Don't Blow Up The Planet

This week, the producers have promised that Nightmare in Silver would make the Cybermen scary again. And we all know how well that worked with the Daleks in Asylum.

Good luck!

The Story

After picking up the nightmare children (I think that's where they got the name of the episode), the Doctor and Clara take the kids to the Future's Disney World, also known as Hedgewick's World. They have fun and then they leave.

Pictured: Fun

Just kidding. That would be responsible! First, a Cyberman beats Artie at chess.

Hey! It's a picture of me and my dad playing chess! Where did you get that?

Of course, it wouldn't be Doctor Who if the Cybermen didn't come to life and start causing trouble, so Webley, the Doctor, and the children quickly join the ranks of the Borg.

"Ugh, I'm so Borged"

Clara and the military platoon that lives on Hedgewick's world "Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle", where they meet up with the Cyber-Doctor and the Cyber-kids (who somehow know that that's where Clara and the army have gone). While the Doctor plays chess against himself, Clara and the Soldiers of Fun fight against the Cybermen.

We then find out that Porridge is the Emperor, he activates the bomb with his voice, all of the not-Cyber-people (except for Webley, poor Webley) get transmatted off of the Cyber-planet, and then everyone lives happily ever after.

Oh, and by the way. Clara's still mysterious. Don't forget that.

Also...

Condemned By

Nightmare in Silver was not perfect. Here's why.

Dumb Kids

The children were exactly as horrible as I was expecting, with a twist. Angie was the teenage brat that she seemed to be at first, with such gems as

"I hate the future. It's stupid. There's not even phone service."

"Hello, I'm bored." --to the military platoon, aka strange people holding guns

"She always has to turn up and spoil everything! I wasn't doing anything! Why can't you leave me alone?" --about Clara, not being disciplinarian at all

Please keep her.

But Artie was arguably even more annoying with his constant wide-eyed optimism and cringe-worthy use of the word "actually" ("aktch-oo-ah-lee") in almost every single line.

"Actually, I'm in my school chess club." 

"I think that was the most fun I've had in my whole life."

"Clara, I think outer space is actually very interesting."

Mercifully, the children were upgraded out of the story almost immediately, and they weren't enough of  a presence to do as much damage to Nightmare as I had feared.

Make the Cybermen Scary

In one way, this episode did make the Cybermen scary. It turned them into wizards. They can upgrade every weakness out of themselves in a matter of minutes.

They even evolved super-speed, but I think the patch got lost after that one scene.

I'm not a huge fan of that type of narrative device though, because it leads to a hectic story of the good guys frantically pulling rabbits out of hats in order to keep themselves alive, and eventually means that the only way to break out of the continuous upgrade cycle is through a Deus ex Machina, like, say, a bomb-teleport hybrid.

Not necessary for a well-developed villain.

Ironically, since the upgrade-ad-infinitum cycle always leads to some sort of magical rescue, the "scarier" villains actually tend to make the story less scary, rather than more.

But the Cybermen were also quite a lot less scary than they've ever been before. I understand that they were trying to merge the Mondas (old Who) Cybermen with the Earth ones, but the Cybermen introduced in Rise of the Cybermen were delightfully menacing, while the ones introduced in this episode look much more cartoony.

Zoinks!

Of course, appearance isn't really what these villains are all about. The Cyberman's true horror isn't that he might kill you - it's that at the end of the episode, you might become him - completely indistinguishable from all of the others, with no trace of individuality or personality left, and no hope of ever returning to your human form.

In Nightmare in Silver, the evil threat of the Cybermen was the occasional laser, and putting a blinky light on the victim's forehead, which can be removed with a simple poof.

Fun fact: Borgdom causes constipation, which is why they're both trying to poop.

...Scary...

Don't Wander Off

And then the Doctor wanders off, leaving two children he barely knows, who are supposed to be in his care, completely unattended.... right near a bunch of Cyberman corpses.

Remind me not to have this guy babysit my kids.

He could have brought the kids back home and then returned to look at funny insects. But then, of course, the kids wouldn't have played any part in the story...

Commander Clara

Why did the Doctor appoint Clara Commander of All Things?

"I now give Clara license to tell you all what to do... And to be really annoying in the process."

And where did all of Clara's command-y authority come from, all of a sudden? I guess it's yet another unexplored part of her personality that may or may not have come from getting scooped up into the internet.

The Emperor

Basically every death featured in this episode is Porridge's fault. The plot device that he used at the end could easily have been used anywhere else in the episode, saving quite a few lives.

Actually, come to think of it, if he were really a responsible Emperor, he'd have evacuated and imploded the planet as soon as he discovered not just living Cybermen, but even the Cyber scrap. 

Maybe that's why Clara didn't want to marry him.

"Sorry, but sitting passively by and allowing preventable deaths is one of my turn-offs, just after body hair."

Chess

First, nobody who has ever been in a chess club would ever make opening moves quite as stupid as Artie's. It's called a "fool's mate" for a reason.

Second, the other chess game, the one for the Doctor's mind.

Kind of a cool allegory, but it wasn't thought through at all. The idea of either side giving up control of the Doctor's mind over something as arbitrary as a chess match is laughable, and there's even a cute little throwaway line about how it was never going to happen.

But since both sides know that no matter who wins, neither side will cooperate, why do they keep playing? It's not like a Cyberman to have fun.

Speaking of which...

Cyber-Doctor

Remember when David Tennant stored his Time Lord essence in a pocket watch, and had to act human? That was a great moment for Tennant as an actor, as well as whoever wrote those episodes, because he had to portray the subtle differences between "John Smith" and the Doctor.

And oh boy, did he. As "John Smith", he spoke with a slightly different accent, held himself differently, and presented himself as an entirely different character. It was clear, yet subtle, from the acting and the characterization alone, that Tennant was playing a different character in those two episodes than he was for most of his tenure.

This was a similar opportunity for Matt Smith, and someone blew it, because Smith's Cyber-Planner was just as manic as his Doctor.

"I will huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow an opportunity to shine!"

Remember what I said about the threat of Cybermen? Their most frightening trait is that they are humans without emotion. So then what the heck is this??

"In a Time Lord's mind for the first time ever/
I feel so smart! I'll be - Mr. Clever!"

This is Matt Smith, dancing around the room in delight... as a Cyberman.

Redeemed By

There was a decent amount to like in Nightmare in Silver as well. For instance...

Atmosphere

The run-down-yet-still-functional amusement park is exactly where I would expect to see a Cyberman. It had its share of deliciously creepy imagery, and yet still managed to be beautiful, even when there was an army of invading Cybermen on the horizon.

Also, it was nice to see the kids actually use the Spacey Zoomer ride.

The Great Enemy

Take a look at this poster.

It's a nice touch to include something so small that you really can only read if you have a tool that allows you to frame-grab. This poster, giving an amusement-park level of detail about "The Great Enemy", shows a nice level of attention to detail.

The Puppet

The Emperor's New Height

I can't say that the wax model was a dead giveaway, but the resemblance is definitely there.

Crankier and taller, but hey, most people end up crankier and taller than they started out anyway.

It did get pretty obvious, once Captain Ferrin started referring to him as "sir" and saying things like "I knew it was you", but it was still a nice touch to see someone of the stature of Emperor as a normal human first.

Side Characters

I couldn't help but take a liking to pretty much all of the side characters.

Impresario Webley, the entertainer, sadly stuck on the imploding planet with the Cybermen.

Emperor Porridge, our sad, but cheerful, not-at-all imperious "Imperator of Known Space".

Ha-Ha, the big guy with the great aim.

Brains, who wants to make sure that everything in the inventory is accounted for, at any cost.

And who can forget Captain Alice Ferrin, the brusque, yet caring captain of the punishment platoon.

No matter how little sense a story makes after careful analysis, the first time you watch one of these episodes is a journey. And the people who join you on that journey often make or break it. This charming group of misfits transformed the jaunt into cyberspace from a true nightmare into a joyous romp, and made it enjoyable to watch over and over again.

Overall

Nightmare in Silver made a lot of promises, and it failed to deliver on most of them. Like Asylum of the Daleks, it promised to make a bad guy scary again, but instead took away the essence of what made it scary in the first place; the Cybermen have been downgraded to just another group of bad guys that can kill people, and the psychological horror of their villainy is now gone.

What brought Nightmare up for me was the side characters. Every single character (except the stupid kids, of course) made this episode a joy to watch and rewatch the many times that I needed to in order to write this review, and they were all developed very well, despite not having a lot of screentime.

Well, I guess I've named my thoughts on this. Until next time!

NEXT EPISODE: THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR

We get to find out the Doctor's name! Or do we? (I seriously doubt we will)

I suppose these creatures will be good at eating, if nothing else.