I'm going to be very negative today. Instead of talking about why "Spare Parts" is the best Big Finish adventure ever made, I'm going to discuss what I perceive as it's only two substantial flaws. Cry pessimist, throw fruit, whatever. We both know criticism is far more enjoyable to read than praise, and besides, it's the incredible impact that this story makes that shows up it's only unfortunate weaknesses.

The first thing is the jolly ending. For a story that has reached such an inevitably grim conclusion, with most of the population of Mondas dragged off the streets to be converted into pitiful, emotionless proto-Cybermen, it's astounding what happens in the last ten minutes. The Doctor destroys the Committee (with a few bottles of wine), Doctormann Alan is now said to be "humanising" the process and, amazingly, cheery goodbyes are said. The Doctor even rambles something about some good coming out of it after all (see also "Genesis of the Daleks")! Whilst the subsequent re-emergence of Zheng heralds, as we know it must, a shock "the evil remained after all" ending, one has to ask why they bothered with the "false" ending in the first place. This story has to finish as it is told, with the complete subservience of the planet, so why pretend for a few moments that the Doctor has saved the day? It's almost as if the writer is scared of finishing such a relentlessly terrible chain of events without a spark of jollity to cheer us all up, and it winds up like a telling of Colditz that ends with someone pretending to celebrate the merry demise of fascism for the sake of a happy ending.

The other thing is the business of the Mondasians using the Doctors Time Lord body print as a basis for the Cyber Race. This we don't need. Perhaps Platt felt reigned in by having to write what is essentially somebody else's sketchily conceived history. Maybe he was that desperate to add a slice of myth of his own to the pie. He needn't have bothered - what he achieved here anyway is worth far more. "Spare Parts" makes the genesis of the Cybermen as we previously knew it seem like the fall of Pompeii summarised on the back of a postage stamp in childproof letters. Like our own history, the story of the Cybermen had been softened by that jolly preface in twenty years of the "Revenge of the Cybermen" target novel. That handy prologue had, until "Spare Parts" came along, made it sound like an unfortunate accident. "The Mondasians replaced limbs with plastic, brains with computers...". We all know it so well. Did anyone ever wonder how? Or whether everyone was in agreement with this jolly plan? When "Spare Parts" shows the unwitting recruits stripped of clothes and herded towards the sound of saws cutting through bones, it suddenly seems more like the tragedy of a planet-wide concentration camp than a misguided solution.

What's more, there is more of a sense that the Doctor and Nyssa have been caught up in the unstoppable tide of dangerous events far more than usual. They are there only to bear witnesses to what is portrayed as the devastating end to an entire race. So why do we need the somewhat comical revelation that every Cybermen we've ever met is based on the Doctor? It comes from the same school of thought that dreamed up the Doctor having built Stone Henge. And this sudden and needless stitch in the tapestry of continuity takes away his ant-like helplessness in the face of these events. It's almost like it's inconceivable that a monumental historical event should occur without our hero being behind it, a lazy and gratuitous strategy that rests on the ludicrous assumption that because the Doctor is the most important character in Doctor Who, this also makes him the most important man that ever lived. Were Platt to write a story depicting the creation of the world, we'd half expect the Doctor to pop up over God's shoulder with a jaunty suggestion that he make Italy look like one of his favourite boots.

It's telling that neither of these things makes "Spare Parts" less essential than its nearest rivals. Who'd have thought that a story with Sally Knyvette in would wind up better than "Genesis of the Daleks"?

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-7

Part 2 - Tracks 8-14

Part 3 - Tracks 1-6

Part 4 - Tracks 7-12