Wednesday, 8 August 2018

Big Finish Reviews+ Hour of the Cybermen by Tony J Fyler


Tony tries very hard not to just say ‘Excellent.’

Hour of the Cybermen was always going to be a very special release from Big Finish.
While Nicholas Briggs, one of the Big Finish gods, has provided voices for 21st century Cybermen, Daleks and other alien nasties, and has also given the Cybermen of older generations his vocal talents, this is the first story that sees the return of two particular actors who were the Cybermen for a generation of fans. The Eighties brought the Cybermen out of semi-retirement and made them arguably the equals of the Daleks in the programme again. The two men responsible for the Cyber-renaissance were David Banks, who played every Cyber-leader of the decade, and Mark Hardy, who played his long-suffering, button-pushing sidekick, the Cyber-lieutenant.

Because of the nature of the role, they were always most impressively vocal performances. Hour of the Cybermen re-unites the Eighties Cybermen on audio.

Run away now and buy Hour of the Cybermen.

OK, so it was always going to be a big deal. Bringing them back to battle a Sixth Doctor played by Colin Baker on the top of his form…Run away now and buy Hour of the Cybermen.

But the news on this release is so much better even than that.

They’re a canny lot, these Big Finishers. They’ve given the task of bringing back the Lords of Logic to a writer who, above all, takes care that his stories make sense on every level – Andrew Smith – which means that for once, for once in their careers, the Cybermen, ruled by logic, have a masterplan that’s actually logical. Think about it for a second – there are probably two or three stories in the whole of Cyber-history where you could run them through a basic logic algorithm and find that they made sense. This story makes sense in both its Cyber-planning, its human skulduggery, and its ultimate resolution. It’s a Cyber-tour de force. Seriously, we’re not kidding, run away now and buy Hour of the Cybermen.

In terms of actual plot details, this is the second in a loose trilogy of stories that introduce us to an Eighties version of UNIT that we’ve never encountered before. It starts very much in Jon Pertwee territory, with the Doctor, alone, arriving in an England suffering from a particularly odd calamity – a drought without an accompanying heatwave. Water-looters are afoot, but more than that, there are alien refugees in the area, and the story builds in logical increments, so you feel you have something of a handle on. In a nod to a couple of Sixties Cyber-stories which in their own terms made some sense, the Cyber-plan here is significantly advanced, and only the Doctor popping up at an inopportune moment has any chance of stopping them. The Cyber-doohickey at the source of all the trouble makes perfect theoretical sense, and the plan into which it fits makes sense in terms of the Cybermen’s universal goals. The human (and alien) heartbeats along the line make sense too, and there’s a story-strand here that brings an element of the Cybermen to the fore that should have been exploited long before now, and which Smith threads strongly through his script.
If you’re buying this for nostalgia purposes, you’re in for all sorts of treats. The Cyber-Leader gives more than one ‘Excellent,’ and there are several lines that aren’t replays of the greatest hits, but are subtle enough reworkings to both feel fresh and evoke the Eighties Cybermen in all their relatively chatty glory. In terms of the Eighties Cyber-Leader’s habit of frequently explaining the Cyber-Plot to anyone who would listen, this ticks that box too – he even stages a demonstration of how the plot will work at one point here, and you don’t hear it as a fault in the story, because now, as then, you just want to hear David Banks’ Cyber-Leader talk more.

As with all the best Cyber-stories, there’s a fairly high body-count here, and a body-count including people about whom you’ll care, which in itself underlines the difference between the listener and the villain – the scary thing about the Cybermen is they don’t care about the people who die, and we do.

There are other significant nuggets of nostalgic Cyber-glory here too – including a moment repurposed from Earthshock which will make fans smile. And before it all becomes about Smith, Banks, Hardy and Colin Baker, listening to the music in this release will also give you chills and grins if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Cyber-geek, because again while steering clear of actual riffs on previous Cyber-themes, there’s enough here to trip your nostalgia-triggers into utter geek meltdown.

Hour of the Cybermen could well be the Cyber-story you’ve been waiting for, for decades – a tight, logical story, with the Cybermen on the top of their terrifying form, incredible Cyber-voices, human peril by the bucketload, a desperate fight for survival and a Sixth Doctor that ultimately saves the day with an audaciously straightforward bit of jiggery-pokery, and an act of important compassion.

We’ve told you already – run away now and buy Hour of the Cybermen.

No comments:

Post a Comment