The Age of Steel

"Rise of the Cybermen" suffered an unfortunate side-effect of these days of mostly self-contained adventures - no-one, and I mean no-one, waited until the story had finished before seemingly judging it. Which is a shame because "The Age Of Steel" was by far the better episode. In fact Part 1 now seems almost to belong to a different adventure, dealing as it did with John Lumic and his devious intentions for parallel world Londoners, the alternative Pete and Jackie (the latter of which being almost entirely absent from "Age") and the resistance forces of Ricky and his crew of apparently two other people.

All of these elements were gone by the second act, but it was too entertaining for anyone to reasonably care. This was, at a stroke, what we expected from the story and why episode 1 received such a lukewarm response. This was the stuff! Cybermen slowly awakening as the Doctor and Mrs Moore (should have been a companion!) creep down a narrow passageway past their dormant forms... the whole of London being herded into Battersea for Cyber Conversion... the controller, as unstoppable as he was in "Tomb" and "Earthshock", clambering up a rope ladder after our heroes! This was the business!

In many ways, if "Rise" tricked us into believing that we were exploring a strange new dimension, "Age" winked and told us that some things just never change. Even the brave alternative Mickey turned out to be a bit of a coward after all, though the parking tickets gag fell oddly flat. In the end, "Age" turned out to be utterly traditional, with even an old-style companion departure at the end. It's hard to imagine new Doctor Who without the latter half of the "Jackie 'n' Mickey" support cast. Time for someone new to be brought in, perhaps? It's also a shame the Doctor's dismissal of Mickey wasn't adequately dealt with, although some might argue the latter saving the day was our lad proving himself at last. And what of Jake? He seemed unusually emotional when his mate, the gruff and unlikeable Ricky, met his demise. It was, in all senses, the reaction of a grieving spouse, and we can't help but wonder if he was sticking it in.

I think this probably scared the kids witless too, which will have been half the battle won. It now seems bizarre that Doctor Who used to get in trouble for being too frightening - today, everyone seems to realise that this is the whole point of it being there! So while softening touches like the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" music last week and other similar devices of restraint this time (no blood at all, did you notice? Me neither) made the story less scary than it could have been for older viewers like me, the concepts at work here will have given any kid the heeby-jeebies. In particular, the new and original idea of turning off the Cybermen's emotions to send them mad is a particularly sad and cruel notion (and perhaps at last justifies the production team's self-acknowledged debt to "Spare Parts"). Scenes such as the Cyberman who told the Doctor how cold it felt, and about "her" kids, will certainly live on in my mind as being among the series best.

So while it could never have worked in 45 minutes, it's a real pity that this story wasn't shown in one go - I feel that this is what's going to rob it of being labelled among the New Series' best. Seven days of false disappointment factored into its appreciation, when we all really should have waited, and trusted, that it would eventually turn out to be everything we hoped it would be, and more.