One of the most notable things about Japanese cinema icons such as Kurasawa is the way they tell a story not through the eyes of the most important characters but by following the least important people in the narrative. This allows the story teller to engage the audience which is, by and large, made up of people who are not super heroes or dastardly villains. Ok so I got the Kurasawa stuff from the commentary to the new DVD of Star Wars but I thought it would sound more impressive. With hindsight I shouldn’t have admitted that in the same paragraph. But the point still stands – Spare Parts does exactly the same thing – it focuses not on a Cyber-Davros or a Cyber-Nyder or on the machinations of the Cyber-council. It instead presents us with a Northern family who would fit in very nicely in one of the less racy soap operas. Possibly Coronation Street before it went mad.

Actually, Star Wars isn’t a bad comparison to make with Spare Parts seeing as both are prequels to the established mythology. In Star Wars’ case of course, George Lucas insists everything was planned in advance and that anything which doesn’t fit into his new continuity either never happened or happened because they didn’t have the money to do it right the first time. So Luke and Leia snogged because they didn’t have enough cash for them not to snog. Maybe it was a contract thing with horny adolescent actor Mark "My career ended in 1983" Hamill. At least we don’t have to put up with Gerry Davies or Kit Peddler saying that Spare Parts is exactly what they planned back in 1966 when they drafted The Tenth Planet. Spare Parts is ret-con at its finest and most open. The back of "Doctor Who and the Cybermen" (which I used to read in the library when I was smaller than Paddington Bear) gives us everything we needed to know. I’d find the text online but you already know it. The people of Mondas gradually replaced their bones with metal, their organs with machines, their skin with plastics and their brains with computers. They became more machine than man and so the Cybermen were born.

There are aspects of Spare Parts which it is best to ignore. People surviving in vast underground cities while their planet hurtles through space is perhaps a bit unlikely. Even in Doctor Who it is one of those things best put to one side. As is the question which bugged me – what exactly ARE cybermats? The honest father of the story is a ‘mat catcher which means he catches cybermats for a living. Did they evolve naturally? Were they an early research project which somehow learned to adapt to life outside the lab? Or is it something I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about?

They also added a bit about the Doctor giving the cyber-scientists vital biological information and that every Cyberman will carry some kind of aspect of the Doctor’s physiognomy. Or something. It guilds the lily a little methinks. It’s something, frankly, that George Lucas would do. We can look forward to the CD where the Doctor removes the Cyberleader’s face plate and looks at the ghostly, pallid, dead face of Peter Davison. Admittedly it won’t work quite as well on audio-only but it’ll happen one day. Maybe.

It is impossible to write a piece about Spare Parts without mentioning Genesis of the Daleks. They share many traits – they are both prequels made long after the creatures were established, both are (arguably) their respective monsters’ best story, both give us sympathy for the race which gave their lives to spawn the creatures. And both tell excellent stories while constrained by the very fact of being a prequel.

Spare Parts shows us the exciting things that can happen when fresh blood is given the chance to expand on decades of tradition and adventure.

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-7

Part 2 - Tracks 8-14

Part 3 - Tracks 1-6

Part 4 - Tracks 7-12