What about when the Vogans fire guns at the Cybermen? They would have used the most commonly available material, gold, for bullets because it has very similar qualities to lead. Their bullets have no effect yet in Silver Nemesis when Ace shoots gold coins into their chests, the Cybermen die.
Are these a different variant of Cybermen more resistant to gold than in Silver Nemesis.

Perhaps; the indication is these Cybermen are farther in the future from the Cybermen in "Silver Nemesis" (Doctor #4 calls them "the last of their kind", but in SN, we see a huge Cyberfleet). They may have redesigned themselves to become more resistant.

I just want to point out that judging by the uniforms of the Nerva Beacon staff, ries will be around for a long time to come.

I meant 'ties' with my last post. That'll teach me to proofread.

Not necessarily. Fashion is probably cyclical and they've no doubt been and gone many times over the years.

Yes, but it's a shame that the human race's collective IQ has failed to evolve during the hundreds of years we've got till Revenge of the Cybermen. 'If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing ties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?' [Linda Ellerbee].

The cybermen were not as susceptible to gold as the Controller who was killed by tiny scrapings from Adric's badge, and CERTAINLY not as much as the Silver Nemesis cybermen (that scene was LUDICROUS), but didn't the Doctor kill a few of them with gold on the Beacon? Which means that the Vogans are so thick that they make bullets out of some non-gold metal, AND it doesn't occur to them to chuck gold dust instead of shooting. This from a race who are totally obsessed by cybermen.

I think this episode try to make the gold weakness sound a bit more reasonable by saying it was gold dust. The Doctor would toss a handful gold dust at a Cyberman's breathing apparatus and over they'd go. In "Earthshock", the Doctor did have to grind away with the badge before he got any effect, and he eventually had to shoot the offending Cyberman.

Of course, then he reprograms a Cybermat to inject the stuff into Cybermen, which I don't get.

You're definitely right about the Voga. They didn't even have to invent a new weapon. The Doctor mentions a weapon from the Cyberwars called a "glittergun", which I assume sprays gold dust.

Emily - I understand your point but apparently ties where originally part of dress to cover the buttons on a man's shirt. Nowadays it doesn't matter, of course, but maybe in the future it's not fashion to show your buttons any more? Yes, I know it's a stretch...
Incidentally, anyone know where I can get a Doctor Who tie? I've tried e-mailing some merchandise people on the Net and they don't have any. I mean you can get Who socks and boxer shorts but no ties. Star Trek does ties so why don't Who fans get them?

Actually, the Doctor said {"HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!!!!!"}

I think this is a criminally underrated story. The old arguments get trotted out by way of justifying this consensual hatred of it. "Oh", it is said, "the asteroid atomsphere is scientific rubbish and the Cybermen are just a bit too unCybermannish."

To be honest, there have been far worse concepts more or less forgotten about. For example, it seems okay for three Daleks in Evil to be a bit mad, for Xoanon and BOSS to be quasi-human. Putting to one side Revenge's niggles, we do actually have a very atmospheric and tight story that holds its own rather well. The music and sets are perfectly fine, and the script is hardly Robot. I see no reason to hate this.

PJW--forget the pseudoscience. The biggest problem with the story is the planet of gold. Cybermen are fatally allergic to gold; the merest fleck from a gold coin can kill them ("Silver Nemesis"). Yet here they beam down on a planet made entirely of gold, and seem happy as Cyberclams. A big plot hole, wouldn't you say?

FIrst off, Silver Nemesis was such a sick joke of an episode that I'd never site it for any nit. Second, it's the heart of Voga that is pure gold. The upper levels are made mainly of rock. What gold is near the top appears to be solid, rather than dust. If the whole planet were made of gold, it would rather stick out.

The "Discontinuity Guide" points out that gold is so common on Voga that they use it to make chains. Why not then whip up some gold bullets and end this reign of Cyberterror?

I know this'll sound a bit Life of Brian, but, apart from the gold, the asteroid, the jolly Cybermen, the title, Kellman's strangely large forehead... what has the story done to us? What about Genesis's faults? A very long war over a very short distance? The Daleks not being programmed to not kill Davros? The Doctor reclaiming the tape spool quite forgetting that Davros could remember bits of it at least? Okay, they aren't as severe, but you see my point that Voga's weaponary may well be an oversight, but as with all plotholes, you aren't supposed to think about them and to assume that there must be some reason. Maybe they used up their gold supply of bullets fighting amongst themselves? Perhaps the gold is alloyed to a great degree? Perhaps the guns can't fire them? If you worry about plotholes and let it mar a story, then surely we can find a justification to hate every story!

True, but you must also remember that the faults of one story do not excuse the faults of another. "Genesis" did have its share of problems, but it also had a great villain, an interesting moral quandry for the Doctor, and the origin of our favorite little pepperpots. "Attack" just had a bunch of running around.

We criticize the stories not because we hate the show, but because we aspire for it to be better. Besides, you have to love something a lot to be able to notice all the details.

I'm simply saying, I guess, that Revenge is lovely. Naturally I recognise criticism, but with this story it smothers the actual joy to be had.

RE: Gold bullets.
This episode firmly establishes that it is gold dust that they don't like, as it clogs up their Cyberlungs. So, gold bullets would just flatten themselves on their Cyberarmor. And for anyone who thinks to use Silver Nemesis as an argument against this, remember that it's a sick joke of an episode.
Two things I would have altered: First, when the Doctor announces that the wossitium drive has been removed from the teleporter, Stevenson asks "But who?" Instead of what he replyed, the Doctor should have just glared at him and Stevenson would then say, "Oh, right. •••••• question. Come on Lester, we've got some sissy exographer butt to kick." The second is how the Doctor rigged up the teleporter to work. Instead of that box of wires, he should have, MacGyver-style, used a wad of Jelly Babies, so that after it worked, he would proclaim. "Jelly Babies! Is there nothing they can't do?"

Maybe the Silver Nemesis ones are a different type of Cybermen (they look different) and gold has a stronger effect on them?

But how can a gold arrow clog up their vents? It must melt on impact pretty darn quickly. And surely there are other metals with the same properties? And if it is to simply clog them up, surely any form of sealant - heck, even a well-placed hand - could cause them harm?

We're not privvy to the vagaries of Cyber technology so maybe their latest design *does* make the gold dissipate quickly into their system? And maybe only gold works because it's something that happens at the molecular level - so only the properties of gold will work?
And weren't the arrows dipped in some sort of solution? So maybe that had an effect as well?

Mind you, you'd think the Cybermen would be finding a way to make themselves more resisant to gold, not less.

Two reasons why gold dust would clog up their Cyberlungs:
1.It doesn't corrode.
2.It doesn't mix with oxygen.

PJW, I've just watched this again in an attempt to pinpoint why I don't like it, but it didn't work. I loved the novelisation, yet somehow the excitement of facing cybermen with only a handful of gold, Sarah’s infection, the cybermats, the Doctor’s jokes, the corpses, the handful of doomed men struggling on, the poignancy of Vorus's death (‘My Starstriker, my glory’), Kellman’s double-crossing...well, they all just fall rather flat whenever I actually see them :(

A few more nits (sorry, PJW)...why does Kellman, who is trying to claim that the asteroid is insignificant, call it 'Voga'? Anyone with any knowledge of Earth's war with the cybermen (not any of Nerva Beacon's crew, obviously) would immediately start shrieking 'Gold, GOLD!'

And why doesn't the Doctor contact Voga to tell them how to aim their rocket until he's freed? He could easily have reached the communicator when tied up.

And why did Nerva Beacon need a crew of 40, anyway? Why couldn't they just emit a recorded message 'There's an asteroid on X coordinates, keep away'. And the three survivors had no cause to be so tired - at one point they say there's not another ship due for nine days.' NINE DAYS? Talk about an easy job!

But never mind...'Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!' atones for so much.

Emily, why does Nerva Beacon need a crew? I imagine because they still have unions in the Far Future^TM.
The main thing that made this a not too bad episode instead of a really good episode is that the script editor wasn't on the ball. There are lines in it that don't work too well, or worse, don't make sense.

The script had already been commissioned by the Barry Letts team before he left, leaving the Hinchcliffe stuck with it. Sometimes no amount of rewriting can resurrect a bad script.

*snivel*

Anyhoo, there is another nit. Not so much a nit as a full scalp. I mean, here we are talking about the silliness of having a beacon crew when we don't need the bloody beacon! If Voga is so new ships don't have it on their charts, and they slap a beacon out there, then won't this also not be on any charts? The Seeds of Death proved that a simple bleep-bleep noise can be obtained from something little bigger than a stove, so why not plop one of those on the surface?

Another nit, (I'm on a roll!), is the utter rubbish of Kellman being the only one to have been down on the 'planet' to fix up a bloody great transmat! And no one ever thought to go with the big-foreheaded one and give him a hand? That's tosh!

And those guns aren't kept very secure in that cupboard. Shouldn't they be on a rack? Wouldn't they have 'laser' (does the Dr Evil finger thing) guns rather than those clunky antiques?

I guess this is one of those few cases when style wins over content for me. Cheers Emily though for giving the thing a whirl!

The Doctor asks Sarah if she doubted they would get back and she mentions, "these past few weeks". Weeks? Ark In Space took what, maybe a day or two. The Sontaran Experiment seemed to take less than a day. Genesis Of The Daleks took maybe a couple of days, possibly a week, but I doubt much longer. (Hmm, I guess there is room for a Missing Adventure to occur here after all, Emily. ;-)

Sarah looks around the transmat room and expects to see the TARDIS. I guess Sarah forgot that the TARDIS didn't land in the transmat room in Ark In Space.

First Voga is referred to as an asteroid, later a moon.
Dialogue also indicates that Nerva Beacon is here to warn ships about this stray asteroid, which has been a moon of Jupiter for 50 years. So wouldn't it's orbit already be charted?
Also wouldn't the gold and the Vogans have been discovered by now?
Why use a manned space beacon to warn of asteroids, when automated beacons could be planted on the asteroids themselves?
Why would a ship going to or from Pluto be crossing the asteroid belt anyway? Most of the time the plane of Pluto's orbit has it above or below the plane of the rest of our solar system.

They are thousands of years before the time of the solar flares. Makes that 50th century comment, I thought I heard, in Ark In Space more accurate then.

Why is a soldier handing his gun to Sarah???

About the moons of Jupiter the Doctor says, "You mean there are now 13?" I'm surprised nobody picked this yet. Voyager discovered lots more moons in the 80's. Oh, well, even though Earth is the Doctor's favorite planet, I suppose that his knowledge of Jupiter's moons could be lacking? Or maybe something will happen in the future that reduces the number of moons to 12. (The writer should have just wrote, "Oh, there's another one now?")

The Cybermen disappeared at the end of the Cyberwar centuries earlier. So chronologically, this must be one of the last Cybermen stories. (Although since Earthshock shows a picture of the 4th Doctor, it must take place later.)

47 Alert!!! 47 men were killed.

The Doctor has been talking about Cybermen. They have a Cybermat. However when the mysterious ship is docking the Commander says, "But who?" Guess he doesn't pay attention much.

Could "these past few weeks" include Robot?

Stevenson came across as being a bit dim. Remember at the end of Episode 1, he needed the Doctor to get him to figure that it was Kellman that sabotaged the transmat. It's generally an example of the script editor doing a lousy job for this one.

Mike Konczewski: Of course, then he reprograms a Cybermat to inject the stuff into Cybermen, which I don't get.
Presumably, the part of the Cybermat that injects stuff (poison, gold dust, etc.) is seperate from its vital 'organs'.

While they call it gold dust, it looks more like small nuggets.

The Vogan symbol all over the place looks like a Celtic knot.

The Doctor is a nitpicker. When the Cyberleader explains that the bombs will fragmentise the planet, the Doctor says, "Fragmentise? I guess we can't expect proper English from a machine."

Boneheaded play of Sarah's, transmatting to Nerva to warn the Doctor of the bomb. She knows that Nerva beacon will survive.

Why did the Doctor think that one bomb would distract the radar while the other two bombs went back to the surface?

Good thing the Cybermen used rope instead of wire, or cable.

The Cyberleader explains that Nerva will hit Voga at 10.000 light units. Sounds like a measure of speed, within the light range, but if this were true, the Doctor wouldn't have enough time to stop the crash.

Cybership explodes, then we see a scene inside the intact Cybercabin.

Fire in space???

re: Fire in space.
At a wild guess (which might not be scientifically correct), I would say that the oxygen tanks ruptured or something like that.

BEST LINE: Harry Sullivan is an imbicile!

Indeed, a glorious line. I do wonder why, after suffering decades of imbeciles as Companions, the Doctor finally snaps with poor old Harry. Though his 'Just act s t u p i d. Do you think you could manage that?' to Jamie certainly _hinted_ at his exasperation.

The Doctor looks so much more intelligent surrounded by fools. The imbecile line comes after a brilliant cliffhanger too - it's one of those moments where you actually yell at the silly unthinking companion to stop what he's doing.

But it it was an honest idiocy. Particularly when compared to how Sarah got herself captured by the Cybermen in Episode 4.

I am curious where in Earth's timeline this story takes place in.

It is obviously after Seeds of Death. Transmat (back then called Travel Mat) only reached as far as the moon. Now it is on Nerva Beacon somewhere in the vicinity of Jupitor. The humans must have made peace with the Ice Warriors by now. It must be before the Peladon stories, though, since there is no evidence of extrasolar exploration.

Just wondering.

I don't think the humans have made peace with the Ice Warriors so much as wiped them out in the Thousand Day War. Most of them ran off to New Mars, the rest sort of hibernated. I think.

If you look at the head of the first of the bodies in the corpse-strewn corridor, you can see that it's a dummy. In a more continuity-obsessed era the Doctor might have thought it was an Auton.
Vorus declares that the plan was for four humans to be left alive. Shouldn't Kellman have at least contacted him before choosing to kill Warner and risk spoiling the plan?
Kellman is accused of having killed 47 of the beacon crew, but there were 50, and there are only 2 left by the time he's accused.

I don't suppose Kellman thought one human more or less would make much difference. Certainly not enough to jeopardise Kellman's precious skin by delaying the murder long enough to consult Vorus.

Why four humans, anyway?

I don't blame the Commander if he got his figures wrong - he's spent quite a while under an incredible amount of strain with virtually no sleep. And for some time there were three survivors from the crew - he probably had the figure '47 dead' emblazoned on his mind, and hasn't updated it to take account of the last death.

How on earth can gold dust kill a Cybermat? Is it alive? If so, how comes it's radio-controlled? Just what IS a Cybermat anyway?

I presume cybermats are intelligent robots which can be overidden by RC when needed. I guess the material they are made off can be damaged by contact with gold.

The only thing I can think of is that gold is probably one of the best, if not the best, electrical conductor. Since much of the Cybermen and Cybermats are predominantly electronic in nature, this could be a problem. However, you could easily shield against this, but since Cybermen (and I would guess Cybermats as well) has organics parts, it would need to have some sort of respiratory units to bring in oxygen into their primarily organic neurological system, which would imply some sort of organic circulatory system. Since their respirators are electronic and mechanical in nature, gold dust would short circuit them. That is why gold dust and Glitter guns are so effective.

Of course, this is all just explaining away a nit through the use of what little medical knowledge I may have. The fact is, Aluminum (Aluminium for the Brits) is also an effective electrical conductor, and far far cheaper. So is Copper. But neither of those are as sexy as pure Gold.

Nah, Platinum is sexier than Gold. Of course, since I'm heterosexual, I would find Nameless to be sexier than Gold.

I heard that while they were scouting the location for this episode, the caves, they bumped into a ghost of a diver that had drowned there several years before. They didn't mention it at the time, because no one would have worked there!

I've read that somewhere, but it didn't really surprise me. Apparently the UK has more ghosts than any other nation on Earth. You can't walk around there without tripping over one, it seems.

Don't diss Kellman. He was Virgil Tracy in Thunderbirds. So there.

Don't forget he was Captain Ochre (your favourite character in Captain Scarlet)

First a nit: When the Cybermen's ship explodes, the flaming pieces fall downwards very fast, something that shouldn't happen in space.

Did anyone else groan when they saw the stock footage of the rocket launch which looked nothing like the Vogan rocket?

Was it ever mentioned that the Vogans were using bullets in their guns? If its the flash and bang that make you think that, remember that the Cybermen's foreheads do pretty much the same thing, yet they do not use bullets.

Anyone hear Sarah Jane's knees snap in episode 1 as she bends down to look at the body?

Ouch.

Not very polite of the Time Lords to send them back to the Ark 10K years early! Did they want the Doctor to take care of the Cybermen, too? Sneaky.

Anyone notice the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" posture of the Doc and the two crewmembers after the Cybermen caught them? I had to rewind when I realized there was something odd about the way they were sitting.

How unfortunate to have evolution turn you into an sleepy-looking old man. Sucks to be a Vogon, I guess.

What wimpy cyberbombs. Two are supposed to split an asteriod, yet one barely kills two cybermen, didn't even distort their bodies. Puh.

You can have fire in space. It's just ionized gases; you don't need oxygen for that. (Hydrazine, for example. They use that in the shuttle's engines.)

OMD!! Far out. Never notice that before. Thanks for the laugh. And it is the hear no, see no, speak no evil order from left to right.

For the others, I have the movie version, but I think this occurs right after the beginning of the third episode of the story. It's around the 48th minute on the American tape.

In The Tenth Planet Cybermen could be destroyed by radiation, in The Wheel In Space plateoxide, somekinda super-plastic, could stop them, but here gold dust is brought up as a weakness.

Presumably they could shield themselves from radiation although the plateoxide would seem to still be a good weapon. (Guess a planet of plaeoxide didn't sound as believable.)

Unfortunately after this story gold started being treated like kryptonite as the Cybermen's main weakness.

Green Kryptonite, surely KAM...!
(The Lethal Version, as opposed to Red, Gold, Blue, Kryptonite etc....)
BTW does anyone know what the effect of Blue Kryptonite, with regard to Superman is/was...?

Didn't it create Bizarro?

Not very polite of the Time Lords to send them back to the Ark 10K years early! Did they want the Doctor to take care of the Cybermen, too? Sneaky. Yes, that's EXACTLY what happened, according to the MA A Device of Death (bizarely set between Genesis and Revenge). And to think all these years I'd been putting it down to the usual Time Lord gross incompetence...

Since Green is the version most people think of when one says Kryptonite, yes. If one of the other forms is meant then the color is usually added.
Also, I think, Post-Crisis that Green & maybe Red are the only surviving forms.

However, for those who care, (& even those who don't. ;-)

Green - lethal to all Kryptonians (except maybe that immortal guy who survived the explosion of Krypton). Post-Crisis it was revealed that the radiation is also deadly to Earthlings, but at a much slower rate.)

Red - an altered form of Green, causes an unpredictable reaction to a Kryptonian, such as becoming a giant, or turning into a caveman, etc., etc., for a period of 24 - 48 hours. However once exposed that Kryptonian won't be affected to that piece of Red K again. Post-Crisis I have no idea what, if anything, they've done with it.

Blue - a form of Green K created by the Imperfect Duplicator Ray and is lethal to Bizarros only.

Gold - can cause a Kryptonian to permanently lose his powers. Fun fact. Gold was the most plentiful Kryptonian element. Hmmmm, maybe it was Cyberexplosives that really destroyed Krypton? ;-)

White - can kill all plant life.

Silver - no such thing. A hoax for a 25th anniversary Superman story.

Jewel - not sure. Was used by some Kryptonians to escape from the Phantom Zone.

X - not sure. May have given Supergirl's cat, Streaky, superpowers.

You are right about X-Kryptonite, KAM.

Thanks. I thought I had read that somewhere, but didn't have any references handy.

If the Doctor gets the Cybermat poison out of Sarah by using the transmat - ie. it will only beam humans, not the alien poison... then how do the Cybermen beam down later? And the Doctor's a Time Lord, so how does he beam down?

I don't think it's so much that the transmat'll only beam humans (it was set up to cope with clothing, lumps of gold, etc too) as that it'll take your body apart and put it back together again correctly, expelling any alien matter that shouldn't be there.

Or, otherwards, the standard "let's use the transporter to fix stuff" stunt used ad naseum on Star Trek et al (see "Unnatural Selection" from TNG, "The Deadly Years" from TOS, and "Tuvix" from VOY).

Though that is the only time Doctor Who uses the ploy. In fact, in some of the books (notably 'Cold Fusion' and 'Down') it's stated that the transmat actually kills you and creates an identical copy at the other end of the process. Which is why I'm thinking of going with 'matter displacer' in any future fiction using this principle... though the thought that Captain Kirk actually got killed *in the very first story* is quite amusing.

Given how tech supposedly works it would seem to be a natural development.

I suppose the big question is 'In stories that feature transporter/transmat technology why don't we see it as a natural part of medical technology?'

Daniel, you should read Spock Must Die! by James Blish. It features a discusion of the kills you/makes a copy angle.

There was also a cartoon short I saw years ago that features such an angle. IIRC at the end the female character decides that since she's been killed & replaced with a copy any crime she committed before transporting herself was done by someone else. ;-)

There's actually been some development in a the real world towards building a matter transmitter. Right now, they can only send sub-atomic particles. Our transmitters work like Who transmats, in that they destroy the original, then recreate a copy on the other end.

As to how you could use this to cure someone who's been poisoned, I suppose it's just a matter of programming the machine to not copy certain aspects of the original. The problem with this is that it does not cure the damaging effects caused by poison. Sure, the poison is gone, but you've still got damaged organs.

the thought that Captain Kirk actually got killed *in the very first story* is quite amusing.

Sod Captain Kirk! What about our Fourth Doctor in Ark in Space! Eh? EH????

Sure, the poison is gone, but you've still got damaged organs.

Luckily, like Barbara's in Planet of Giants, Sarah's organs seem remarkably resistant to the damage done by poison. (Though the radiation in the Daleks did cause Barbara a lot of trouble, according to Face of the Enemy, and Sarah got rendered infertile by the Doctor's anti-cold drugs (Interference) and/or shot dead (Bullet Time - huh) so it's not as if they got off scot-free.)

I forgot about the damage caused by the poison, although given that these things are supposed to take you apart & put you back together makes the possibility of repairing the damage a little easier to swallow, especially since Sarah had been transmatted earlier in the story & there should be a record to compare with.

The 'sterile atmosphere' has preserved the corpses. How sterile is it if the Doctor and, more importantly, his human Companions can breathe?

When logging the call from Voga, whatshisname says 'apparently' but writes 'apparent' - though, given how tired the whole crew is supposed to be, this could well be a deliberate mistake.

The Commander doesn't look under the bed when searching Kellman's room for Kellman. Thicko.

How come Kellman can electrify and unelectrify his room at the flick of a switch?

Tyrun (or whatever his name is) has got good spies in Vorus's sphere of influence - he knew about Sarah and Harry very soon after their capture, he found the executed bloke's corpse - yet he never even suspected 'my Skystriker, my glory!'

Love the Doctor's idea of escape - strolling excruciatingly slowly in the opposite direction, in full sight of several Cybermen.

It's specifically stated that Vogans don't know that gold's the only thing (ha!) that is effective against Cybermen. That would explain why they keep using their useless guns. It does not explain, however, how they could be so utterly ignorant of their own glorious instrumental-in-saving-the-universe-and-destroying-Cybermen-with their-gold history. They knew •••• well the Cybermen were after them - that's why they were lurking in their caves (well, that's why they SAID they were lurking in their caves, I suspect the whole lack of atmosphere stuff may have had something to do with not living on the surface). So why did they THINK the Cybermen had got it in for them?

Now, I have no problem whatsoever with Sarah Jane being the one to take the suicidally dangerous task of sneaking back to the Cybermen-packed Ark to warn the Doctor. She is obviously so much better equipped for this delicate task than Harry Sullivan the Imbecile. I do, however, have a problem with Harry being the one to TELL her to go back. For one thing, she shouldn't be taking orders from him, and for another, an old-fashioned chauvinist like Harry should have chivalrously tried to insist on taking the job himself. You'll note when he's explaining what happened to the Doctor he talks as if it was all Sarah's idea rather than his own.

Why does the Cyber/Kellman/Vorus plan take so many months to execute? Why not wipe out the Ark's crew in a few days?

'Thank heaven' 'Blown to Kingdom Come' - interesting use of religious teminology in the far future.

OK, someone explain the following conversation to me:

SARAH: Kellman led you into a trap, they have a rocket -

CYBERMAN: We don't believe you, they would have used it.

SARAH: All I know is, when I left, Kellman -

CYBERMAN: Kellman! So there is a rocket!

The Doctor was taking a chance with all this talk of fifteen minutes. Suppose the Vogans had a shorter minute than he was used to?

Gold kills Cybermats as well as Cybermen - so how come the Doctor manages to fill one with gold to attack its masters without doing it any harm.

Why does the Cybermat go for the first Cyberman's neck, rather than its chest unit? And why does this succeed in killing it?

Sterile means "no germs", so that shouldn't affect their breathing. What's odd is that our bodies have germs inside of them, which usually begin digesting our corpses once we die. A sterile environment slows down, but doesn't stop, this process.

Electrify--because switches can be used to turn electricity on and off?

Maybe Harry's finally realized what a dope he is, and that's why he told Sarah to go back to the space station.

By killing the crew over a period of time with a fake plague, that gives the survivors time to clear the area of other space ships, which will allow the Cybermen to fly in undetected. Mind you, that's still a stoopid plan. Remember, "Space is big; really, etc. etc."

What's the Seal of Rassilon doing in episode 1 at 10:15 ?

Why do the Vogans have it? It's really odd...

Well, just as the Time Lord form became the template for intelligent life across the universe, so the Seal of Rassilon might, possibly, have echoed across space and time...or a future Doctor might have dropped his seal when visiting a past Voga, I suppose...

There is an interesting anticdote to this story. When the director and his wife were scouting the location of this story (Wooky Holes, I believe the caves are called), they had an encounter with the ghost of an Irishman who had drowned there several years before. Of course, they didn't mention it to anyone because they got worried that no one would want to work there!

This is not the only ghost story connected with Who. Deborah Waitling (who played Victoria) lived in a haunted house for a while. She even said that she got used to the ghost!

Watching this for the first time in a couple decades, it's better than I remembered. Which isn't saying much. But it does stand out among the bottom-of-the-barrel releases that comprise the 2009 DVD schedule.

Since the early stories of any given Doctor were often written before the actor grew into the role, it's sometimes interesting to imagine such stories with the previous Doctor. It hardly takes much imagination to picture Pertwee doing Robot, but only Tom could do Ark in Space and Genesis, so I never went beyond that. However, leapfrog over the previous Doctor and I can pretty easily imagine this being a Troughton story. I can even imagine Troughton being scripted to say, 'Jamie McCrimmon is an imbecile!' though not with Tom's delivery.
Okay, the Cybermen are too emotional and all that, but that's largely (though not entirely) a matter of the production rather than the writing, possibly because it had been so long since the last Cybermen story that the current crew might not have been that familiar with them.

This exchange has always bugged me:
Sarah: The Vogans...
Cyberleader: Continue. The Vogans....?
The Cyberleader interrupted Sarah to tell her to continue.

Always hated the projectile-shooting heads. I remember at fist thinking they were bullets bouncing off them.

Emily:
OK, someone explain the following conversation to me:
SARAH: Kellman led you into a trap, they have a rocket -
CYBERMAN: We don't believe you, they would have used it.
SARAH: All I know is, when I left, Kellman -
CYBERMAN: Kellman! So there is a rocket!

••••. I wanted to ask that.

More a nit for Ark in Space, but here goes. Why the HELL would homo sapiens trust their entire gene bank to a 10,000+ year old beacon?

the bottom-of-the-barrel releases that comprise the 2009 DVD schedule.
Erm...2010 rather.

I can pretty easily imagine this being a Troughton story.

Actually, now you mention it, getting himself strapped to a bomb is far more a Troughtonesque than a Tom thing to do.

Not that I can actually remember Troughton getting strapped to a bomb, whereas it happens to Tom all the time (well, here and Android Invasion, anyway) but it's definitely an oh-my-giddy-aunt kind of situation.

Why the HELL would homo sapiens trust their entire gene bank to a 10,000+ year old beacon?

Because if it survived 10,000+ years, the odds were it'd survive a few more?

Or because it was THAT or the bloody Space Whale...

I can't quite remember the dates but the Nerva Beacon was supposed to have been converted into the space ark in the 30th-31st centuries, when the Nerva Beacon would have been 200-300 years old.

I got the 10,000 figure from a 2003 post of Mandy's. Don't remember if that was the actual number or not.

This is the 30th century Nerva couldn't have been changed for centuries afterwards as there are numerous accounts of people on Earth in the year 4000 (The Daleks Master Plan) 5000 (the Talons of Weing Chang) etc. The Nerva lot were asleep for 10,000 years so the flares had to happen in at least the year 6000 or so. All the evacuating earth story lines are pretty dodgy as they all occur after humans have interstellar/galactic travel so why do some fancy ark when you can just all catch the next flight to the next solar system. And this is pre time war so even that can't explain the discrepancies lol.

People always seem to have this misconception about space travel, as if the population of an entire planet could hop the next bus to Mars. Can you imagine evacuating just one country right now? The problems would be similar or worse probably.

The Terrestial Index takes the position that the solar flares didn't turn out as bad as they had thought (to make it fit into established Who continuity). However, they put the Arkers into suspended animation, just in case.

The reason the Arkers were left to snooze so long is because it was Earth's Empire that put them in hibernation. Then the Empire suppressed all records of it. No doubt those records were lost when the Empire fell.

When they finally woke up, thousands of years later, it was after the Time Lords had moved the solar system (seen in Trial Of A Time Lord) that caused the disaster which devastated Earth. Of course, the Arkers had no way of knowing this, they just assumed it was the solar flare disaster the Empire THOUGHT would happen.

Well it wouldn't be the first time an Earth species misinterpreted extraterrestrial phenomena, went into hibernation, overslept because of a faulty alarm, and then awaken to find the Earth in the hands of a new species. Heck, it wouldn't even be the first time a new Doctor experienced this situation in his second story.

But how could they transmat to Earth in the next story if the Time Lords had moved it?

I've occasionally marveled that the Silurians never reclaimed the Earth during this time. I mean, after being asleep for millenia, they've woken up an average of once a decade for the past forty years. But I'm also surprised that, with Earth evolution as robust as Ghostlight states, no other species evolved.

I know this isn't strictly a Revenge topic, but in lieu of a Season 12 board, I'll continue it here.

The Ark in Space isn't meant to be set 2 million years in the future is it? Cause that's when the Time Lords moved Earth, I know Nerva is well built but not that well built lol. They moved "Earth and it's constellation" Kevin. Nerva would have been moved as well if the story was set then.

I know it would take a while to evacuate a country but the point is we could do it, these stories always act as if the humans had to invent space travel over again. These people also have decades or centuries advance warning. You'd look for a decent planet and move there in stages, not wait until the last minute till the massive ship is ready.

As for the Silurians until the new series they weren't very far underground at all maybe they were killed by the flares. Also remember we are supposed to be living in peace with them by now they're scattered round the Empire we just don't see them lol.

Thanks for the continity gude btw Tim. It must give people a headache trying to fit it all together lol.

Emily: getting himself strapped to a bomb is far more a Troughtonesque than a Tom thing to do.
Well it's not just us. The production subs point this out as well, saying the Gary Davis hadn't written for Who since Troughton, and, this being an early story (third filmed), didn't know how to write for Tom yet.

Which brings up an interesting nit pointed out by the subs. When Doc and company arrive on Skaro, Sarah comments about it not being the beacon. In filming order, that made sense, but in story order, they didn't know it was a beacon yet. They only knew it as Space Station Nerva.

Davis also wrote individual episode titles. It gave me a chuckle when Terry Nation did that in Planet of the Daleks, but I don't get it here at all.

Between the airing of episodes one and two, William Hartnel died. That guy has the darndest luck when it comes to Cybermen.

Gerry Davis, sorry.

Between the airing of episodes one and two, William Hartnel died. That guy has the darndest luck when it comes to Cybermen.

Don't blame the Cybermen, blame Tom. Didn't old Doctors tend to drop dead whenever a new era dawned? I was seriously worried for Tom's health when the new series was announced (but considered ANY sacrifice worth it...)

It was interesting to see the Cybermats again. We haven't seen them since "Tomb of the Cybermen". I love the new design too.

I much prefer the Tomb ones. They were smaller and cuter. These are ludicrously enormous. They're not exactly good undercover agents, capable of creeping unnoticed through small cracks. (Well, good enough not to get noticed by any of the crew of the Beacon obviously, but then they must all have been morons. May they rest in peace.)

Actually, didn't we see Cybermats in (what's left of) Wheel in Space? That came after Tomb.

Haven't seen "Wheel"

Well, you haven't missed much...

...No, on second thoughts you have. Many adorable cybermats, Jamie being wonderful, the Second Doctor being wonderful, the introduction of a brand-new Companion, the Cybermen doing a little dance through space and, of course, the least logical plot in the history of Who, Old AND New.

The dead people in the corridors are MANNEQUINS!

What's the matter with the BBC? Couldn't they round up a few janitors or stage hands to "play dead" for a few minutes?

Most likely the BBC couldn't pay them to be extras.

They couldn't just hire janitors where there were strict union regulations about non-actors having any screen time.

Not saying the director couldn't have done a better job at hiding it...

I'm sure Emily would have done it for free.

Had Emily even been born when this was made???

Scary thought-would "rug-rat" Emily have played a good dead body(and were there any that young)???

I was born in '73. But like the Doctor, I was NEVER one of those rug-rat things!

And I very much doubt there were any on Nerva Beacon. In fact, I don't remember spotting any WOMEN either.

Sure, Emily, you just appeared out of nowhere, fully grown!

From a Loom. ;-)

Which would make her the fruit of the loom.

How come the Doctor and Co. aren't surprised that they're not in the same time when they left Nerva at the end of Ark In Space? The Doctor even says that the TARDIS was drifting back in time to meet them. How did he know this?

Maybe there's a display on the time-ring which showed him.

Or maybe the Time Lords are so incompetent that the Doctor assumed it would be a miracle if the Time Ring returned them to the correct place n'time. (Though that doesn't explain why he was so confident that the cretins a) noticed their mistake, or b) were willing or indeed capable of sending the TARDIS to the correct place.)

I have to agree with Emily here. These are the same people who had just sent him to Skaro by dumping him in the middle of a minefield.

They had also previously sent him to Solos to deliver a package without telling him who to give it to, leaving him to walk around saying, 'Here you hold this. Hmmm...you're not the one. Let's try *you*, sir.'

Maybe there's a display on the time-ring which showed him.

That should have been included in the dialogue.

The Doctor: The TARDIS is drifting back in time to us.

Harry: I say, how do you know that, Doctor?

The Doctor: There is a telepathic message on the Time Ring from Gallifrey. It told me that.

Would you waste the--I mean take the time to explain it to Harry???(Sarah-maybe).

Harry was a Companion, he deserves an explanation just as much as Sarah does.

If not more. After all, Sarah's a volunteer but poor Harry was kidnapped.

Tim:Harry was a Companion, he deserves an explanation just as much as Sarah does.

He may deserve it-but would he understand it.

Emily:If not more. After all, Sarah's a volunteer but poor Harry was kidnapped.

If I remember right--they were all drafted for the last couple of stories.

Wow-I've been so busy kicking Harry that I missed something(not counting the fact that I started out defending him).

Emily:I was born in '73. But like the Doctor, I was NEVER one of those rug-rat things!

Sorry-I had figured out when you were born-but thought Tom had taken over in '73 instead of '74.

On the other hand-If you're human(having seen no confirmed alien reports)--then yes,you spent some time as a rug-rat(all humans do).

Kevin:Which would make her the fruit of the loom.

Keep her away from my underwear(it can be hard to get the right size).

He may deserve it-but would he understand it.

He IS a fully-qualified medical doctor. (You've just gotta keep reminding yourself of that cos god knows it's VERY easy to forget.)

If I remember right--they were all drafted for the last couple of stories.

True, but at least Sarah KNEW she was likely to end up in the middle of a Dalek holocaust. Poor Harry just wanted to take a look inside the police box to help the crazy man admit he couldn't really travel round space and time in it...

On the other hand-If you're human(having seen no confirmed alien reports)--then yes,you spent some time as a rug-rat(all humans do).

Any Who fan should know that just because someone LOOKS human doesn't mean they ARE. And as for 'no confirmed alien reports' - we're still in denial about five million Daleks in the skies over London...

Emily, why this hatred of children. Did you have bad baby sitting experiences or something?

Of course I did, but they were the result rather than the cause of my extreme distaste for the stunted, brain-damaged, self-centred, immoral, howling little beasties.

(Look, I mercifully skipped the urge to reproduce. AND I skipped the urge to give a toss about social pressures to conform. So I can clearly see the blubbering lumps of biomass for what they are. I mean...just LOOK at them!)

Oh: and there's also the fact that I didn't really IMPRINT on my fellow humans. I imprinted on my cat instead.

Loved the Doctor's comment about the moons of Jupiter "there are now 13?" Uh, Doctor, there are a LOT more than that!

Ah yes.

'The science of some Doctor Who TV stories stands the test of time better than others. But the Doctor's exchange with Commander Stevenson in Revenge of the Cybermen probably sets a record for being out of date even before recording began' - as Stephen Cole put it in To the Slaughter (to justify the fact he'd written an entire book (and the penultimate Eighth Doctor Adventure to boot) feng shui-ing the solar system to get the moons back down to the correct number...)

Doctor Who and The Revenge Of The Cybermen by Terrance Dicks (Pinnacle Books)

Pages 3 & 4. In Doctor Who And The Genesis Of The Daleks the author calls the device a "Time ring", but here he calls it a "Time bracelet".
You'd think he'd want to stay consistent & use the same term.

Page 9. "the new asteroid that had so mysteriously appeared in the orbit of Jupiter."
At this point in the future they don't have any way of detecting objects entering the solar system???

NNANJAO. As far as I can tell, the most infamous nit about this episode, the number of Jupiter's moons, doesn't even come up in the novelization.
Understandable, but it came as a surprise when I realized I didn't remember reading it.

Okayyyyyy... there are three crewmen left alive & the book mentions they have been sleeping reduced hours so they can run Nerva beacon.
Thing is the only thing we actually see them doing is manning the radio. Yeah, I'd imagine that there probably are other things they need to do, but humans normally sleep 8 hours, work 8 hours & that leaves an extra 8 hours to fill the day. So if there are so many things that need to be done that eats up more than 16 hours a day why don't we see evidence of it?

The book goes on & on about how gold signifies status on Voga, except that the planet is mostly gold, so this would be like using dirt to signify status on Earth.

Page 19. Describes the shape of a cybermat as "rat-like".
I'd say it was more slug-like, myself.

Page 43. The Doctor says, "That meteorite is all that is left of Voga"
Meteorites are space rocks that have landed on a planet.

Page 48. Vorus says, "What do the know of us here on Voga?"
They not the.

Page 96. "He knew that Sarah had always refused to accept the role of the helpless heroine"
That may be true, but how many times has Sarah's impetuousness led her to becoming the helpless person who needs to be rescued?
Here, of course, her actions lead her to being captured by Cybermen on Nerva beacon. It seems to me that a number of other stories likewise have her getting in trouble because of her need to act first & think... somewhere down the line. (We could probably start a Tote Board.)

The novelization uses "Harry Sullivan is an idiot!", although I seemed to remember Tom saying imbicile. Looking at the previous posts I see others remember it as imbecile as well.
Wonder if the script used idiot, but Tom decided that imbicile sounded better?

In Doctor Who And The Genesis Of The Daleks the author calls the device a "Time ring", but here he calls it a "Time bracelet".
You'd think he'd want to stay consistent & use the same term.

Well, maybe Dicks had got sick to death of writing Targets and had stopped putting much effort in (was this one of his early or later ones?). Except shovelling in as much sexism as humanly possible, obviously.

At this point in the future they don't have any way of detecting objects entering the solar system???

Bless!

I mean, it's not as if Earth has anything to worry about when it comes to alien invasions...oh wait! THEY HAVE!

the most infamous nit about this episode, the number of Jupiter's moons, doesn't even come up in the novelization.

Ha ha ha!

Okayyyyyy... there are three crewmen left alive & the book mentions they have been sleeping reduced hours so they can run Nerva beacon.
Thing is the only thing we actually see them doing is manning the radio.

I KNOW. Maybe they had millions of men (MEN!) in the first place because of union rules, and the idea that they had to work themselves to death when 90% of said men keeled over was purely psychological...?

Nope, probably not.

Page 19. Describes the shape of a cybermat as "rat-like".
I'd say it was more slug-like, myself.

Agreed. But what the hell, this DID give us the classic line 'Not a rat a Cybermat', as (finally!) heard on-screen in Closing Time...

The Doctor says, "That meteorite is all that is left of Voga"
Meteorites are space rocks that have landed on a planet.

Yeah, the definition of 'meteorite' was never one of Who's strong points.

how many times has Sarah's impetuousness led her to becoming the helpless person who needs to be rescued?

Hey! Don't you KNOW the villains always explain the plot to you when they lock you up? Her imprisonments tend to ADVANCE the Doctor's Glorious Triumph. And it's not like HE hasn't had his fair share of being locked up too.

The novelization uses "Harry Sullivan is an idiot!", although I seemed to remember Tom saying imbicile. Looking at the previous posts I see others remember it as imbecile as well.
Wonder if the script used idiot, but Tom decided that imbicile sounded better?

Tom was right. 'Idiot' just doesn't have the same ring about it.

In these last few WEEKS Sarah thought they wouldn't make it? How long did Ark/Sontaran Experiment/Genesis/ LAST?

Harry can't tell to more than 'within a week or two' how long someone's been dead?

Still not getting why they don't just have an automated message telling people to keep the hell away from that asteroid. Or why it took thirty men (yes, all MEN apparently) to do this supremely simple job.

'Tell him [his brother's] fine and medical staff have the epidemic under control' - why are you LYING? Doesn't the poor bloke deserve to know that HIS BROTHER IS DEAD? Isn't anyone back on Earth getting suspicious about the lack of messages from their loved ones? Why are you covering up for the people who LEFT YOU TO DIE??

Why doesn't the Doctor use the sonic screwdriver to open the door? Especially as the Commander (oh, one of those boring men anyway, I can't be expected to remember which is which) says they must have been loosened with a sonic vibrator.

Why doesn't the Vogan traitor-to-Vorus say something USEFUL instead of repeating 'Can anyone hear me' fifty million times till he mercifully gets shot?

So NO ONE thinks to connect the asteroid Kellman has considerately renamed 'Voga' with 'Voga, the planet of gold with whose help the Cybermen were defeated a few hundred years ago'? Does NO ONE in the Whoniverse's future have any sense of HISTORY?

Love the way Harry and Sarah run to shelter behind the Doctor when the men with guns come in.

Why aren't Our Heroes asked for any sort of ID? They can hardly resemble your typical medics. Especially when one of 'em's FEMALE, something that seems extinct by whatever-year-this-is.

HOW was Jupiter thoroughly surveyed, exactly? Wouldn't this be a bit tricky given its, um, gravity or whatever, especially given that future-humanity is a bunch of dim-witted low-tech males.

Love the way the Doctor leads Stevenson and Lester to the truth about Kellman by asking a series of rhetorical questions. While Sarah is, in Harry's charming words, on the point of popping off.

Does Vorus's Skystriker - HIS GLORY! - really NEED to be packed with bombs? What would happen if the rocket alone hit the Beacon at high speed?

So Vorus n'scientist were planning on TESTING the bombhead first? Er...HOW? Even the moronic Vogans might notice chunks being blown out of what's left of their planet.

How can everyone understand each other with the TARDIS nowhere in sight? Sure, she'd still duly translate for the Doctor n'Strays (see: Cold War) but for Cybermen and Vogans and suchlike...?

Is that Cyberman BOWING after receiving orders from the Cyberleader?

DON'T tell Vorus you're sacking him...and then let him leave to rally his troops against you.

Why not lock/tie up Kellman The Evil Murdering Traitor? They later run off to deal with the boarding party, leaving HIM in full control of, well, the control room.

The Doctor told 'em AGES ago that it's Cybermen, yet he stands there watching the Cyber-ship advance for ten minutes without saying a word. If only he'd come up with a Cunning Plan for defending the Beacon, the three of 'em might not have ended up uselessly standing around shooting guns and getting effortlessly forehead-gunned down by the Cybermen. Speaking of which, why did they waste so much time with a pretend-plague when the Beacon could be conquered THIS easily, even with Our Hero aboard? And Vorus started building his rocket to deal with 'em TWO YEARS ago, would even THIS pretty useless bunch of Cybermen REALLY have spent so long preparing to blow up one asteroid?

DON'T threaten Cybermen with bombs when standing with your back TO AN OPEN DOOR, you half-wit. You'd think in 750 years he'd've LEARNT this.

So would radar WORK inside an asteroid? Don't you usually use to spot stuff flying through the AIR?

So Vorus, prepared to gamble his species' lives cos he so wants to make contact with aliens, tries to have Sarah and Harry killed...yet Tyrum, utterly (if understandably) paranoid about revealing the existence of his people to such aliens, treats them nicely...?

The Cybermen spot the Beacon's teleport being used when they're in their ship millions (or whatever) of miles away, but not when Sarah and then the Doc operate it right under their noses.

So Vorus wants to lead his people onto the surface of Voga. Um...does it have any...y'know...ATMOSPHERE and stuff? Those (rather odd, even to my unscientific eyes) shots of the Beacon flying over it (wasn't Voga a bit too CURVED or something considering how long said flying over TOOK?) didn't instil me with confidence, what with there being no TREES or anything. (Mind you, I can't see how they'd have an atmosphere IN the asteroid either so what do I know.)

Blimey, the Vogans certainly dropped the 'no time for recriminations' attitude fast enough.

If the City Militia are useless against the Cybermen, use Vorus's Guardians, why don't you.

Your planet is being invaded, via transmat, by your ancient enemy. You leave said transmat operational WHY, exactly?

The Cybermen say they'll put the bombs in the Beacon's nosecone. It doesn't HAVE a nosecone you morons.

'You've already done so much for us' the Vogans tell the Doctor. Like WHAT? He managed not to blow up your entire world with the large bomb he was carrying for that purpose, but that's not saying much. And HE wasn't the one who SACRIFICED HIS LIFE to save you. At least they're not offering to sing SONGS about him, a la the Ood. Funny how the only times the Doctor really gets some thanks are the only times he didn't DO anything.

That Cyberman isn't strong enough to pull a Cybermat off his neck?

Well, they dropped that 'destroy all animal life' stuff fast enough when they caught the Doctor and Sarah, didn't they.

The Doctor could have spoken to Voga on the communicator while he was still tied up, easily.

Doctor got a good look at Skystriker's control panel WHEN, exactly?

Well, I enjoyed it more than Nightmare in Silver, anyway.

Harry can't tell to more than 'within a week or two' how long someone's been dead?

Pretty realistic. If the corpse is still warm, you can make a guess from that, but only if you've got a good idea how warm the room was. If you don't, or the corpse has reached room temperature, time of death gets tricky, unless you're a forensics expert, which Harry isn't.

Basically, all those detective shows and Agatha Christie novels where someone glances at the body and confidently announce they died exactly two hours ago are wildly optimistic.

So NO ONE thinks to connect the asteroid Kellman has considerately renamed 'Voga' with 'Voga, the planet of gold.

They probably assumed he'd named the asteroid after the lost planet. If you found an asteroid, you could name it Skaro or Gallifrey, but no one would believe your asteroid might be the real thing.

Why aren't Our Heroes asked for any sort of ID?

'Such was the Doctor's air of authority ...' and the companions can even benefit when they're not near him.

So would radar WORK inside an asteroid?

It would, but it'd have trouble seeing round corners, so it wouldn't be very useful. Sonar would be a bit better. Sound goes through rock, so they could use it to detect cavities on the other side of walls and, with enough power, creatures moving around half way across the asteroid.

'You've already done so much for us' the Vogans tell the Doctor. Like WHAT?

It's that air of authority again. Four had so much presence, he could convince people he was a great world saver without doing a thing. Fortunately for them, he really was just as good at world saving as his air suggested.

HOW was Jupiter thoroughly surveyed, exactly? Wouldn't this be a bit tricky given its, um, gravity or whatever, especially given that future-humanity is a bunch of dim-witted low-tech males

Thouroughly surveying Jupiter would be quite an accomplisment, considering that is has NO SOLID SURFACE that could be surveyed.

Does Vorus's Skystriker - HIS GLORY! - really NEED to be packed with bombs? What would happen if the rocket alone hit the Beacon at high speed?

Not really. It depends on its speed and mass of course, but a fast moving object colliding with another can cause a lot of damage. Just think of that meteorite that exploded over Russia last February. It was an inert piece of rock about 17 meters wide and it produced an explosion of 440 kilotons when it slammed into our atmosphere. That's well over 20 times the atomic explosion that destroyed Hiroshima.

A very small nit but - the Vogan radio operator who is killed in Part One is supposed to be one of Vorus's Guardians but he's dressed as one of the city militia.

In similar vein, Vorus's decision to have Sarah and Harry killed after he realises that Tyrum is on to him seems a bit foolhardy given that he's just been presented with the similarly-presumed-disposed-of body of the radio operator *in Tyrum's office*!

unless you're a forensics expert, which Harry isn't.

Yeah, Harry's the guy who didn't notice that his patient of several weeks HAD TWO HEARTS.

Basically, all those detective shows and Agatha Christie novels where someone glances at the body and confidently announce they died exactly two hours ago are wildly optimistic.

Oh! But shouldn't there be a difference in how far the corpse has decayed between one week and two? Not that any of the corpses DID seem to decay, come to think of it - is this realistic? There's oxygen and Our Heroes don't seem cold - though there's a mention of 'sterile air', whatever THAT means.

Four had so much presence, he could convince people he was a great world saver without doing a thing.

Fair enough. His glorious presence DID single-handedly redeem Revenge for me, and I'm QUITE SURE this would have been the case even if he HADN'T stopped the Beacon hitting Voga. (Hell, he could have deliberately steered it into Voga for all I care.)

Thouroughly surveying Jupiter would be quite an accomplisment, considering that is has NO SOLID SURFACE that could be surveyed.

Blimey. I had no idea.

Does Vorus's Skystriker - HIS GLORY! - really NEED to be packed with bombs? What would happen if the rocket alone hit the Beacon at high speed?

Not really. It depends on its speed and mass of course, but a fast moving object colliding with another can cause a lot of damage.

Well *sigh* I suppose we can't expect the Vogans to know that, when they were going all defeatest about their defective bombhead. They didn't know anything ELSE.

Vorus's decision to have Sarah and Harry killed after he realises that Tyrum is on to him seems a bit foolhardy given that he's just been presented with the similarly-presumed-disposed-of body of the radio operator *in Tyrum's office*!

He might have over-optimistically hoped that his lackeys' corpse-disposal skills got better with practice.

There's oxygen and Our Heroes don't seem cold - though there's a mention of 'sterile air', whatever THAT means.

It probably just means clean bacteria and dust free air. Not that it would make much of a difference, humans come equipped with a wide variety of bacteria living in and on them as parasites or symbionts. After a week or two, these bacteria would have done significant damage and the bodies would definitly look decomposed. I don't know how confidently someone could pin down the time of death with a simple visual observation though. The speed of decomposition depends on too many factors for that.

Oh! But shouldn't there be a difference in how far the corpse has decayed between one week and two?

There is, all else being equal, which it seldom is. A one week old corpse might be more decayed than a ten week old corpse, if the first corpse spent that week in a room at 25 degrees centigrade, while the second was kept at 2 degrees centigrade.

Since Harry has no idea what temperature the room was at, it's understandable if he doesn't have a clue.

Harry is STANDING in said room (corridor. Whatever), and, being on a spacestation, he could make a reasonable assumption that it has been maintained at this steady temperature since all the poor guys dropped dead.

he could make a reasonable assumption that it has been maintained at this steady temperature since all the poor guys dropped dead.

A reasonable assumption,as long as he can assume the space station's automated systems are working properly - but Harry would probably assume they are.

However, even if Harry assumes constant temperature, he doesn't have a thermometer. He'll know it's not near freezing, but won't be able to tell the air temperature to the nearest degree, making it harder to estimate time of death.

And then there are all the other things he doesn't know. For instance, does an absence of maggots mean a fresh corpse, or just that there were no flies on the station?

Remember too, Harry probably doesn't have much experience with dead bodies, and none of those he has seen are likely to have been visibly decayed. The ones used in medical school will have been preserved, and neither the Royal Navy nor UNIT would leave a corpse lying around for a week before asking their medic to check up on them. Any corpses Harry examined for the Navy or UNIT will have been pretty fresh.

Considering Harry's lack of experience, and of knowledge of the exact environmental conditions, his uncertainty about time of death is not unreasonable.

At one point, the Doctor describes the Cybermen as having "hydraulics". Imagine if they'd said that in 'Nightmare in Silver' - fandom would have gone into a frenzy of denial: "The Cybermen don't run on water!!!"

I DID go into a frenzy of denial. I just did it in the 'Monsters: Cybermen' section.

The Doctor doesn't seem surprised when he, Sarah, and Harry arrive on Nerva in the wrong time. He tells them the TARDIS is drifting back in time to them. How does he know this?

How do the Vogans survive? Where do they grow their food? Where are the FEMALE Vogans?

Where did Vorus get the resources to build that rocket?

Kellman really is a b*stard, isn't he. He kills most of the Nerva crew. Did he really think he wouldn't be put on trial for that, had he lived.

For emotionless beings, the Cybermen in this story are VERY hyper.

On to Terror Of The Zygons...

The Doctor doesn't seem surprised when he, Sarah, and Harry arrive on Nerva in the wrong time.

Well, he's probably noticed by now what incompetent gits the Time Lords are.

He tells them the TARDIS is drifting back in time to them. How does he know this?

Sexy has a hitherto unsuspected 'drift to find the Doctor' function that, like the HADS, the key-with-23-or-whatever-combinations, the Food Machine etc will only be mentioned once every few hundred years?

How do the Vogans survive? Where do they grow their food?

Is there any reason they can't have evolved to eat gold?

(OK, so even I'm suspecting that the answer is 'Yes'.)

Where are the FEMALE Vogans?

One mustn't expect EVERY species to be divided into female and male. I mean, just because they all refer to each other as 'he', act like a bunch of testosterone-fueled morons and don't look pregnant is no reason to assume that they biologically resemble Earth men.

Kellman really is a b*stard, isn't he. He kills most of the Nerva crew. Did he really think he wouldn't be put on trial for that, had he lived.

Maybe Earth law at the time considered 'getting rid of some Cybermen' to be an excellent defence to 'murdering dozens of innocent crewmen'? Frankly this didn't give me the impression Earth was big on things like truth, human rights, or even human LIVES at the time.

Earth is very dystopian in Doctor Who wouldn't surprise me if they didn't care.

The plan was that the Cybermen would be on the beacon when it was blown up, this would destroy the evidence.

The Cybermen are weak, standing about declaiming about their revenge, and their entrance was as good an example of anti-tension as I've ever seen. I like the idea of the Cybermats in theory, but the execution doesn't quite work. I don't often say this, but they're a monster crying out for CGI. But first, you have to explain to me why the Cybermen need pets, and why they're going around poisoning people, when they could just electrocute everyone and have done with it.

Speaking of poison: you don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes afficionado to take one look at a victim and say, "Aha! Poison!" But the future!humans are all, "IT'S A DISEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!" Fail, Nerva Beacon staff, fail.

Oh, and the aliens were basically a less-interesting retread of the Sensorites.

What I did like: all the bits where it's obvious that Sarah and Harry are secretly married. They're the Ron/Hermione of DW.

"Oh, and the aliens were basically a less-interesting retread of the Sensorites."

Is that possible?

How often are characters in DW insulted as an idiot, moron, or just plain stupid -- as opposed to a fool?

There's a "You moron!" between Stratton and Bates in Attack of the Cybermen. The Borad also calls Tekker an idiot before killing him. The Doctor shouts "Idiots!" about the Dynatrope after Zoe and he are referred to by it as 'ZoeGond' and 'DoctorGond'. Sarah says of the Doctor, "The idiot, he thinks he can cope with anything!" in Robot.

Hmm, that's a point. Harry is an imbecile, Mickey is an idiot, nobody can be as stupid as the Doctor seems...

What is it that Soldeed cackles as he dies? I have a feeling it MIGHT be along the lines of 'FOOLS! You are all doomed!'...?

Eccy being northern, I'm surprised didn't use "berk" but then saturday teatime isn't a good time for country matters.

He wasn't actually from the North OF ENGLAND though, was he.

Wonder what the regenerating Hurt was thinking of as well as the ears that would explain Eccy's accent.

DWM's Fact of Fiction:

Gerry Davies' script was 'quickly deemed dated and unsophisticated by newly-incumbent producer Philip Hinchcliffe and his script editor, Robert Holmes' - YOU COMMISSIONED THE WRITER OF DOCTOR WHO AND THE CYBERMEN! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EXPECT!

'The Vogan radio op who had hailed the Beacon before being murdered by Vorus' Guardians wears the robes of a member of the rival Militia - but here, the dialogue between Vorus and Magrik ("Why?!") implies that the dead Vogan was a traitor to the Guardians, not a spy for the Militia. So why the outfit? If the dead Vogan was loyal to the Militia, surely he'd have tried to call his own side, rather than the Beacon...?' - does anyone else just feel their brain shutting down whenever they try to understand this?

'Davis' first episode opened with a female "Captain" Warner alone in the Control Room' - how wonderfully ironic. Gerry 'Tenth Planet' Davis has FINALLY spotted the existence of these 'women' things. And Robert Holmes gender-swaps her back to male...

"We only lost the war because of Voga's gold"

You sure about that lads? Cause Lt Scott and his troopers made short work of you without them. Not a glitter gun in sight.

And that only accounts for land combat the humans would still have had ways to win ship to ship.

Also why does no one call Earth for help? I know the empire is pretty much gone but the beacon is still on the doorstop of human civilisation. Did no one keep an eye on things out there?

Also why does no one call Earth for help?

Well, in their place I might well have felt that, if Earth couldn't be bothered to send a single doctor when we were all dying of plague, I just couldn't be bothered to warn THEM that the Cyber-hordes were about to descend on their planet.

But I'm sure our Nerva Beacon Heroes had a terribly NOBLE reason for not warning Earth that the Cybermen had declared war on them.

Or maybe they were just too tired to think of it.

Even if they didn't call Earth someone should have noticed why was going on. It's on Earth's metaphorical doorstep.

Yeah, and the Moon's on our doorstep too but we never noticed it was the eggshell of a giant chicken-dragon-monster-foetus.

Maybe we were just in denial.

We're all in denial about kill the moon.

In fact forget Lt Scott and his troopers even the late 70s UNIT (yes that one was in the 70s all the others after were in 1980) beat the Cybermen with little trouble. Despite the vast technological differences.

Really the Cybermen are a joke of a power.

Really the Cybermen are a joke of a power.

Well, they're SUPPOSED to be just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship/planet, aren't they. It's when some idiot thinks they're a galaxy-conquering, instantly-converting, faster-than-the-speed-of-light super-army (that then stands around for hours outside Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle) that things get REALLY embarrassing.

Danny is trying to make 2016 the Year Of The Cybermen, I see (all his recent posts have been about them).

Well, last year was the Year Of Vince Hawkins, so, it's only fair that another character gets their turn. Wasn't expecting it to be the Cybermen though


Loved how their tried to convince us that a bunch of mannequins were dead bodies.

Well, last year was the Year Of Vince Hawkins, so, it's only fair that another character gets their turn.

What sort of Vince-lover ARE you! Surely EVERY year should be The Year Of Vince Hawkins!

Loved how their tried to convince us that a bunch of mannequins were dead bodies.

Well, they convinced ME.

Or at least, I don't remember any mannequins, I just remember those really graphic descriptions of corpses from the novelisation.

What sort of Vince-lover ARE you! Surely EVERY year should be The Year Of Vince Hawkins!

Hey, Vince is willing to share the spotlight. Every character should get their shot.


Or at least, I don't remember any mannequins

Watch the first episode. You can't miss them.

Hey, Vince is willing to share the spotlight.

Vince is far too modest for his own good. It's your DUTY to ensure that he and he alone is in that spotlight DAY AND NIGHT.

I don't remember any mannequins

Watch the first episode.

Oh god, do I HAVE to?

You can't miss them.

Tell you what, I'll just take your word for it.

I recently watched the Tenth Planet which in turn made me download spare parts which sent me down quite the Cybermen nostalgia trip as I realised how far they've fallen.

So I thought I should redress the balance and remind everyone that the Cybermen aren't scary because they're a universe conquering army, and are in fact somehow even more ridiculous when they try to be, it's how they represent what we might one day become.

Emily is right, there were very few Cybermen around in the clsssic series, their skulking fleets forever being blown up, and it was much better that way.

Also some of the posts whilst on the Cybermen boards have gone slightly off topic Tim lol

some of the posts whilst on the Cybermen boards have gone slightly off topic Tim lol

Like Donald Trump's hostile takeover of the Tenth Planet thread

Yeah, well it is a big deal, worse than a Cybermen invasion. Donald Trump is immune to gold.

Radiation? Nail varnish? There's gotta be SOMETHING we can do...

Where's the Doctor when we need him?

To quote Gwen Cooper, sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame.

Trump is weak against strong independent women.

why can't the Doctor do a Willow from Buffy and just flay Trump alive?

First the Brits elect the Master, now this. Of course, the Brits were under a mass hypnotic suggestion at the time.

So, Yanks, what's your excuse??

I despair of the West sometimes

I typed Christmas for the first time this year on my iPad yesterday.

Number one suggested word was Cybermen

I LIKE your iPad.

Daniel Phillips and Matthew See should get a room together.

Any particular reason?

I typed Christmas for the first time this year on my iPad yesterday.

Number one suggested word was Cybermen

That was odd..

Apparently the Cyber-controller has infiltrated Apple.

If they start rolling out a line of iCybermats and offering humans cybernetic upgrades we'll know for sure.

I remember a feature in DWM about one of the staff writers once having an early computer with a spell checker.

This couldn't cope with many words used in Dr Who, & Cybermen was suggested to be replaced by Cyclamen.

I think it's just that I've typed Cybermen so many times that when I type C that's it's first thought.

What lets this down is the daft plot in which the planet of gold can't muster anything up to knobble two Cybermen. And, the whole "gold kills Cybermen" plot point is stupid and ill thought out. But, the solid aspects really do outweigh the weaker on the whole.

Weeeell, SOMETIMES the solid aspects outweigh the weaker and sometimes they don't, depending on your mood when watching (and yes, by 'mood' I do mean 'level of inebriation').

The location work at Wookey Hole is outstanding.

Wookey Hole attempted to MURDER our beloved Elisabeth Sladen.

I'll take Underworld-style CSO ANY day.

Gotta love the Seth African accented Cyber Leader...

DAKTAR..!!!

I keep expecting the Doctor to start singing Free Nelson Mandela to the Cyber Leader...

Wookey Hole attempted to MURDER our beloved Elisabeth Sladen.

They didn't mention the place was haunted, they were afraid no one would want to work there!

''The United States''....of Voga..?? Well, Vorus is VERY patriotic, so it's nice of him to decorate his big rocket!

Yeah, sometimes the use of stock footage came back and bit then on the you-know-what.

Shows how limited it was for a BBC show in 1975.

The New Series would have used CGI, of course.

It could be that the Vogans sort of telepathically pick up transmissions from other species or, well, SOMETHING, they've got the Seal of Rassilon as well...

Good an answer as any.

I wonder if the Seth African accented Cyber Leader was converted during an invasion of Apartheid SA?

SETH African??

It's a common term. It plays on the white South African accent. Guess Ottawa's is not as cosmopolitan as i thought...

That was uncalled for.

Sorry. i typed out of irritation.

Included in the special features on Revenge of the Cybermen DVD is the documentary The Tin Men And The Witch and it began with the late Doctor Who producer Barry Letts stating the success of the return of the Daleks in Doctor Who in the 1970s.
On the subtitles when Letts says about the return of the Daleks, it presented it as Return of the Daleks as if it was the name of a story which it wasn’t for the TV series,
In this documentary Revenge of the Cybermen director Michael E. Briant says about the problem of presenting on-screen the perception that were more than three or four Cybermen that was available.
Curiously enough I am writing this after seeing a rerun of Nightmare In Silver where there was no problems in presenting more than three or four Cybermen.

Curiously enough I am writing this after seeing a rerun of Nightmare In Silver where there was no problems in presenting more than three or four Cybermen.

Yeah, and didn't it get you YEARNING for the Good Old Days of Revenge of the Cybermen...

TV Tropes has a mention of the weird stuff that went down at Wookey Hole caves, where this was shot:

The serial suffered from a long string of bad luck attributed by the director to witchcraft.

When scouting the ancient cave system of Wookey Hole - a place associated by the locals with bad luck and supposedly the grave of an ancient witch - for its suitability for location shoots, the director's wife found some Iron Age arrowheads and decided to take them home, unwittingly calling an ancient curse on the production team.

First, the team encountered a strange individual in potholing gear who had apparently wandered into set, of whom the staff had no knowledge, which the director began to believe was the ghost of an Irish potholer who had died in the cave three years earlier.

The boats used in the cave scenes repeatedly broke down; one production team member had to be replaced due to an attack of claustrophobia, and another was taken seriously ill.

On a day when staff disobeyed instructions not to touch the 'Witch' formation (said to be the petrified body of the witch), Elisabeth Sladen nearly died - her boat went haywire and she had to dive overboard to keep herself from smashing into the cavern wall, where a stuntman had to pull her out to save her from drowning, and who later fell ill.

An electrician broke his leg when a ladder collapsed under him, and the pyro technician found nothing would light or work correctly.

The director took the arrowheads from his wife and reburied them, after which production ran smoothly.


Twilight Zone theme starts to play...

*Sigh*

Always sad when the behind-the-scenes stuff is more interesting than what we get on-screen...

The Seeds Of Doom also had a jinxed production.

Always sad when the behind-the-scenes stuff is more interesting than what we get on-screen...

They should have filmed that!

---

quote:

It was an interesting way of dealing with a well-established villain. You'd never see a show today write out such a well-established villain. I liked how the Cybermen were apparently the very last of the Cybermen, and when you think about it, their plan was pretty sneaky. I liked it because normally you'd think they'd simply go hibernate, or hide, or try to increase their numbers, as they only had like four Cybermen left. But instead they executed out this elaborate plan to destroy Voga the Planet of Gold, as I guess a sort of "F-U" revenge, hence the title Amazing to think the Cybermen stayed dead till 1982, almost ten years later. Even then, if I can remember, "Earthshock" took place before the events of "Revenge."

---

We've seen sonic screwdrivers, sonic lances and sonic blasters. This is the only mention of a sonic vibrator. I'm intrigued...

Kellman, Kaftan, Klieg, Krail and Kirsty, plus a couple Cutlers for good measure. Does Gerry Davis have a thing for K names?

They know Kellman is a saboteur yet allow him free reign of Nerva.

Third time this season the contents of the Doctor's pockets are revealed. I don't think this happened even once before.

These repeated references (here and in other stories) to the Cyberman having supposed to have been wiped out years ago are confusing. Especially Sarah's.

Sarah: Your best plan is to get off this beacon before the Vogans--
Cyberleader: Continue.
Leader, you interrupted her just to tell her to continue...?

Another Houdini reference for the second finale in a row. At least the Doctor didn't have to cycle through Hackenschmidt and Hopkins to get there this time.

The improved CGI effects are pretty darn good.

Not much to say about this one. I've always found this story boring, and this rewatch didn't change that.

These repeated references (here and in other stories) to the Cyberman having supposed to have been wiped out years ago are confusing. Especially Sarah's.

She must have learnt to do her research since, well, a few days ago when she thought Hilda Winters was a man.

when she thought Hilda Winters was a man.

to be fair, Sarah could have thought Winters had been "chopped'...

Huh??

As in, Hilda Winters could have had sex reassignment surgery.

I doubt the Brig would have been so chivalrous as to risk humanity getting fried in a nuke war because he couldn't shoot a woman if said woman was an ex-man.

As he said himself, he's a bit old fashioned. Would probably fall into the 'If you're born a man, you're a bloody man' camp.

Which is one of the numerous reasons I bitterly regret he'll never meet JODIE!.

and that Earth 2 where Harriet Sullivan and Samuel John Smith battle Think Tank?

Which is one of the numerous reasons I bitterly regret he'll never meet JODIE!

Well, the Cyberman version of him could.

*Wince*

Sorry about that, Emily. Think of something nice, cat, for example, lots and lots of cats.

Now I'm thinking of lots and lots of cats being converted into CyberShades.

(Thanks for trying but there's VERY LITTLE POINT in trying to cheer me up when I'm miserable.)

Ah well, I tried.

Harry's comment about Sarah having "fetlocks like a cart horse" is hysterical as is Sarah's reaction. Never insult a lady's ankles.

You'd think 'Never insult a lady's ankles' would have been pretty high-up on the list of things Harry undoubtedly committed to memory in order to become the male chauvinist pig - er, old-fashioned gentleman - we all know and (bar the Fourth Doctor) love.

Poor Harry, while he did respect women, he was also a century behind the times in regards to them as well.

he was also a century behind the times in regards to them as well.

Maybe a Spin-Off will reveal Harry is actually a time traveller from Regency Britain? ;)

Call Big Finish with this idea, I'm sure they'll get right on it.

Tim and Rodney and I could prefer the Cybermen of the 70s to the 60s because they have more personality and are more overtly villainy. For some reason there was a lot of scathing criticism about the planet Voga and the Vogans in reviews... ?

Maybe because the Vogans looked like a bunch of silly old men.

Let's do a comparison, shall we?

Tom: "I want some ANSWERS, Cyberleader!"

David: "erm, h-hope's a g-good e-emotion..."

One-nil to Scarf Man.

Hey, at least Tennant sucked all those Cybermen into hell whilst Tom just...wandered round Voga with a Cyber-backpack on.

Again:

Tom: "Only while that cable holds!"

David: "um, it's um, only the two of us now..."

Well, personally I found that Ten/Simm exchange...

(DOCTOR: I was the only one who could end it. And I tried. I did. I tried everything.
MASTER: What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did that feel?
DOCTOR: Stop it!
MASTER: You must have been like God.
DOCTOR: I've been alone ever since. But not anymore. Don't you see? All we've got is each other.
MASTER: Are you asking me out on a date?)

...one of THE most powerful moments of Who (plus pretty funny). Whereas Tom grabbing for cables and letting go of radio telescopes after wiping out half the universe is just...not the way he should have gone.

(Obviously NO way is how he should have gone, he should still be the Doctor today and Eccy, Tennant and JODIE! could have waited a few more decades to take their destined turns.)

Still, it's great that you're finally converting to the Wonderfulness Of Tom, keep it up.

I grew up with the ABC repeating seasons 12-15 on a loop. My anti Tomness was always a joke.

Jeez, congrats on a highly convincing TWENTY-YEAR running joke...

(Of course, I always KNEW that anyone who pretended not to love, adore and worship Tom OR cats was lying, but it's nice to have confirmation.)

All the dead bodies we see when the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry arrive are clearly mannequins.

Luckily the gruesome novelisation description always sticks in my mind more than what we actually get on-screen.

(Well, I SAY 'luckily'. Not THAT lucky given that the line 'Sarah reacted in true feminine style: she let out a hearty scream' is the reason it sticks in my mind. And also why I have a lifelong grudge against Terrance Dicks.)

You mean hearty screams are NOT the prefered female reaction? I'm shocked!

Women's acreams are apparently a turn-on for some guys like Terrance Dicks, given how often his post Classic series books used the "I Have You Now, My Pretty!" trope.

Hard to have "a hearty scream" at what is clearly a mannequin.

You mean hearty screams are NOT the prefered female reaction? I'm shocked!

You and everyone else who grew up reading Terrance Dicks novelisations...*sigh*...

Women's acreams are apparently a turn-on for some guys like Terrance Dicks, given how often his post Classic series books used the "I Have You Now, My Pretty!" trope.

Just for the record: she's not exaggerating.

'The Companion nearly getting raped' was top of Uncle Tewwance's check-list for his novels of his last twenty years, above even 'Wheezing Groaning Sound' and 'Gratuitous Vampire'...

Hard to have "a hearty scream" at what is clearly a mannequin.

Isn't - sorry, wasn't - the entire point of the Companion to make unconvincing monsters seem terrifying via the medium of piercing screams?

Robert Holmes was great writer and script editor, but he did not like the old monsters, esp robots, because of their limited dialogue & dramatic possibilities , which is why the Cybermen are so out of character in Revenge.

Robert Holmes was great writer and script editor

Well, sometimes he was. And sometimes, mentioning no Space Pirates, Mysterious Planets, Ultimate Foes, Two Doctors...he really, really wasn't.

Don't blame him for Ultimate Foe. Holmes died before he could finish it, then Saward has his hissy fit and stormed out, taking his part with him.

What we got was mostly Pip and Jane.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna blame ALL of the above for Ultimate Foe, the fact it literally killed off poor Bob Holmes doesn't let him off the hook. (It's not MY fault I was reared a Catholic and am therefore a great believer in eternal damnation for your sins.)

If Bob Holmes had finished it, or if Saward hadn't left, perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad.

We'll never know, of course.

We can be pretty sure, though.

That it would have been REALLY REALLY bad.

All the dead bodies we see when the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry arrive are clearly mannequins.

All of them were Hayden Christensen? ;)

This would be Tom Baker's only encounter with the Cybermen (Audios and novels notwithstanding).

Revenge of the Cybermen cost £39.95 when first released in October 1983. That's the equivalent of about £125 in today's money.

What happened to Voga after the events of this episode?

Any novels or Audios ever revisit the place?

Nope. Though TARDIS Wiki lists the occasional offhand mention in other media.

Mark Voga down among Tigella and Skonnos as a place that the Audios haven't been to yet.

I'm rather assuming that the plants ate the Tigellans pretty fast and the inevitable Big Finish box set will just consist of the wind blowing through said plants for four episodes...

The Time Lord symbol is all over Voga.

That is a story just waiting to be told.

Myths & Legends: Jorus and the Voganauts, to be precise.

That an Audio?

Short story.

Thought Big Finish would be all over this.

They'll no doubt provide a completely-contradictory-to-Jorus-and-the-Voganauts audio sooner or later...

An interesting battle.

The audios have an unfair advantage with REAL LIVE DOCOTRS' AND COMPANIONS' VOICES!! though come to think of it, after the recent inrush of recastings, this isn't necessarily the case any more. But they still have an unfair advantage from being canonised by Night of the Doctor...

In the case of Sarah and Harry, they have to recast, for obvious reasons.

Actually they wouldn't, given that they already did.

Pardon!?

We've talked about the Return of the Cybermen audio recently, didn't we?

Liz Sladen's daughter voices Sarah, and Harry is played by...well I'd have to look it up but basically: some guy.

You seem to have misunderstood me, Kevin.

I meant that he had to recast Sarah and Harry, because their original actors are dead.

Yeah, but Kevin obviously took your use of 'they have' rather than 'they had' as implying the recast is in the present or future rather than a fait accompli. Let's just stop niggling about this and start niggling about the fact they don't bloody sound much like Sarah n'Harry instead...

I meant that he had to recast Sarah and Harry, because their original actors are dead.

Well, Big Finish did come up with the brilliant alterative idea of stringing together random recordings of Pertwee for Zagreus instead of recasting but mercifully it was so godawful that they...stopped.

What did I misunderstand? You were saying they'd have to recast those two roles since the actors are dead, and I said they already did.

Whatever.

The point is that both Ian Marter and Elisabeth Sladen are both permanently unavailable.

So...the time ring just happens to bring the Doctor and company to a time when the Cybermen are up to shenanigans? Does it also bring him where he 'needs to be'?

The Time Lords did it deliberately, according to A Device of Death (which no doubt gives 'em MUCH too much credit).

That was the theory long before that novel came out.

Why would people find it so hard to believe in the idea that Time Lords might be incompetent?