audience than the incoming production team wanted. Holmes also made major changes to rewrite the Doctor's character (Davis had written him as basically Troughton), and then it was decided that some location work could actually be afforded after all. So Holmes came up with the whole Voga plot, dropped the casino idea entirely and basically rewrote the whole thing.
With all that in mind, it's amazing that RotC actually works at all. Interestingly some of the best stuff is the location work, something that was only scheduled at the last minute - although clearly no one had considered that the Cybermen should never have been able to function inside a planet of gold...
Cheers -a very insightful piece on the background to this story and related stories.
I actually quite like Revenge of the Cybermen (shock horror)
I agree that it is not up there with great cybermen stories like Tomb of he Cybermen, The Invasion (my favourite 2nd Doctor story) or Earthshock, but I found it enjoyable, very memorable, had quite a few good gimmicks, gadgets and settings & the story itself was okay/ easy to follow.
I think a problem is, like The Android Invasion, there are simply so many other good or classic stories around it from that time and amongst the season they were conceived in. Now if you take RotC out of season 12 and put it in say season 15, 16 or 17, then I think it would be viewed more favourably.
..Then again, you would have to also take out Sarah & Harry altogether, who both always add to any story they featured, so may be a little hard to judge.
1. My sleeve notes say that this was the first episode to be put out for sale by the BBC on video and therefore 'helped keep Doctor Who alive'....
2. Is this the one with the tubby Cyberman? How does a Cyberman have a weight problem? Or this is now a forbidden topic and I'm drawing attention to a protected characteristic under Cyber diversity legislation? (Or if it's another episode with which I am confusing this one, I will make amends by watching it.)
Re, your first point, I think there's an interesting short doco about this on the DVD release on it being the first VHS DW release, how well it sold (it was loved at one point in time!), & how much it sold for -30 pounds or something -? a lot of money back then.
Re your second point I think you confusing this story with Attack of the Cybermen & the return of the Cyber leader (who had obviously consumed too much oil since Tomb of the Cybermen). ;-)