Last of the Cybermen (2015)

There are certain words that immediately raise expectations when you include them in a title and Cybermen is one of them. This story sees the Sixth Doctor reunite with Jamie and Zoe and so perhaps the dynamic of this story isn’t quite a surprise as in the previous story. The Sixth Doctor, Jamie and Zoe all appeared in the 2010 Legend of the Cybermen which was one that I wasn’t a huge fan of but I did have expectations when pressing play on my generic MP3 player. Like The Defectors, the action in this story starts off pretty much straight away. Very little time is wasted in trying to shoehorn Colin Baker into the story and unlike Jo Grant, both Jamie and Zoe seem more willing to accept the situation they find themselves in.

The first two thirds of the story seem like your normal Doctor Who story but it’s the final third that is interesting and the one that makes it feel like it’s trying to be a story in its own right instead of just being part of a celebration or story arc. I thought that having Zoe as the Cyber Planner was a nice move and was similar in making Tegan the sacrifice in The Entropy Plague. I thought that both Frazer Hines (2010 Toms Tardis Award Winner for Best Companion) was on fine form and Wendy Padbury was also on fine form and in particular when she was the Cyber Planner. This was a good story for Colin Baker and its rare to have Colin Baker on anything less than fine form but he seemed to be having fun in his new surroundings. Lucy Liemann was the best of the supporting cast as Zennox although there was something good about the performances of the other cast members.

I wanted this story to be as good as other Cybermen stories and better than The Defectors and one of those desires was met. It isn’t the greatest Cyberman story but neither is it the worst. I was listening to Sword of Orion recently and it impressed me how despite being 14 years old is still a cracking good story and I don’t know whether the same will be said in 2029 about this story. The only thing that hasn’t been addressed in this story and it’s the question of what or who is causing the Doctor’s to find themselves in unusual situations. Nothing is even mentioned about this and its something that I think could have been sneaked in somewhere.

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