As far as Earthshock is concerned, I totally disagree with you. Though Adric's death was no doubt dramatic in itself, I think even if he had been saved, it still would have been a cracking story. Very rarely does The Doctor get to be totally helpless for a complete episode as he was in Part 4 here. Not only that, The Cybermen's surprise appearance at the end of Part 1, the incidental music, the pacing, all these things imo make it a good story. I much prefer the Cybermen here than in later classic stories where they seem to have been ever more vulnerable to attack and this story is isn't as awful as Revenge Of The Cybermen, it isn't as violent as Attack and is far superior in everyway to Silver Nemesis.

I do, however, agree with your other points. The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase are quite effective Cyber-stories leading upto their peak in Tomb Of The Cybermen. After that, they did start getting a raw deal in the 60's. I'm not that keen on The Wheel In Space and The Invasion, though a good story in itself, wasn't good Cyberman-wise as they took a back scene and Tobias Vaughn stole the show.

Could I ask the people who have voted for Closing Time, what it is about that makes it the best Cybermen story for you, just asking folks

Its a masterpiece...simples!

Storywise it maybe but from a Cyberman perspective, it was awful!

Earthshock for me, it was probably the first or second time I had seen the cybermen, and for them to manage to kill one of the companions just showed that life with the Doctor really could be more dangerous than just an adventure.
Along with the silent credits slowly zooming in on the broken remains of Adric's star!

I was born in 1970 and the Cybermen are one of the first monsters that I remember clearly. For me, the appeal (or at the time terror) was that they were large, intelligent, unstoppable, relentless, emotionless and ruthless.

All of that was destroyed after the Five Doctors and Attack of the Cybermen where they were portrayed as vulnerable and stupid. They like the Daleks were hard to kill, very good at killing. Very unlikely to want to sit down and discuss the matter. You felt the danger as soon as they were on screen.

Tomb. Any day of the week.

Which is odd, because actually when you look at it, the cybermen didn't really do a huge amount during the story. I think the thing that made it scary was the premise that there was a tomb of these relentless monsters, changed beyond all original appearance, who were desperate to survive and were biding their time until an unfortunate soul stumbled across them.

I am really, really disappointed with the way the cybermen have been treated recently. Closing time infuriated me. It promised so much - a group of broken, ageing, decaying cybermen who needed to survive by whatever means necessary - and at the final hurdle, it fell flat on its' face. It's the only one of the Matt stories I've ever watched just the once, because I can't bear to be let down by the ending again.

The design is clunky. I like the heads, but the body screams 'robocop'. They clunk around and look awkward. Think back to Tomb, and they were completely different - they moved silently and smoothly, they calculated their next move.

There is a design by Matt Savage, a concept artist for the series, which is absolutely outstanding. Seeing as they decided to redesign the Daleks, I'm hoping they choose to 'upgrade' (sorry!) the cybermen next and use his design, because that would take them back to the Tomb/Wheel In Space era - cold, calculating, and getting the connotation of deeply disturbing body-horror really well.

Whatever happens, I hope the next time we see them, they have a much better story to work with. I think the perfect person for that would be Gaiman. I think he'd get the body-horror concept across really well.

I've already been on here and voted - for 'Tomb'.
But after reading further posts.....I agree that 'Earthshock' was a classic story. (I think I placed that 2nd anyway)
The early stories depicted them as a scary human/robotic race of aliens. The New series.....hmmm just clunky marching robots!!! AND they can be killed by a dalek with one blast!!
They were much scarier in the old days IMO.....even the William Hartnell ones with cloth-faces and funny voices!

Well, I finally finished watching The Invasion. While, I think it's a very good story, with a great villain, I'd still place it behind Earthshock and Tomb. So it's probably the 3rd best Cybermen story.

The Cybermen were effective, particularly with the London location shots, but I think one of the problems with all of the 60's Cybermen (which has been copied in new Who) is the tinny electronic
voices. This is, to me, a big reason why the Cybermen currently fail in Dr Who.

Probably from Revenge onwards, you had the Cybermen talking properly, which gave them more of a convincing edge. Not sure why they abandoned this in new Who.

Anyway Troughton, as always was great in this.

One thing to add to the above is that Attack obviously tried to copy the Invasion, particularly with the Cybermen in the sewers..

Tomb does it for me but Earthshock is a close second, after all it does have the demise of Addrick