Geek Syndicate Issue 6 | Page 78

Geek Syndicate
(Cybus style) Cyberman was revealled, I felt a tingle of the old fear. The new Cyber-upgrade really is something special. I love the sleek but powerful design, especially the chest units and the new face plates. Their voices are also something special – gone is the buzzing electronic voice, replaced with what I can only describe as Christian Bale trying to do his Batman voice while standing close to a robotising microphone. It really sounds threatening, especially when these Cybermen only speak when they have something to say. Or someone to upgrade. On top of this lovely design, we’re introduced to a new type of Cyber-critter. The Cyber-Mite is brilliant. Like large silverfish, the Cybermite form the initial stage of a much more horrific (although slightly Borg like) conversion process. What this new process means is … … Matt Smith gets to perform against himself as he is infected by the critters. And what a performance. I loved Matt in this episode, switching effortlessly and noticably between himself and the Cyber-infected version of himself. The direction of these scenes was again excellent, managing to keep a slight level of disorientation while allowing the audience to be completely sure of which “character” was speaking at any one time. I loved the scenes where the Doctor played chess against himself with Seventh Doctor relish. I liked the nod to Curse of Fenric in how the Doctor presents an unsolvable chess-puzzle to get one over on a powerful villain. On the other side of our regulars, Jenna-Louise Coleman was again strong, although I have to say I’m beginning to find Clara to be a bit too gung-ho and sure of herself. Given command of reject-squad, doesn’t phase her in the slightest and she brushes off the death of at least one soldier far too casually for my tastes. My favourite character this week has to be Warwick Davis’s Porridge however. From his first appearance, he offered a performance that showed a character with a penchant for fun but also a deep sadness. It was easy to see the twist coming, but I’ll be honest that in no way detracted from the episode for me. the rest of the cast were pretty standard for Doctor Who secondaries … which is to say they were well performed, although some were pretty cardboard representations of their character type. The Fat, sub-standard soldier. The Large-spectacled, massive-haired bureaucrat. The hard-nosed ex-Imperial Guard captain who refused an order, landing herself in this dead end assignment. I’ve no real issue with that, but it does show how smaller-scale episodes like Hide can allow the full cast to shine.
Image © BBC, 2013

Doctor vs Doctor as the Time Lord faces his Nightmare in Silver.

My only real niggle was that perhaps this new breed of Cybermen are a tad too powerful. The first one we meet can enter what can only be described as “Cyber-Bullet Time”, moving so fast that it can weave through sol-

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