2.5-6: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel
Synopsis: The TARDIS accidentally crashes through "the void" between realities and winds up in the London of a parallel universe. Here, Rose's dad is alive and terribly wealthy, but he and Jackie do not have a daughter. Pete Tyler is in business with a man called Lumic, who suffers from a fatal disease, and seeks to prolong his life. The result is his company, Cybus Industries, developing Cybermen on Earth. Already, he has manipulated the populace by manufacturing a type of mind-probing ear pods, sort of a Bluetooth device which almost everyone wears.
Rose charms the Doctor into exploring "her" family's home, and they pose as catering staff at Jackie's birthday party. Meanwhile, Mickey finds that he has a tough-talking identical double in this universe (Ricky), who is an operative with an underground cell working against Cybus Industries. They follow Lumic's cargo out to the Tyler estate just in time for the Cybermen to attack. Pete, the Doctor and Rose join Ricky's lot, and the Doctor attempts to surrender, but the Cybermen disregard him and try to kill the group. The Doctor dispatches them, and they take off in Ricky's van.
Hoardes of Londoners, influenced via ear pods, begin walking like zombies toward Battersea Power Station for Cyber conversion, guided by armies of Cybermen. The group splits up to avoid them, and Ricky is killed in the chase. The remaining group makes a plan to infiltrate Battersea. In the process, Mickey and one of the operatives cancel out the transmittor, freeing the enthralled humans, and the Doctor has a chance to partially dissect a Cyberman. He works out their nervous system, including the emotional inhibitor, an electronic device which dampens all feeling. With Mickey and Rose's help, the Doctor feeds the cancellation code of the inhibitor into the transmittor controlling all Cybermen, and once they are allowed to feel, they realise what they have become, they overload and die.
Mickey decides to stay in this universe to help bring down conversion stations all over the world. The Doctor leaves with a tearful Rose, and they return to "our" universe. For now...
Golden Comic Moment: When Mickey and Ricky come face-to-face, everyone is understandably confused. Ricky wants to know how this is possible, and Mrs. Moore responds, "It could be that Cybus Industries perfected the science of human cloning. Or your father had a bike."
Golden Fangirl Moment: Doctor Who in the 21st century, surprisingly and refreshingly, does not "sex up" its female characters (unless their minds have been overtaken). Back in the 70's, Liz Shaw's skirts were the size of postage stamps, but in the 2000's, the girls have not been asked to wear anything more revealing than a tank top. In this story, with Rose posing as catering staff, they could have had her prancing around in a modified French maid's costume with spike heels, but they didn't. She looks like catering staff, which is nice.
Instead, this story gives us girls a bit of eye-candy in the form of its male regulars. David Tennant makes his first of three appearances as the Doctor in a tux, and whoa, nelly! The only way it could get sexier is if he undid the bow-tie and dishevelled the collar a bit. Oh, wait...
And Noel Clarke half-naked? If anyone, at this point, is asking what Rose saw in that guy, well, just assume they met when he was walking about in a Speedo. Who knew?
Gee, it's almost as if a gay man were running the show at that time...
Cringeworthy Moment: Any well-rendered, emotional story has its fair share of cringeworthy moments. Seeing people sad and uncomforable is one of the cornerstones of drama, and is particularly poignant in a story about former humans who are rid of all emotion.
And this story is well-rendered and emotional. We cringe when Jackie is chasing Rose the Yorkshire Terrier through the house, and the Doctor laughs, only to find that Rose the human being is hurt by it. We cringe when Rose attempts to make a connection with Jackie, only to be debased and threatened. We cringe when Rose calls Pete "dad," and he runs away in utter terror. Rose, let's face it, is at the emotional heart of this story (especially when we think of it in retrospect, with Doomsday on the horizon), and many of her most important moments make us cringe. And that's actually good - bravo to the writers and actors for selling it.
And so, we will simply return to the icky Doctor/Rose moments that make us go, "Ugh." When they are stopped in the street contemplating whether they will visit the Tyler estate or not, Rose gives the Doctor a manipulative, sickly-sweet grin which seems to melt his resolve. Sorry, but are they father and daughter or lovers? Well, technically neither, but it's funny how the line gets blurred at a time like this!
Golden Moment: So much of Doctor Who deals with the questions of humanity: what is it? What does it mean? What is it not? What does it mean to lose it? Is it worth it?
When the hero and the villain have their inevitable showdown, the Lumic Cyberman asks the Doctor, "Have you known grief and rage and pain?...I can set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?" The Doctor responds, "You might as well kill me." Shortly thereafter the Doctor cancels out the emotional inhibitor, and the Cybermen begin to feel grief and rage and pain, because of what they have become. They can see and feel that their humanity is lost, and they are so appalled, it literally kills them.
It is a lovely parallel. The Doctor implies that to remove his grief, rage, pain (and presumably, joy, love and pleasure), is to remove his individuality, his (metaphorical) humanity, and death is preferable. By the same token, when the emotive Cybermen see that their humanity has been taken, they die.
This does not yet round out Doctor Who's lessons on the oscillating nature of life and death in humanity, but it is another piece of the puzzle, and it makes us proud to be human!
Why I Beg To Differ: DWM names the moment just after Rose and Pete meet the Cyberman who claims, "I was Jacqueline Tyler," when Pete wonders if the process can be reversed, then looks back into the crowd, unable to identify which Cyberman was his wife. This illustrates the uniformity of the Cybermen, the utter removal of individuality and the complete loss of the self.
But it does not give us the implications of all these things. Yes, individuality has been removed, but what does that mean, and why is it important? Like so many things on the show, we get our answer to the question "what does that mean?" from the Doctor himself.
Rose charms the Doctor into exploring "her" family's home, and they pose as catering staff at Jackie's birthday party. Meanwhile, Mickey finds that he has a tough-talking identical double in this universe (Ricky), who is an operative with an underground cell working against Cybus Industries. They follow Lumic's cargo out to the Tyler estate just in time for the Cybermen to attack. Pete, the Doctor and Rose join Ricky's lot, and the Doctor attempts to surrender, but the Cybermen disregard him and try to kill the group. The Doctor dispatches them, and they take off in Ricky's van.
Hoardes of Londoners, influenced via ear pods, begin walking like zombies toward Battersea Power Station for Cyber conversion, guided by armies of Cybermen. The group splits up to avoid them, and Ricky is killed in the chase. The remaining group makes a plan to infiltrate Battersea. In the process, Mickey and one of the operatives cancel out the transmittor, freeing the enthralled humans, and the Doctor has a chance to partially dissect a Cyberman. He works out their nervous system, including the emotional inhibitor, an electronic device which dampens all feeling. With Mickey and Rose's help, the Doctor feeds the cancellation code of the inhibitor into the transmittor controlling all Cybermen, and once they are allowed to feel, they realise what they have become, they overload and die.
Mickey decides to stay in this universe to help bring down conversion stations all over the world. The Doctor leaves with a tearful Rose, and they return to "our" universe. For now...
Golden Comic Moment: When Mickey and Ricky come face-to-face, everyone is understandably confused. Ricky wants to know how this is possible, and Mrs. Moore responds, "It could be that Cybus Industries perfected the science of human cloning. Or your father had a bike."
Golden Fangirl Moment: Doctor Who in the 21st century, surprisingly and refreshingly, does not "sex up" its female characters (unless their minds have been overtaken). Back in the 70's, Liz Shaw's skirts were the size of postage stamps, but in the 2000's, the girls have not been asked to wear anything more revealing than a tank top. In this story, with Rose posing as catering staff, they could have had her prancing around in a modified French maid's costume with spike heels, but they didn't. She looks like catering staff, which is nice.
Instead, this story gives us girls a bit of eye-candy in the form of its male regulars. David Tennant makes his first of three appearances as the Doctor in a tux, and whoa, nelly! The only way it could get sexier is if he undid the bow-tie and dishevelled the collar a bit. Oh, wait...
And Noel Clarke half-naked? If anyone, at this point, is asking what Rose saw in that guy, well, just assume they met when he was walking about in a Speedo. Who knew?
Gee, it's almost as if a gay man were running the show at that time...
Cringeworthy Moment: Any well-rendered, emotional story has its fair share of cringeworthy moments. Seeing people sad and uncomforable is one of the cornerstones of drama, and is particularly poignant in a story about former humans who are rid of all emotion.
And this story is well-rendered and emotional. We cringe when Jackie is chasing Rose the Yorkshire Terrier through the house, and the Doctor laughs, only to find that Rose the human being is hurt by it. We cringe when Rose attempts to make a connection with Jackie, only to be debased and threatened. We cringe when Rose calls Pete "dad," and he runs away in utter terror. Rose, let's face it, is at the emotional heart of this story (especially when we think of it in retrospect, with Doomsday on the horizon), and many of her most important moments make us cringe. And that's actually good - bravo to the writers and actors for selling it.
And so, we will simply return to the icky Doctor/Rose moments that make us go, "Ugh." When they are stopped in the street contemplating whether they will visit the Tyler estate or not, Rose gives the Doctor a manipulative, sickly-sweet grin which seems to melt his resolve. Sorry, but are they father and daughter or lovers? Well, technically neither, but it's funny how the line gets blurred at a time like this!
Golden Moment: So much of Doctor Who deals with the questions of humanity: what is it? What does it mean? What is it not? What does it mean to lose it? Is it worth it?
When the hero and the villain have their inevitable showdown, the Lumic Cyberman asks the Doctor, "Have you known grief and rage and pain?...I can set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?" The Doctor responds, "You might as well kill me." Shortly thereafter the Doctor cancels out the emotional inhibitor, and the Cybermen begin to feel grief and rage and pain, because of what they have become. They can see and feel that their humanity is lost, and they are so appalled, it literally kills them.
It is a lovely parallel. The Doctor implies that to remove his grief, rage, pain (and presumably, joy, love and pleasure), is to remove his individuality, his (metaphorical) humanity, and death is preferable. By the same token, when the emotive Cybermen see that their humanity has been taken, they die.
This does not yet round out Doctor Who's lessons on the oscillating nature of life and death in humanity, but it is another piece of the puzzle, and it makes us proud to be human!
Why I Beg To Differ: DWM names the moment just after Rose and Pete meet the Cyberman who claims, "I was Jacqueline Tyler," when Pete wonders if the process can be reversed, then looks back into the crowd, unable to identify which Cyberman was his wife. This illustrates the uniformity of the Cybermen, the utter removal of individuality and the complete loss of the self.
But it does not give us the implications of all these things. Yes, individuality has been removed, but what does that mean, and why is it important? Like so many things on the show, we get our answer to the question "what does that mean?" from the Doctor himself.