The Tomb of the Cybermen - Episode 3

As we approach the second half of the story we finally get some things explained to us. Firstly why did the Cybermen go to the trouble of locking themselves in a tomb. Though they never explain the furniture in the main room. By locking themselves in the tomb, only the smartest would be able to get in. It’s quite a clever (if slightly convoluted) way of doing things. They want to use the cleverest of people to convert and this is basically the plot for the story. The first 10 minutes of the episode move quite quick as there is quite a daring rescue by Captain Hopper.

There’s a great scene between Klieg and Kaftan where Kaftan becomes a bit more of a villain as she does her Lady Macbeth moment when the pair are locked in the room with the dummy Cyberman.  It’s my one of favourite scenes in the entire episode. The second is the scene between the Doctor and Victoria when Victoria talks about her father and how she misses him and is worried about forgetting him. It’s the Doctor that tells her that she will remember him but in the back of her mind because of all the adventures that she will be about to embark on. There is a brief moment when the Doctor talks about his family. It’s the first time in a long since (possibly since the first episode of An Unearthly Child) that the Doctor talks about his life. It’s a great moment.

The build up to the cliffhanger is perhaps as strong as the cliffhanger itself. After the emotional and low key scene between the Doctor and Victoria, the drama gets cranked up with the Cybermats finally making their way to the main room and just as the Doctor and co think that they have given the cybermats a “full metal breakdown”, Klieg and Kaftan make an appearance. What’s so good about the ending is that it looks like the Doctor has been shot and there is a yell but the camera focuses in on the gun so there is a nice mystery about what has happened and leads to a good final episode.

This is the first time that the directing slips a bit. There’s one bit which doesn’t quite work and it’s when Toberman is fighting the Cyberman and the location where they filmed the tomb bit doesn’t blend in with the studio filming. This is made even worse when you can clearly see the strings that are about to lift Roy Stewart into the air, it seems like they are deliberately trying to draw our attention to it which is a shame. Apart from that brief moment I did think that Morris Barry directed another sound episode. As a story its still just as great as I remember it and I think that it’s the best opening story to a series in Doctor Who (so far). The writing is great, the claustrophobic setting is perfect and the supporting characters working well with the regulars are helping to make this a great Cybermen story.