Why Cybermen Should Be Scary: They’re Us

Alasdair Shaw is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

We’ve all forgotten, quite frankly.

The concept of the Cybermen is a simple one: they’re us. Or rather they’re what we might be. When they first appeared during The Tenth Planet the most terrifying thing about them was their exposed human hands, marking as something a bit more sinister than just another set of robots or aliens.

They may have worn gloves from then on in, but by that point the concept had been hammered home and we remained utterly terrified of them for generations. Even the 80s couldn’t completely neuter them and the transparent chin piece served as a subtle reminder that these weren’t just sophisticated robots.

I’ve always thought it a shame that their last outing before cancellation was Silver Nemesis. I love the Seventh Doctor and most of his run (we don’t talk about Series 24), but Silver Nemesis was just a giant mess of half-baked ideas that might have worked better if more thought had gone into expanding them in other serials. Although being dispatched by silver arrows was nothing compared with what was about to come.

Well I say “about”, but it 2006 before we saw them on our screens again unless you count the blink and you miss it cameo in Dalek.

It all started so promisingly. They took the concept of hands free kits for mobile phones and hinted at the organic fusion of man and machine, but when they finally began being manufactured and marching on an alternate universe version of the Doctor they had finally transitioned from terrifying cybernetic organisms into full on robots. The fact that they came from an alternate universe rather Telos or Mondas was an indication of just how far removed from the originals these Cybermen were to be.

Sure there has been the odd moment of terror over the last eight series of nuWho, the whirring of saws prior to a conversion or a human skull falling out of an open Cyber helmet, but for every one of those moments we’ve had a squad of Cybermen marching in perfect unison or guns popping out of arms or their individual identities being absorbed into a hive mind.

Even under Neil Gaiman’s hands they became more of a Microsoft or Apple product, upgrading themselves at a whim.

And then in Dark Water, we learn that Cybermen could be created from human remains and nano technology in rain clouds.

When the only organic component left is a calcified frame there is nothing for the technology to integrate with. They’re just armoured zombies. Even the technobabble about downloading their minds didn’t work at this point. They’re just armoured zombies who are about a week late for Halloween. Perhaps the one slight redeeming feature was watching Danny Pink struggling with his humanity in the wake of his upgrade, but even that lost its sting when he started barking orders at the Cybermen as if they were some giant robot army waiting for instructions.

Robot army?

The Cybermen can be scary. They should be scary and I’m looking forward to seeing them taken back to their roots at some point by someone who understands them and their history. Until then it’s time to let them rest.

Except Handles. He can come back anytime.

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