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Reviews for The Tomb of the Cybermen

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A Throughton masterpiece

By:Denis LeBlanc, Moncton, Canada
Date:Wednesday 24 May 2006
Rating:   9

Only second to "The Invasion", this is my favorite Throughton story. Creepy, with great filming innovation and enjoyable characters, this story is a great treasure that should be in every Whovians' collection. Who can forget Toberman's performance?



Cool Tomb of the Cybermen

By:the Traveller, the end of the world
Date:Monday 24 July 2006
Rating:   7

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria join an archaeology team on an expedition to unearth the tomb of the Cybermen on the planet Telos.

The Cybermen look cool and their tombs are well designed, however some scenes now look pathetic rather than frightening and with the exception of Patrick Troughton, the acting quality isn’t great.



Interesting but Highly Flawed

By:Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA
Date:Tuesday 18 September 2007
Rating:   8

The Tomb of the Cybermen is too important and too full of great concepts to give it a low rating, but there are many weaknesses throughout the script. The idea of the Cyber tombs on Telos is fantastic, and endured to re-emerge quite a bit later in future seasons, when it would continue to develop. The design of the interior of the Tomb is quite interesting, and makes for a great setting and some great plot devices. The concept of the archeological expedition from Earth works well, and the design of the Cybermen is excellent again here, in spite of their less than perfect voicing.

Among the troubles is the character of Klieg - he is simply not a realistic character. He starts out well enough, but by the second half of the story, he has degenerated into an impossible contradiction of genius and ignoramus. Another poorly realized character is Toberman. His state of mind and the motivations for his actions in the later parts of the story are not at all clear, and he is given a very shallow characterization throughout.

There are other script troubles, like the question of how Victoria would be so easily adept at firing a pistol she certainly could never have even seen before, let alone become skilled at firing (unless there are some missing adventures between the opening scenes in the TARDIS and the arrival on Telos), and the exteme carelessness on the part of both Klieg and Jamie with the very powerful Cyber gun, each quite nonchalantly setting it down to make it all too available to be picked up by an enemy. In addition to these bits, there was the horrible-looking tossing of the Controller by Toberman, the Controller clearly being just an empty dummy-suit, the unanswered question of why the Controller did not need a chest unit like the other Cybermen, and the unanswered question of why the revitalization unit would be so far away from the Tomb units.

But in spite of these troubles, The Tomb of the Cybermen remains essential viewing, a very interesting production, and an important story within the Doctor Who mythos.



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