Silver Nemesis

If you had no idea what everyone else thought about any other Doctor Who story, and had to judge them all based solely on your experience of watching each episode in question, I wonder if your opinions would match your thoughts on them today. The curse of being part of a wider Doctor Who fandom is that your reception of each story is inevitably tainted with how good you "know" it is before seeing it, usually with polar effects. You'll probably end up enjoying "The Power of Kroll" more than "The Masque of Mandragora" because you've been taught which one is the worthless dirge and which hails from a "classic" era. But once upon a time, for some of us, we had zero expectations when the opening credits of Doctor Who rolled, and what's more we were at any age when certain aspects of a production wouldn't spoil the story for us. I can recall watching "Silver Nemesis" at the time, and I have to say I'd be lying if I said I slammed my fist into the wall at the close of Part 3 and proclaimed it rubbish.

The main thing I remember about it, funnily enough, was the fact that there were loads of TARDIS materilisations in it. Considering it was achieved via a simple slow cross-fade, and that half the time they didn't even make the light flash, there was always an extraordinary joy to be had from watching the Doctor's ship slip in and out of existence. Perhaps it was because you were only allowed to glimpse it a maximum of twice every four weeks. So "Silver Nemesis" seemed like a guilty pleasure at the time, the visual Doctor Who equivalent of being left in a room with a big box of chocolates and allowed to eat the lot. Time after time in Part 1 the TARDIS hopped about, from Windsor to ancient candle-lit crypt and then back to some hills. It was almost like they didn't KNOW we were only allowed to see this once a story!

And then there was the close of Part 1, where the Cybermen emerged totally unexpectedly from their ship. How cool was that! I can recall that something like this happening immediately bolstered the potential for the remaining episodes, and some who take their appearance for granted (or scoff at just why they were included) might like to remember this. Suddenly a story which was shaping up to be about the search for an arrow was going to have the Cyb's in, and all manner of things could be in store. In short, I was instantly looking forward to the next episode twice as much as I was before, as was I suspect the whole point. Those that knew this was to be a Cyber Story, perhaps because they were connected enough to have read it in DWM six months previously, should ask why those in charge made the return of my favourite monsters that all-important episode 1 cliffhanger if you were SUPPOSED to know in advance.

I was quite surprised when I found out about contemporary fan reaction to "Silver Nemesis". I can see now why it is so; if you look at things like plot structure, music or direction then "Silly Nem" is but a child's finger-painting next to the Rembrandt of "Remembrance" and the glory of "Greatest Show". But these are precisely the things you don't care about when you're nine and a half. In the same way that kids of the eighties aren't likely to have shunned Adam and the Ants for looking horribly cheap, the music in "Silver Nemesis" was simply how Doctor Who music WAS at the time. And direction? I didn't even know what that was. And who cares or can even discern plot structure when there is a week's gap between each episode? To be honest, the only thing's that I found hard to watch back then were Lady Remington and those two awful clichéd youths. Yes, a lot of things have quite rightly dated but I can report that these characters were ALWAYS painful to watch, even back then! They didn't convince me for a second.

But then there's the oft-criticised aspect of there being "too many baddies" in "Silver Nemesis". I can't say I ever thought about that as a young 'un either - too many baddies? How could there be too many baddies? I'd probably have added the Daleks and the Master as well if it had been up to me! People tend to forget that there was a reason that JNT brought back so many old monsters, and that was because people - specifically kids - LIKED them. It's the same people that are okay about the Master being in every story in Season 8 that have pops at Anthony Ainley ("our" Master) for being in the Davison era so often. To complain that De Flores is popped off too quickly is to deny that great villains can be disposed of by a single bullet. And, do you know, it never even occurred to me that the Cybermen were at all "weak" because they were killed with gold-tipped arrows either. I just thought that sequence where Ace takes them on a wild goose chase round the warehouse was so very exciting.

Today, I know that "Silver Nemesis" is a different proposition. It unfortunately betrays all the surface-gloss pitfalls that were typical of the McCoy era at its most sloppy - the music IS very tacky sounding now, it's patched up with overdubs and dubious editing (the scene where the Cyberman is on the bridge is the worst, making it unclear whether Ace is with him or on the ground) and it has a nasty contemporary eighties feel to it, like a promotional tourism video. If you showed it to someone high up at the BBC today who you'd just convinced that Doctor Who in the eighties had been curtailed prematurely, it'd change their mind back again on the spot. But these are adult concerns, and Doctor Who was and should have been made for the kids. I taped and re-watched "Silver Nemesis" a number of times, and always loved it. It was interesting, exciting and stuffed full of great set pieces like the Doctor diving in the river and the Cyber Ship blowing up. And, you know, we were spoilt rotten with all those glorious TARDIS landings...