“It's
all over, Ace. My battle, all my battles, I've lost. I can only surrender.”
Written by Kevin Clarke
The
Doctor and Ace are sitting and relaxing while they listen to a Jazz jam session
when The Doctor’s alarm goes off. It
appears that he set it to remind him of a catastrophic event that would affect
a planet but he doesn’t remember which one. It turns out to be the planet they
are on - Earth and The Doctor set it back in the 17th Century where
we find Lady Peinforte making up a concoction to get her and Richard to 1988 as
that is where her astrologer has predicted that the comet Nemesis will crash
back to Earth. Lady Peinforte has the
arrow and along with the bow, which a bunch of Nazi’s have, combined with the
statue will grant that person ultimate power over everything.
To
make matters worse there is another factor thrown in to disrupt The Doctor’s
attempts to secure all three items and send Nemesis back into space, The
Cybermen. The Cybermen want the statue
also to help their battle fleet, which is hidden from radar orbiting the Earth,
to turn Earth into the new Mondas. With
this new X – Factor The Doctors game of chess might have too many players and
it might be too much for him to save the Earth from the power of the Nemesis
statue and the power that goes with it.
If the Doctor fails, the Cybermen will win and be the true masters of
the universe.
Silver
Nemesis is the story that celebrates Doctor Who’s 25th Anniversary
and to herald the Silver Anniversary John Nathan–Turner thought it would be
good to incorporate them into Kevin Clarke’s story. You get it, don’t you? Cybermen are silver and it’s the Silver Anniversary,
yeah well, there you go then. Silver
Nemesis is not a good Cybermen story and having them in the anniversary story
with Nemesis didn’t really enhance the story at all as it would have been fine
with just Lady Peinforte and the Nazi’s.
In fact, Silver Nemesis showcases the Cyberman the weakest in the
Classic Series as they just appear to be background characters that get killed
off way too easily.
With
that said I really did not like the way the Cybermen where portrayed in this
story. They appeared weak and looked
like nothing more than tin soldiers that were romping along the English
countryside. Gold coins and gold tipped
poison arrows were the Achilles heel for the Cybermen in this story and that is
pretty pathetic if you ask me. Ever
since they came up with the fact that gold can kill the Cybermen back in
Revenge of the Cybermen it became pretty easy to kill the Cybermen and made it
a good out for the writers. Thankfully
they don’t use gold in the new series but Silver Nemesis took this way too far
especially with the gold coins. You have
Ace shooting gold coins at the Cybermen’s chest plates with a sling shot and
they die convincingly. In Revenge, it
was stated that it was gold dust that clogged their breathing apparatus so how
does a solid gold coin fired at its chest plate kill a Cyberman? The
same with the gold arrow dipped in poison. The Cybermen do not have any blood
so how does the poison kill the Cybermen?
This is just some of the questions that shouldn’t be asked in a Cybermen
story especially since the Cybermen are supposed to be all powerful and hard to
destroy like we have seen in earlier stories.
I just did not like the way they were made to appear weak and that is
just lazy writing using the gold crutch.
Silver
Nemesis is almost a mirror image of Remembrance of the Daleks. Just like in the
Daleks story where you had the hand of Omega and had two Dalek factions trying
to get it you now have the Nemesis Statue and everyone is trying to get
that. Even with the ending when the Hand
of Omega destroys the Dalek fleet and Skaro while the Nemesis Statue destroys
the Cybermen fleet. Why were the two
stories similar and in the same season none the less? If you take the official answer it just
happened that way and they didn’t catch it.
The stories were just so similar that it just doesn’t help that era at
all to have almost complete duplicates.
Oh well at least the Dalek story is considered one of the best ever.
The
25th Anniversary was another example of trying to expand on The
Doctor’s character and to make him more mysterious especially with the final
confrontation with Lady Peinforte where she threatens to expose The Doctors
secrets about Gallifrey and the dark times. I actually liked this idea and
actually enjoyed the more mysterious and manipulative 7th
Doctor. This is expanded on more in the
next season but it really took off in the Virgin New Adventures book series. By
adding more mystery you start wondering who The Doctor really is and if he is
more than just a Time Lord. It is just
too bad that they were not able to expand on it more before the shows
cancellation.
Lady
Peinforte and Richard had some scenes in The Silver Nemesis that just made you
scratch your head wondering what the hell are they thinking. There are two that really stand out. One is
the scene with the two punks that are trying to steal their money. Why? What does this add to the story? The same can be said of the scene of the ride
they get from the lady from Virginia.
This scene doesn’t make much sense and hopefully it was added for filler
as it does not really fit with this story.
For a story that is supposed to celebrate 25 years of Doctor Who the
Silver Nemesis sure had some horrible moments and unfortunately, they involved
Lady Peinforte and Richard. I’m still
trying to get my mind around a time traveling potion being aided by the Arrow
of Nemesis.
Of
the four Anniversary stories for Doctor Who Silver Nemesis is the worst, no
wait if you count Dimension’s in Time that’s the worst, and unfortunately it is
the worst Classic Who story that features the Cybermen. There are some good things in Silver Nemesis
like the performances of Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred which are really
good and are definitely the bright spot of Silver Nemesis and of course the
Cybermen are in it and if you are a fan of the Cybermen it is always good to
see them take on The Doctor even if the story is a letdown.
Grade
C -
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