Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermannys Part Four

Harry Mailer stops Harry Sullivan in time before he blows them all up with the Doctor's cyberbomb. Tom Baker auditions for the part of Augustus in I Claudius when he shouts at the top of his voice "IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER!!!!!" "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!!!!!" and it is loud enough that even BRIAN BLESSED would be at least a bit impressed.

Harry Mailer blows himself and the cybermannys up by taking off his own cyberbomb, which frees the others from their bombs and stops me from being confused as to which Harry is which. The Doctor persuades Tyrum and Vorus to give him 15 minutes to go back to Nerva and rescue Sarah before they take him off the case and launch their rocket.

The cyberleader wants to crash Nerva into Voga and then blow it up with more cyberbombs. He must have only just thought of this plan because otherwise he would probably have done it already instead of sending the Doctor and the other mannys to Voga with cyberbombs.

When the aliens see Nerva coming towards them Vorus launches his rocket and Tyrum shoots him too late to stop him. There is some subtext about Tyrum being a democratically elected leader and Vorus wanting to be some sort of fuhrer of the aliens instead of him, but even with such good actors as Kevin Stoney and David Collings in the roles this is not sufficiently developed to make the aliens' society interesting. Vorus's last line is

"My skystriker! My glory!"

After rescuing Sarah, the Doctor stays on Nerva to stop the cyberleader's plan, but they get captured again and, as punishment, they get massaged by the cybermannys and then left on Nerva to be blown up while the cybermannys evacuate in their own spaceship.

The Doctor 'phones Voga up and tells the Commander how to steer the rocket so it misses Nerva and blows up the cybermannys' spaceship instead. Then the Doctor makes Nerva miss Voga so the day is saved.

The TARDIS turns up and Harry teleports up to Nerva so they can all leave in the TARDIS in a very abrupt ending.

This last episode feels a bit rushed, especially at the very end. Most of the dramatic climax hinges on rockets, spaceships and planets either hitting each other or not hitting each other as required, but the visual effects are not up to the job of conveying this satisfactorily. When this is the case in Doctor Who, as it quite often is, the burden falls on the actors to act and react convincingly to make up for the lack of impressive effects, but because this is rushed they are unable to fully do so here.

For the story as a whole the biggest problem is that it is divided between too may sets of underdeveloped characters. In addition to the Doctor, Harry (Sullivan is an imbecile) and Sarah, there is (1) the Commander and Harry Mailer (oh, he's actually called Lester in this, I am a silly cat), (2) Kellman, (3) Vorus's alien faction, (4) Tyrum's alien faction, and (5) the cybermannys themselves. The result is that the cybermannys don't actually do very much in the story, which is a shame because it is supposed to be all about their revenge. Mew.

So, yes, Revenge of the Cybermannys has its faults, but it is enjoyable and pretty entertaining despite them. Tom Baker is great in all of his bits, as you would expect, and none of the actors let the side down. There are many worse Doctor Who stories, but there are also plenty that are better.

While it is hard to tell because so much of The Daleks' Master Plan has its pictures missing, I think Revenge of the Cybermannys is, sadly, almost certainly the worst Doctor Who story with Kevin Stoney in it.