Doctor Who: Return of the Cybermen – Review

The Lost Stories range has been a great look at how certain series of Doctor Who might have looked like, especially for the original set of stories that was replaced by The Trial of a Timelord and the proposed 1990 series for Sylvester McCoy. It did seem for a while that the range had finished but in 2019, two more stories were found and revived for the audio format. Now we’ve got two more Tom Baker stories to enjoy, Return of the Cybermen and The Doomsday Contract.

Unless you’d gotten Revenge of the Cybermen on VHS when it was first released, with an Earthshock Cyberman and Series 18 Fourth Doctor gracing the cover, then I doubt Revenge will be very high on any fans list of favourite stories. So it’s interesting how there was a proposed version of that story that was ten times better than its televised counterpart that has only just been discovered.

The first episode of this story is perhaps the closest to Revenge that we get. The Doctor, Sarah and Harry arrive at the Nerva Station, which is under quarantine thanks to a mysterious plague. The gang decide to help as best they can until Sarah is infected after being attacked by a Cybermat. But then things go off in a different direction and rather than having to wait till the end of Episode 2 of Revenge, Return gives us a great cliff-hanger at the end of the first episode, with a Cyberman hiding in the sickbay.

It’s a great call-back to The Moonbase as is only the first of a few references to that story, but it still feels fresh that the story has the guts to have a Cyberman hiding under the character’s noses the whole time rather than having them appear in a shocking moment! Another difference that made this story feel completely new was the motivation behind the Cybermen. Not fuelled by revenge for their defeat in the Cyber-War, these Cybermen are on a suicide mission to destroy a massive source of gold before it can be used to defeat them.

They all seem perfectly happy to die and each one has a different voice, once again played by Nicholas Briggs, but it all adds up to making these Cybermen much more menacing than their television counterparts, though I do miss the camp Cyber-Leader, the only good thing for me in Revenge!

There is also less time devoted to the endless squabbling between the Vogans, this time around, there is no grand chambers and escape from golden chains thanks to a risqué looking stalactite. Instead, they are a small group of alien’s living inside an asteroid with no idea that they are sitting on the one thing that will stop the Cybermen. I was thankful there was little involvement from the Vogans, as they really make Revenge drag, but here, they are quite comical, especially when one of them finds the Fourth Doctor hiding under their table, trying to scrape together some gold dust!

Tom Baker is on really excellent form here, effortlessly evoking his performance from his first series. You wouldn’t believe that he’s nearly 90! There has always been some controversy around re-casting characters where the original actors are no longer with us. But I’ve always had time for that, who doesn’t want more adventures with the 2nd Doctor, Ben and Polly? More 3rd Doctor and Brigadier stories? And it isn’t as if Big Finish don’t treat these characters with the love and care they deserve.

Unfortunately, both Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter are no longer with us, but here, Sadie Miller and Christopher Naylor do a great job of picking up their mantles. Naylor instantly evokes Marter’s performance while making the role his own here, and it isn’t hard to see or hear Marter delivering these lines. And even with modern sensibilities, Harry is still the lovable buffoon he always was. This is a Harry Sullivan who is universes away from the one who supposedly created Sullivan’s-Gas, something that would kill Zygons.

From the initial trailers, it was Sadie Miller’s inclusion I was really looking forward too and she doesn’t disappoint in the role her mother made famous. And she really sounds like Sladen, even down to the way she delivers her lines. But like Naylor, she is different enough to make the role her own, but there are echoes of Sladen’s voice here and there, just enough to make you nostalgic and excited about future releases in equal measure. Something tells me that Lis Sladen would be so proud of Sadie’s handling of the character here.

Return of the Cybermen is a story that is excellent from start to finish. At no point did I find myself not enjoying it. Even down the excellent music design which evokes both Carey Blyton’s score for Revenge as well as Dudley Simpsons’. From the excellent performances that honour the actors who are no longer with us to Tom Baker proving why he is such a powerhouse-Doctor, to the excellent adaptation of Gerry Davies’ original script by John Dorney. Everything adds up to make a truly fantastic and engaging story that does make you wonder why ever did we end up with Revenge of the Cybermen instead?