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Why didn't we see the Cybermen on screen during Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor? |
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#1 |
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Why didn't we see the Cybermen on screen during Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor?
I've been thinking about this on/off now for a while, and it just occoured to me, "mention this on Digital Spy, and you may get an answer."
I would have really loved JP's Doctor to have faced the 'silver, metal giants' at some point. All we get is a one second glimpse of what they looked like during Troughton's era, in Carnival of Monsters. Shame, really! ![]() What do you think? Do you think it would have been good to have had the Cybermen in JP's era? |
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#2 |
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There wasn't really a call for them after a very Cyber-filled Pat Troughton Era.
Fortunately JNT must have thought this himself as Pertwee and Sarah-Jane had a run-in with the Cybermen in the Five Doctors.
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#3 |
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Quote:
There wasn't really a call for them after a very Cyber-filled Pat Troughton Era.
Fortunately JNT must have thought this himself as Pertwee and Sarah-Jane had a run-in with the Cybermen in the Five Doctors. ![]() Makes me laugh every time I re-watch the Five Doctors on DVD.
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#4 |
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I think it's a shame they didn't appear during the Pertwee Era. It's one of those annoying things like the Brig never having a full story opposite the Sixth Doctor and the Daleks not ever appearing in the TV Movie in full opposite the Eighth Doctor. In those cases it would have meant every Classic Doctor meeting Nicholas Courtney and every Doctor having met the Daleks and the Cybermen!
I wonder if the lack of Cybermen during Pertwee's time was down to the fact they had already tried to attack Earth in The Invasion therefore having it fit into the Exile Scenario initially would have seemed repetitive. However, there's no reason why in later Pertwee stories(after the exile had been rescinded) that he could have met them elsewhere. Maybe as has been said it was considered they were overused during Troughton's time and needed a rest, like Moffat did with the Daleks recently. Either way, it does seem ironic that they appeared immediately in Tom Baker's first Season. Maybe if Pertwee had stayed on for a Sixth Season he may have met them, who knows? I agree about JNT's need for completeness. He met them in The Five Doctors and though it isn't strictly the 'c' word he got the Brig to meet the Sixth Doctor in Dimensions in Time as well.........
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#5 |
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Yeah, I guess Barry Letts might've thought they'd been exhausted in the Troughton era but it is quite surprising in retrospect. Then again, there was a massive gap between Revenge...and Earthshock, which made their return in the latter so thrilling at the time.
We did get a glimpse of them in Carnival of Monsters, though! And obviously a Cyberhead appeared in Dalek, but that's a bit off topic and no one likes a smartarse.
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#6 |
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It could also be argued that in Pertwee's time the Cybermen weren't quite the iconic monsters that they are today
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#7 |
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We did see the Cybermen in Pertwee's era.... Carnival of Monsters. Blink and you missed them!
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#8 |
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Quote:
It could also be argued that in Pertwee's time the Cybermen weren't quite the iconic monsters that they are today
The rubbish Revenge of the Cybermen in Tom Bakers time may have dented them a bit though. |
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#9 |
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Quote:
We did see the Cybermen in Pertwee's era.... Carnival of Monsters. Blink and you missed them!
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#10 |
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Yeah a blob in a snowstorm. Were they also seen in The Mind of Evil? Thanks to the Keller machine?
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#11 |
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what were the second's stories again? moon base, invasion, tomb and wheel?
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#12 |
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Back then some monsters were tied into specific writers, mainly their creators. So Ice Warrior stories were normally by Brian Hayles, Dalek stories by Terry Nation or David Whitaker and Cybermen stories by Gerry Davis or Kit Pedler. Sometimes another writer would take them on, such as Louis Marks in Day of the Daleks but that's a bit of a rarity.
Anyway, during the Pertwee era Gerry Davis had moved on from the show and with him the Cybermen. They only (properly) appear once in the 70s and that was in a Gerry Davis story. In addition, the Cybermen had only appeared so often in the Troughton era because they were an active replacement for the Daleks and Gerry Davis was script editor. As the Daleks returned to the series in the Pertwee era, the need for the Cybermen reduced. Times changed and by the 80s the iconic monsters were written by whoever was around at the time. |
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#13 |
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Quote:
Back then some monsters were tied into specific writers, mainly their creators. So Ice Warrior stories were normally by Brian Hayles, Dalek stories by Terry Nation or David Whitaker and Cybermen stories by Gerry Davis or Kit Pedler. Sometimes another writer would take them on, such as Louis Marks in Day of the Daleks but that's a bit of a rarity.
Anyway, during the Pertwee era Gerry Davis had moved on from the show and with him the Cybermen. They only (properly) appear once in the 70s and that was in a Gerry Davis story. In addition, the Cybermen had only appeared so often in the Troughton era because they were an active replacement for the Daleks and Gerry Davis was script editor. As the Daleks returned to the series in the Pertwee era, the need for the Cybermen reduced. Times changed and by the 80s the iconic monsters were written by whoever was around at the time. |
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#14 |
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Well, that's a very informative post. Didn't know that and explains a lot.
![]() (and apologise to the OP, I missed the Carnival of Monsters reference you made in your post...I was calling myself a smartarse, not you!) |
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#15 |
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Well, wait though. Gerry Davis was script editor from The Massacre to Evil of the Daleks. So the only Cybermen stories whilst he was script editor were The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase.
Tenth Planet came immediately before Power of the Daleks and The Moonbase came midway between Power and Evil of the Daleks, so they were alternating monsters during Davis' era. The Cybermen don't properly become a 'replacement' for the Daleks until after Evil ('the final end'). From Evil we go directly into Tomb of the Cybermen (after the season break), then 7 months later there's Wheel, and The Invasion 5 months after that. But all of these after Davis' tenure as script editor was over. During the first two years of Pertwee's era there were neither Daleks nor Cybermen. So it's not as if it were only the return of the Daleks that precipitated the disappearance of the Cybermen. It was probably that the new production team didn't have a very close association with Gerry Davis or Kit Pedler, or simply that they wanted to go in a new direction. |
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#16 |
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Not sure where I read it but im sure I read many years ago that jon pertwee himself didn't like the cyberman much and asked that he didn't go up against them.Could just be a load of rubbish though.
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#17 |
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Quote:
Not sure where I read it but im sure I read many years ago that jon pertwee himself didn't like the cyberman much and asked that he didn't go up against them.Could just be a load of rubbish though.
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#18 |
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Quote:
Not sure where I read it but im sure I read many years ago that jon pertwee himself didn't like the cyberman much and asked that he didn't go up against them.Could just be a load of rubbish though.
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#19 |
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Pertwee's antipathy regarding the Daleks is well documented, and I guess the Cybermen could well have been a similar thing. He always mentioned the Draconians as favourites because you could pick out and respond to their features, rather than just having expressionless aliens threatening you.
It's a moot point how much influence he would've had on decisions regarding returning Monsters though as seen by those Dalek stories popping up from Season 9 on. Very little, I'd guess. But it is a guess! Combination of things then, probably, regarding the original question. |
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#20 |
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I sort of had an answer in my head when I came into this thread, which was, "Same reason Matt Smith never faced the Master. Basically - shrug!" This -- Quote:
Pertwee's antipathy regarding the Daleks is well documented, and I guess the Cybermen could well have been a similar thing. He always mentioned the Draconians as favourites because you could pick out and respond to their features, rather than just having expressionless aliens threatening you.
It's a moot point how much influence he would've had on decisions regarding returning Monsters though as seen by those Dalek stories popping up from Season 9 on. Very little, I'd guess. But it is a guess! Combination of things then, probably, regarding the original question. Also interesting, this: Quote:
Originally Posted by Rooks
Back then some monsters were tied into specific writers, mainly their creators. So Ice Warrior stories were normally by Brian Hayles, Dalek stories by Terry Nation or David Whitaker and Cybermen stories by Gerry Davis or Kit Pedler. Sometimes another writer would take them on, such as Louis Marks in Day of the Daleks but that's a bit of a rarity.
Anyway, during the Pertwee era Gerry Davis had moved on from the show and with him the Cybermen. They only (properly) appear once in the 70s and that was in a Gerry Davis story. In addition, the Cybermen had only appeared so often in the Troughton era because they were an active replacement for the Daleks and Gerry Davis was script editor. As the Daleks returned to the series in the Pertwee era, the need for the Cybermen reduced. Times changed and by the 80s the iconic monsters were written by whoever was around at the time. And in twenty years, it'll be Macaulay McCawley bringing back the Weeping Angels, and we'll all be very excited, then we'll all be moaning about how the new team ruined them, and why couldn't they have brought back a villain with gravitas like The Flood - all that flapping about. |
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#21 |
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In contrast, I would imagine any actor in the new era would feel hard done by if he didn't get his Dalek or Cyberman story!
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#22 |
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You could be right! I remember in 1970 seeing Jon Pertwee in an interview saying that the new show would be totally new..."No Daleks or anything like that" They relented in the end and gave him loads of dalek stories after about two seasons!! (PUBLIC DEMAND ?). The poor Cybermen never got a look-in though!
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#23 |
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I think that was down to Terry Nation. The Daleks were written out of the show in "Evil" because Nation was trying to sell the Daleks to the US. He failed so the Daleks became available to the series once more.
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#24 |
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Trying to imagine American Daleks. The world would certainly never have been the same.
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#25 |
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Yeah a blob in a snowstorm. Were they also seen in The Mind of Evil? Thanks to the Keller machine?
Thanks!
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Makes me laugh every time I re-watch the Five Doctors on DVD.