**Spoilers** Series 7, Episode 12 - "Nightmare in Silver"

pixelburp

Well here comes the episode that arguably is the most keenly awaited of the new run so far - and it ain't even the finale. The hype from Neil Gaiman's mere presence alone is pretty unreal; and while "The Doctor's Wife" was a fantastic story, I can't help but feel people might be disappointed - little ever is when it's hyped that much.

I'm curious though to see what Gaiman does with the Cybermen, particularly as in interviews he has been name-dropping the early Troughton Cyber appearances as an influence, and how they used to be silent & insidious creatures. I was never a fan of the new versions introduced in the 2005 series, so hopefully they do something interesting with them (if nothing else, the new design looks much better than the previous fat & clumsy iteration)

One negative note though - going by the below clips, the child characters appear to be utterly nauseating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71jLxk0hZYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0VZlIM_ZIw

BuffyBot

Yes, I'm kinda glad there's not another "leak" in the dimensional wall and parallel Cybermen coming through it yadayada.

ebbsy

Is the later time slot due to the fact that the kids will be turned into cyberchildren ?

Doctor DooM

ebbsy wrote: »

Is the later time slot due to the fact that the kids will be turned into cyberchildren ?

Oh don't give us hope, it's too cruel when it is dashed!

BuffyBot

Does this make them officially part of the list of offical companions now? After all, they've travelled in the TARDIS and had an adventure with the Doctor. If Adam, Craig etc count..do these moppets? :O

flazio

Can we at least watch the episode before damning them to eternity?

Sleepy

Having quiet the Neil Gaimon day today, my daughter's watched Coraline twice already today!

MitchKoobski

The curse of the annoying child actors strikes again.

ixoy

Very disappointed. I had been reading Sandman this morning and this pales so much in comparison. Now I don't expect the same adult situations but nor did I expect something so watered down. It felt like something from the RTD era. It didn't help that the kids were irritating, especially the elder girl. I'll just forget this was penned by the same man who wrote The Doctor's Wife.

I thought it was ok, but then I hated "the doctor's wife"
Matt Smith is a great actor

Penn

The child actors were particularly horrendous, the soldiers were pretty awful and the Emporer story had zero effect whatsoever. Only positive was the Cybermen who were great for the most part with the exception of being able to upgrade from everything which was kinda overdone.

Next week looks like it could be great though.

BuffyBot

Smith did really well, to be fair and the episode was better than some we've had.

As for the kids..so they hop in the TARDIS, have a trip to an alien world in the future, and they just hop out again without so much as "yeah, you better not tell anyone about this". Hmmm..not convinced on that, or why they even needed to be there overall.

Manach

I enjoyed it, decent enough plot, Clara in command, kids struck dumb for at least part of the episode and a satisfactory deux ex machina ending.

yaines

Urgh...Did not love that. Those kids were horrendous! I was nearly hoping they would turn into cybermen (cyberkids??) so we'd never have to see them again. Lets hope that's the case anyway. Story was a bit all over the gaff with some funny bits of dialogue. Positive bits included Matt Smith proving himself again as an excellent actor with the whole "Cyber planner in my head" thing and Warwick Davidson being generally quite cool really. Still the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment all in all but to be expected I suppose after all the hype around it.

Oh well, looking forward to next week's ep... Although if we don't find out who Clara is, I may actually explode! :-)

CastorTroy

I thought this would be a 2 parter since haven't had one yet. The kids were quite bad with the girl just storming off for no reason. Good thing they were struck dumb for a lot of the episode.

The prequel for next week's episode on the red button sounds interesting

BlitzKrieg

Never was there an episode that I wanted to like it at the end but couldnt.

Quite frankly I went through that feeling I missed huge chunks of the plot.

The whole reveal of a cyber repair shop under the amusement park was baffling because there was no lead up to it. Either it said very briefly or not said at all that children had been going missing. Couple that with how bitty all the scenes were. We had random people being killed by cybermen but no sense or rhyme to it, no logic to the cyber abilities (1 scene can move uberfast, never used again)

I liked the characters, I like the crisis I absolutely loved the inside his head fighting of words, but it was much like the new star trek in that it just did not put any oomph behind its set pieces opting instead to hop around too much.

It needed to be grounded with the chess game as the centre piece and the cyber threat greatly simplified instead of bitty cyber kill bits and oddly cheerful soldiers fighting them they should have kept it simple with just an army of cybermen *about* to be activated but are being held off because of the chess game and had the supporting cast focus on a straightforward task that gives them room to develop such as trying to get a ship working or building a defensive line. I cant believe i'm saying this but weaker episodes like Water of Mars and the dead planet did this with much less actual interesting content(doctor unravelling the mystery is A plot, guest cast/companion digging out bus is B plot)

I wanted to like it, I liked what it could have been, but no, it was very disapointing.

T-Bird

Am afraid to say that all the episodes so far seem to have only about 5-7 min's worth of a story (for the final episode)and the rest is using Cut-up technique to fill in the remaining 40 min's.

ebbsy

Somebody above said "watered down" - couldn't have said it better myself.

If you are going to do the Cybermen properly then for god's sake give them menace - not kill them off in 5 seconds. Controlled by children ? Bulls??t.

Maybe I am getting ould but I still remember Earthshock,Attack, etc, proper stories.

pixelburp

ebbsy wrote: »

...
Maybe I am getting ould but I still remember Earthshock,Attack, etc, proper stories.

You're getting old; Earthshock and Attack were frickin' dreadful, particularly the latter. Both stories' plots made far less sense than last night's episode, with far greater plotholes (and that's before you get into the trend back then to make the Doctor completely ineffective in an mean-spirited, cynical world - Eric Seward hated the Doctor). I do think sometimes there's a misplaced nostalgia for the classic series, as it was guiltier far more often of nonsense plots and Deus Ex Machina than the new series is. Earthshock had a great twist, but the plot was garbage.

I thought it was an ok episode, but it seems my guess was kinda right - it would be a disappointment after The Doctor's Wife and given who the scriptwriter was. If I didn't know it was Gaiman I wouldn't have guessed it tbh. It definitely lacked a spark, although the two Doctors fighting each other was quite gripping in places.

I like the new Cybermen - their upgrading seems like an obvious addition, yet surprising that nobody ever thought of it before. It reminds a lot of the Borg now of course (who in turn are very similar in concept), and to be fair the idea of an enemy who can instantly learn and evolve from their mistakes makes for a more formidable enemy that generic stompy robots. Equally, I liked the new cybermats, they were very effective & creepy - the final shot of that lone, surviving 'mat was a good touch.

Minus points are the children and Porridge; both completely and utterly pointless. The children couldn't act and behaved moronically (so for all his powers, Gaiman needs to be pulled up on that one), and equally the twist about Porridge served no purpose. Even if you accept the idea that he wanted to live away from it all, Prince and Pauper style, being a dogsbody for a useless entertainer on a backwater planet doesn't make much sense (Although I guess he chose to be reminded of his action in ending the Cyber War, which was nice)

Cosmic Maybe

Am I a bad person for wishing that the children had died? I thought they were very unrealistic, what normal teenager would arrive in outer space by time machine and then do nothing but constantly complain. Also the 2 actors were terrible!

Antar Bolaeisk

pixelburp wrote: »

snip

I didn't like the new cybermats/mites. They reminded me too much of the silverfish buggers running around my apartment :eek:

Das Kitty

I actually quite enjoyed it. I suppose I had tempered my expectations a bit based on the rest of series 7b.

Yeah it had dud notes. I get the feeling that the kids were pretty much only in the episode to allow for the line about sacrificing the queen to save the children.

In the plus column though, the battle for the Doctor's mind was brilliant. The dialogue between the Doctor and the Architect was great and Matt Smith pulled it off perfectly. I particularly liked when Clara asked him which of them told her she was going to die pointlessly far from home, that he said it was the Cyber architect, but then he moved the white chess piece with his right hand.

I love when the Doctor lets his dark side show.

The cybermen were scary and the cybermites had me feeling itchy.

I think he's right to be suspicious of Clara being too perfect for him. Can't wait to see the finale (4 days after the rest of you!)

Sonics2k

As a whole, I was a bit let down by this episode in terms of the plot and general acting.

The real exception on this episode was Matt Smith himself who seemingly carried the episode along.

Jenna Louise Coleman was amusing, but I felt she just wasn't committed the episode and was feigning interest.

And those kids, especially the girl. What gob****e hired her. I found myself actually hoping she'd be dead by the end of it.

matrim

Das Kitty wrote: »

In the plus column though, the battle for the Doctor's mind was brilliant. The dialogue between the Doctor and the Architect was great and Matt Smith pulled it off perfectly. I particularly liked when Clara asked him which of them told her she was going to die pointlessly far from home, that he said it was the Cyber architect, but then he moved the white chess piece with his right hand.

Sorry to disappoint but he moved the black piece

CastorTroy

Was the Doctor's comment about Clara's skirt at the end just for humour or was it a hint that not everything is back to normal in his head?

K-9

I think Smith has shown what he can do as an actor, (what I thought he had the potential do when he was originally chosen, having actually watched him on TV pre Doctor Who), I thought he was poor here, didn't buy the 2 personas at all.

I can only think that those who thought he was good in this, got bamboozled by the overall dreadful acting in the episode.