DVD Reviews Monday: A Double Dose Of Doctor Who & Cybermen

BBC Video recently released two more classic Doctor Who stories on DVD. The latest selections are two adventures in which The Doctor encounters the Cybermen, from two distinctly different eras of Doctor Who history. They’re also noteworthy in that they are both stories that I had never seen before, so both were brand new to me.

The first DVD released is Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen. This was actually one of the first video tapes ever issued for purchase in the 1980’s, so within the DVD is a very interesting feature looking at the days of Doctor Who collecting and video swapping in the times before all of Who was available at your fingertips.

Revenge took place during Fourth Doctor Tom Baker’s first season, and I think my Doctor Who-watching friend and I skipped it because he said it was “bad.” Surprisingly… it’s not. I enjoyed it a lot. There are moments that make no sense, of course, but the story has some memorable moments, including the Doctor Who line that made me laugh more than any other. (If you want to look for it, the sequence starts with The Doctor asking Harry if he made the rocks fall).

This was especially fun to watch in light of watching the recent Sarah Jane Adventures where Lis Sladen’s Sarah reminisces about Harry. I had forgotten how much the two actually bickered, but it’s nice to know that Sarah remembers Harry fondly.

Revenge of the Cybermen is really the first full-length color story for the Cybermen, and the first to establish their allergy to gold. Which also begs the question of why they would set foot on a planet that is virtually made of gold, but hey, it’s the 70’s. The effects are very 70’s as well, but again, I had fun.

Now that all of Tom Baker’s first season/series is on DVD this might be something fun to put on a full-season box set eventually. Oh- and thank GOODNESS- the DVD is now preceded by a Matt Smith trailer video, not the years-old Series 4 promo.

All in all, this was a fun one to watch.

Silver Nemesis was meant to be Doctor Who’s 25th anniversary story. The Cybermen are back in this one and shinier than ever. The plot centers around a quest to unite items to create something called the “Nemesis.” As with a lot of other Sylvester McCoy-era stories, it hasn’t aged well. There’s just something about late 1980’s Doctor Who that screams “late night PBS” and not necessarily in a good way; the look of it isn’t as forgivable as it was for material from earlier times.

Sylvester McCoy is a very capable actor but probably my least favorite Doctor because of being saddled with such cheap-looking material. The first half hour or so of the 1996 TV-movie showed off Sylvester with a budget, and it looked fantastic. Poor guy. Sophie Aldred’s Ace, which I think was an attempt to be “cool,” still fails for me.

As easily defeated as the Cybermen sometimes become in other stories, this might be the Cybermen at their worst. All it takes is Ace, a slingshot, and some gold to take them down. Seriously? We’re supposed to be afraid of these creatures? Lame. It’s no wonder my friend calls this “Silly Nemesis.”

I also don’t really care for the purposeful attempts to make the Doctor mysterious in this era of the series. It seems to be trying too hard to be meaningful, and such moments seem to be tacked on rather than being a valid part of the story.

Silver Nemesis is definitely not the worst story of the McCoy era (so far, I think that’s Dragonfire) but it is pretty bad. If you are going to pick just one of the new DVD’s to get, check out Revenge. I will say that Silver Nemesis does at least have good extras, including interviews and a whole lot of deleted scenes-type footage.