This is the penultimate episode for Adric and this is where
the Cybermen final seem to be joining in on the action. This is where the
Cybermen begin their plan and start to make their presence felt. At the end of
the previous episode, Ringway tells the Doctor and Adric that murderers are
executed on his ship. This is pretty much forgotten about after a short amount
of time. Ringway became a lot more interesting in this episode once the Doctor
and the others learn that he is working for the Cybermen. Sadly this new found
interest doesn’t last long as he is killed by the Cybermen (will they never
learn).
It’s interesting that both group of humans appear in this
episode for a reasonable amount of time because they don’t really seem that dissimilar.
I still don’t think that Beryl Reid is a believable captain and think that the
crew are a little bit hapless which is how the army crew come across because
they spend quite a lot of time stuck in the TARDIS before Scott leaves with
Tegan. On that point, Tegan gets to leave the TARDIS but Nyssa spends another
episode stuck in the TARDIS with Kyle.
I find it surprising that the Doctor doesn’t realise that
the Cybermen are involved until about the 10 minute mark. Once he does then
that is when the episode picks up and I really enjoyed what was appearing on screen
but found myself somewhat less interested when they weren’t on screen. All the
action was taking place in the control room and it seemed like we were missing
the party when we weren’t there.
There are a couple of good effects used in this episode. The
effect of the Cyberman mixed in with the door is a great visual effect and
still looks good today. Another very good effect is the final shot of the
episode which is a shot of Cybermen marching towards the screen but its been
copied and pasted to make three liens thus doing a great job of implying that
there are more than just a handful of Cybermen. The cliffhanger itself was
quite a good one because just the visual of what this means is a great way to
end an episode and even though it does have the impact that the first
cliffhanger does doesn’t mean that there wasn’t something to like about it.
This episode does seem to be another one of two halves but
unlike the previous episode, I thought that it worked quite well. I am
impressed with how quickly the story seems to be moving. It’s weird to think
that the end of Adric is almost here but I think that so far the first Cyberman
story in seven years is one of the strongest for quite sometime and shows how a
Cyberman story should be set up.
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