Revenge of the Cybermen

Watching "Revenge" today with the eyes of someone who didn't grow up with it is very hard indeed. I should note here that since the story is older than most of my friends, I extend that definition to include those that grew up with the video release. Blimey, now that makes you think doesn't it? It's been something like fifteen years since the VHS releases started. It's actually possible now to get nostalgic about them!

And so having missed the boat, as I did with "Revenge", it becomes impossible both to "get" the magic and to knock the story in the eyes of someone who was initiated into Doctor Who by it. It's a bit like coming to "Pigeon Street" or "Jamie and the Magic Torch" in your twenties and not really being able to see what all the fuss was about. "Revenge" to me looks tired and lifeless. The sets are re-used from "Ark in Space", and then not even the best ones, the Vogans have the worst masks since the Functionaries in "Carnival of Monsters" and even the acclaimed Wookie Hole location filming seems unatmospheric and directionally dull. But then, what do I know? I was a "Revenge" latecomer.

Quite why I didn't get this early video is a mystery. Perhaps I'd heard that the story was something of a clunker; outside the influence of the nostalgia lobby that defends it, I only knew that its selection for release had been a mistake, an ill-advised attempt to match the most popular Doctor with the unavailable REAL fan wish list topper "Tomb". Plus, when I got my first video, "Robots of Death", it was one of a number of releases that were already old-hat. My eager eyes were on new stories (of which the Dalek ones seemed the most attractive) and my pocket money was not expansive enough for a big game of catch-up just yet. Oddly enough I can still remember buying "Revenge" and dragging it round Marks & Spencer's as I tried to persuade my Mum to take me home. It wasn't so I could watch my new purchase, but because I was bored and it was cold. I didn't think "Wow! Revenge of the Cybermen!" I thought "there's nothing else to get today, I may as well get buying this out the way."

That the story failed to dazzle me despite this lack of expectation may be telling, or perhaps even taking into account the fact this story could make for a young fan favourite, it just doesn't have the clout to impress an adult first time round. It seems to have Season 17 production values, but none of the tongue-in-cheek fun. There are endless talking scenes between dull alien people (actually some of Doctor Who's finest actors, but they're all in performance-suffocating masks so you can't tell). And the Cybermen sit somewhere between amusingly camp and menacing, without managing to really be either. But what do I know, I was just a dull adult, or at the very least a cynical teen looking for another "Robots of Death".

Luckily, I have to hand somebody who loves "Revenge of the Cybermen" so I put the question to him instead. What is it that makes the story so great?

"Everything." he replied simply, as if that were enough to get him off the hook.

"Like what?" countered I.

"Everything." he said again.

"Like...?"

"Everything."

I sensed this could go on until the very end of time, so I pushed for more information.

"Well, what do you like about the Five Doctors?" he shot back.

And that did make me think. If I'd said "lots of Doctors, monsters and some silly hats" he'd have volleyed back with his defence of "Revenge" - "lots of Cybermen, Ronald Leigh-Hunt and some top hands on hips posturing". I count "The Five Doctors" as one of the most thrilling, tightly directed classics in Doctor Who's canon yet I know others who, to me, miss the point in complaining it isn't frightening enough. Or there isn't enough story, whatever that's supposed to mean. So perhaps I'm missing the point of "Revenge" because I wasn't one of its contemporaries, or because I'm looking for something it never aimed to deliver.

"Oh just write about how it was the first video release or something." murmured my subject, before some biscuits stole his attention away from me. I think that instead, I should just presume that "Revenge" is simply beyond my reach; a stunning bout of adventuring that I missed out on because I grew too old, too expectant or too presumptuous to appreciate.