Episode 9

Having failed to heed Jack’s warning and stop the Lone Cyberman, the Doctor tries to atone by saving the remnants of humanity from Cyber-genocide in the far future…

EMMA REEVES

BBC One, 23 February 2020

Writer: Chris Chibnall

Director: Jamie Magnus Stone

Guest cast: Sacha Dhawan (The Master), Patrick O’Kane (Ashad), Julie Graham (Ravio), Ian McElhinney (Ko Sharmus), Evan McCabe (Brendan), Branwell Donaghey (Patrick), Orla O’Rourke (Meg), Andrew Macklin (Sergeant), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of Cybermen).

Rating: 4.99m (seven-day, all devices)

Appreciation Index: 81

When the Cybermen made their debut in The Tenth Planet (1966), writers Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis were tapping into a zeitgeisty fear of what we’d now call transhumanism. If your body is ‘upgraded’ to a level where it’s almost entirely artifi cial, at what point do you cease to be you? The Mondasian monsters provided a cautionary tale about what could happen when technology is pushed too far, too fast, without suffi cient ethical and moral considerations.

Over the years, the Doctor has seen too many good humans lose their lives and souls to Cyber-conversion. She castigates herself for being reckless with her companions, exposing them to the risk of this body horror. That she did it at all shows how much this Doctor has come to depend on her ‘fam’. But these Cybermen are much less interested in assimilation; they prefer destruction. They no longer represent science out of control, but a much older threat to humanity - religious fanaticism.