by Sarabeth Pollock:
Doctor Who Recap: “Nightmare in Silver”
Original Air Date (BBC/BBC America): Saturday May 11, 2013
Season 7 Episode 12
Doctor Who fans have been eagerly anticipating Neil Gaiman’s return. The last time he wrote an episode of Doctor Who, it was called “The Doctor’s Wife” and it focused on Idris, the mysterious embodiment of the TARDIS. When word broke that his new episode was called “Nightmare in Silver,” there was talk about the return of the Cybermen. What luck that they landed in the middle of Gaiman’s episode!
At the end of last week’s episode we saw Clara’s charges, Angie and Artie, outing Clara as a time traveler. They had pictures of her from her adventures with the Doctor. This week’s episode begins with the TARDIS landing in a recreated scene from the moon landing, complete with American flag. The kids don’t seem very impressed, but the Doctor insists that they are in the right place. Hedwig’s World. And they have a golden ticket. They’re not on the moon, the Doctor tells them. It’s the Spacey Zoomer Ride. Or at least it used to be. A little man who looks a lot like Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka pokes his head out from a hidden door in a moon rock and asks if they’re his ride off the planet. Before they can get too far in the conversation, troops burst in and demand that they throw down their weapons. “No weapons! Golden Ticket!” the Doctor cries, in an homage to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “Spacey Zoomers. Free ice cream!” At their lackluster response, he shows the psychic paper to the Captain, and she identifies him as a Proconsul. The planet has been closed by Imperial orders, but she offers her platoon to him as needed and prays for the Emperor’s return. It all sounds a little bit like Star Wars, really.
Once they’re gone, the little man comes out of the rock, telling his new guests that the soldiers freak him out. To the children’s quickly extinguished delight, the planet once held an amazing looking amusement park, but now it’s in ruins. The little man, who introduces himself as Impresario Webley, explains that he never would have landed there if he’d known it was shut down. But the troops can’t kick him out, so he now watches over his collection of marvels. He takes the group into a brightly colored room, where he keeps his treasures. Webley asks if anyone plays chess, and though the Doctor raises his hand, Artie speaks up and says he is on his school’s chess team. Webley leads everyone to a little room. He says that “they” were defeated over a thousand years ago, but one is still alive…and behold! He pulls off the covering. “Cyberman!” the Doctor cries. “Everyone down!”
Webley reassures the group that everyone knows they were all destroyed. This one happens to the 699th wonder of the world. It’s empty, preserved by the Imperial Palace, and yet it’s there to destroy you in chess. The Doctor examines it. Indeed, the Cyber-innards have been removed like a Thanksgiving turkey. However, it is still moving. But how? Artie offers up a sandwich in lieu of a penny, and he sits down to play. The game is over in two moves, but the penny is still available if someone can guess how it’s done. “Mirrors,” offers Angie. The Doctor tells her it’s a good guess, and he surmises that the brains of the operation is indeed using mirrors. He bends down and opens a little hatch under the table, where a little man is sitting with a remote control in his hands. “I’m the brains,” he acknowledges. He gets out and introduces himself as Porridge. Webley gives Angie the Imperial penny. Unbeknownst to everyone, little metallic insects crawl along the wall. While Webley shows off his collection of three Cybermen, Angie studies the statue of the Emperor, holding up the penny to examine the likeness. When Artie comments that the Emperor doesn’t sound like a nice guy, Porridge tells him that’s the kind of thing that will keep you on the run for the rest of your life. They move on.
Now that everyone knows each other, the group goes back outside to the Spacey Zoomer ride. This time, the kids get to experience zero gravity. Now they’re having fun. Once the ride is over, Artie declares that it’s the most fun he’s ever had, while teenage angst Angie begrudgingly admits that it was “okay.” Clara announces that it’s time to go home, but the Doctor has decided that he’s not ready to leave. He’s found some creepy insects for his collection that he’s just now starting. In order to investigate, they leave the children in Webley’s emporium, tucked into bed on the couch. The Doctor warns them not to leave. He’s serious. He’s not just saying don’t leave so that they can leave.
Webley goes back to the Cyber-chessman and announces that the day’s take is a sandwich. Not as good as two sandwiches, but good enough. As he puts the chess pieces back in order, the Cyberman grabs his wrists and won’t let go. Metallic insects crawl out of the Cyberman’s face and into Wembley, who writhes in agony. “Upgrade in progress,” the Cyberman intones.
Angie has decided that she hates the future. There’s no cell phone service. She sets her phone down and it’s quickly overrun by the little insects. She is going to look around, despite the Doctor’s warning. Artie points out that Clara told them to stay, but Clara isn’t their mother, she points out. She leaves, and Artie is left alone.
Clara and Porridge walk through a giant hangar of some kind. She asks if this really was the largest amusement park, and Porridge confirms it, but it hasn’t been in service for years. Not since the Cyber Wars where humanity fought off the Cybermen. He points at a hole in the sky. The hole used to be the Tiberian Galaxy, full of planets and trillions of people. It was wiped out in order to eradicate the Cybermen. Porridge tells Clara that sometimes he feels like a monster because instead of mourning the people who died, he feels sorry for the man who had to pull the trigger. The Doctor interrupts, noting that he just spotted Angie going into the soldiers’ barracks.
The Captain is quite frustrated that all of the station’s equipment seems to be malfunctioning. The inner components have disappeared. Angie appears in the doorway and announces that she’s bored. Honestly, she is the most petulant girl I’ve seen on television in a while. Totally self-centered. The Captain asks where her big sister is, but Angie is quick to explain that they aren’t related. Besides, she’s talking to Porridge. After the Captain sorts out that Clara isn’t talking to her food, she pulls Angie aside. They need to talk.
Poor Artie has been left to sleep in a room that looks like something out of Ripley’s Believe it or Not. He’s not frightened. He just wants the lights on. He quickly navigates the room filled with wax wonders until he gets to the light switch. When the lights are on, the Cyberman grabs him.
Back in the barracks, the Captain asks Angie for more information about the “little bloke” Porridge. At that moment, Clara and the Doctor hurry in. Angie throws a fit that Clara is always ruining everything. Her angst isn’t long-lived because there is an explosion and the door across the room opens. It’s a Cyberman.
It doesn’t take long to realize that these aren’t your granddaddy’s Cybermen. As Porridge had mentioned earlier, it’s hard to fight a race that adapts using your own army. As the platoon gets into an attack formation, the Cyberman goes through another upgrade. Bullets do nothing to stop it, but he certainly moves with more grace than its predecessors. After the upgrade, it speeds through the room, snatches Angie, and leaves while everyone else is trying to process where it went. The Doctor promises Clara that he’ll get her back. The Captain reveals that her unit is a punishment platoon, placed all the way out there to stay out of trouble. They’re not a real unit. The Doctor sighs. Using his Imperial consul title, he declares that Clara is in charge and tells her to get somewhere defensible, and above all else he tells her not to let anyone blow up the planet. In the meantime, he’s going to look for Angie and Artie and little insects.
The Cyberman brings Angie back to the room full of Webley’s wonders. All the while she’s kicking and thrashing and telling the Cyberman how much she hates him. When she sees her brother, with his new cyber implant, reality sinks in. He looks at his sister with dead eyes. “Standby. Upgrade in progress,” he says. She screams. Wembley, who is sporting Borg-like implants, holds his finger to his mouth to shush her.
Clara asks the Captain to show her the most defensible places on the planet. The Island, the Cauldron, or Natty Longbottom’s Castle. A castle with a moat sounds good to Clara, even if it’s a comical castle. Porridge walks up while the women talk. Clara forbids anyone from blowing up the planet. Porridge watches her as she walks away. He asks the Captain if she’s alerted the Imperium yet, but the communicators are out. They’re on their own, and Clara is in charge. Interestingly, the Captain seems to know Porridge.
The Doctor hurries to the room of wonders, but all he finds is one of the little bugs. He tells whoever is watching that the children are under his protection, and he comments that the little bugs are “beautiful.” They aren’t Cybermen anymore, they’re “Cybermites.” He uses the sonic screwdriver to lock onto their frequency, and he materializes in the hidden control chamber. Artie and Angie are there. “Doctor, help us,” they intone. Wembley steps out and explains that the Cybermen needed children to adapt. The children stopped coming to the park, but the Doctor brought them children. “Hail the Doctor, savior of the Cybermen.”
One of the guards asks Clara why they aren’t out trying to catch the Cybermen. They’ve arrived at the castle and it seems very defensible. Clara asks the soldier if he can bring the children back. When he shakes his head, Clara replies that she trusts the Doctor. That’s why she’s still alive—she listens to the Doctor. Whether or not she thinks he knows what he’s doing is an entirely different matter.
Cyber-Wembley explains that the Cybermen built the control center so that units could be repaired. They needed the children because children have infinite potential, but now the Cybermites have learned all they can from them, and now they have their sights set on the Doctor. The Doctor points out that Cybermen run on human parts, and he’s not human, but Wembley explains that they have upgraded over the years and they can use any living part. He throws a handful of Cybermites at the Doctor, who writhes around until he has been integrated. When he finishes the transformation, half of his face is covered in metallic parts. His new operating system scans the body and finds all of the Gallifreyan physiology. Cyber-Doctor is exhilarated.
Now we see why Matt Smith wins so many awards as the Doctor. As the Cyberman part of his brain tries to take over, the Doctor fights with it. He could be called the Cyber-Planner, or Mr. Clever. Either way, he’s gaining access to parts of the Doctor’s brain about the Time Lords. Not so fast. The Doctor faces off with his alter-ego inside his head. He tells the Cyber version of himself that he’s allowing him access to the information about Time Lord regeneration. As they talk, images of the previous Doctors flash among the clouds. They’re at a stalemate. They each control 48.3% of the total brain and 2.3% is still in the balance. Whoever controls that portion wins. In a brilliant performance, the Doctor battles with his Cyber-Alter-Ego until they agree upon a game of chess. Winner takes all. And if the Doctor wins, the children go free and no one dies.
At the power station, Soldier Missy is on patrol. She sees something in the shadows and calls it in. When she sees it again she asks for permission to hide. A Cyberman emerges from the shadows. I don’t know about you, but it looks like the Cybermen have stolen a page from the Iron Man canon, because they move more fluidly and they have all-new abilities. They aren’t clunky anymore. This particular Cyberman isn’t going to be bothered with a search. His hand drops off and does the recon for him. When he finds Missy, the hand clamps onto her face.
Back at Longbottom Castle, the ginger soldier tells Clara that Missy saw something on watch and now she’s silent. That means the Cybermen are on their way. The Captain and her crew are sorting out their weapons. They only have one big gun, which is rare in itself considering the Cybermen were eradicated so long ago. They have some hand pulse devices that will disable the Cybermen upon contact. Porridge takes one. The last device is the machine that will implode the planet. Clara takes the remote detonator and reminds the Captain that she’s under orders not to blow up the planet. The Captain seethes and orders Porridge upstairs so she can show him how to use the handheld device.
The chess game has begun. Cyber-Doctor has noticed that the Doctor is conspicuously missing from history, as if he’s been working to erase himself. He notes that he could be reconstructed from the holes that have been created. But the Doctor is focused on the chess game. The Doctor plays the white pieces while the Cyber-Doctor plays the black. Cyber-Doctor points out that he has the entire Cyberiad to play for him and therefore the Doctor can’t possibly win. What he doesn’t count on is the fact that the Doctor knows that they’re still running old processes that make it possible for the Doctor to use old methods of shutting down their operating systems…things like cleaning fluid and gold tickets to Spacey Zoomers. Once the system has been shut down, the Doctor gathers up the children, Wembley and the chess board and they flee the control center.
At the castle, the Captain reveals that she served on the Imperial Guard, mostly for parades, but she recognizes Porridge. And though she’s there as part of a punishment platoon, she can still do the right thing. The only way to alert the Imperium is to activate the device to implode the planet. Clara arrives and wants to know why they keep trying to blow up the planet. It is, after all, one Cyberman. They have orders to eradicate the Cybermen at all costs, and while Porridge is ok with running away, she’s not going to fail again. The Captain starts to activate the device, but she’s shot down by a Cyberman standing in the courtyard. Another guard on duty is taken out by a Cyberman who removed his own head to provide an ambush. These guys are really good.
Clara orders her platoon (yes, it’s now her platoon, and she’s really good at giving orders) to get ready to fight. The Cyberman approaches and drags the two captured guards with him, and Clara shoots him with the ray gun. He vanishes, but the two humans start to transform. They’re taken out quickly using the handheld devices to short out their brains. That will save battery power for the ray gun.
The Doctor and his group arrive at the castle. They are met by the guards outside, and Clara rushes up to meet them. She’s still wielding the ray gun. The Doctor explains that he’s controlling the Cyber-Planner and that the children are in a walking coma. The good news is that he has a good chance of winning his chess game. He tells everyone that he needs a table and to be tied up very tightly.
Clara finishes tying him up when he rips the golden ticket from his face and Cyber-Planner returns. The Doctor has less than a 25% chance of winning, he announces. Then he introduces himself as the Cyber-Planner. He’s running the mouth now. “Allons-Y!” he mocks in a perfect David Tennant impersonation. Clara realizes that this isn’t the Doctor, but the Cyber-Planner recognizes her. She’s the “impossible girl,” the one the Doctor thinks about all the time. While he talks, the Doctor writes out a message for Clara to hit him. She does, and he returns to normal. She wants to know why she’s the impossible girl, and he plays it off as just a thing in his head. She asks about the stakes of the game, and he realizes that they’re pretty much doomed either way. Can he save the children? Probably. But they stand a better chance than she does, he adds menacingly. Ah, yes Cyber-Planner is back and he sends Clara off with a patronizing “Toodles.”
Clara orders the power line to be dropped into the moat so that any living thing that enters the water will be fried. “Can Cybermen fly?” she asks. “No, ma’am,” the ginger soldier replies. “First good news of the day,” she replies.
At the chess game, the Doctor makes a move and is jolted back into his mind. He felt that jolt, he tells the Cyber-Planner. Of course he did. The continuum is waking up. Indeed, thousands upon thousands of Cybermen are coming back online.
Porridge gives Clara some soup to warm her up. The Doctor is calling, so she runs to see him. He wants to know what the weapons situation is like. She reports that they have one ray gun, five handheld devices, and one bomb to implode the planet. The Doctor asks for the remote detonator, but Clara wisely doesn’t hand it over. She asks him to tell her something that only the Doctor would know. He starts to tell her how he feels about her. She slaps him, and the real Doctor comes back. He wonders how she knew it wasn’t him, and she knew that the real Doctor wouldn’t want to have access to the trigger that could blow up the planet. But the Doctor grabs her arm. He’s lost control of his right arm, and he takes the device and smashes it. The new good news, he says, is that “they’re here!”
Outside, the Cybermen gather. They’re everywhere.
Clara and her troops take stock of their weapons and look out at the legions of Cybermen gathered. One takes a step into the water and is electrified. They cheer in triumph. Then the Cyberman goes still. “Upgrade in progress,” it says. And then it moves forward.
Battles ensue. One battle is outside with the Cybermen, and the other is on the chess board as the Doctor plays the Cyber-Planner for control of the children. The Doctor offers up his queen in return for the children, and once they’re freed, the Cyber-Planner says that the Doctor was weak for giving up so easily, especially considering that his choice was based on foolish emotions. Porridge comes in with the implosion device. Wembley goes after the children, so Porridge uses the handheld device to stop him and is in turn thrown back to the table next to the Doctor.
The battle outside is raging on. The Cybermen have entered the castle and the ray gun is out of power. The Doctor tells the Cyber-Planner that he can still win the game. Time Lords invented chess and he has had the upper hand the entire time. This causes the Cyber-Planner to overload his circuits trying to solve the problem. The Cybermen outside are about to integrate Clara and her troops when they suddenly stop. The Cyberiad is frozen, working on one silly chess problem. Clara and the guards escape.
The Doctor tells the Cyber-Planner that he can have him beat in three moves. This sends the Cyber-Planner into a frenzy. Step one, use local resources (he picks up Porridge’s handheld disrupter). Two, amplify with the sonic screwdriver. Step three, see ya! He presses the device to his face. When Clara bursts into the room, the Doctor is adjusting his bowtie, back to normal. She stops and assesses him. “Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks. “No, you’re too short and bossy and your nose is all funny.” “Good enough,” she says, hurrying to untie him. The Cyber-Planner is out of his head, but they’re still outside getting ready to attack. They need to blow up the planet. One of the guards points out that the Captain had the access code to initiate the self-destruct sequence. Angie suggests they ask Porridge. He’s the Emperor. When everyone gives her a look, she points out that he looks exactly like the statue and the coin. Porridge confirms that he is the Emperor, and that the bomb and the throne are tied together. The Doctor reminds him that it would be better for him to blow up the planet than allow three million Cybermen to roam the galaxy. Once the device is activated, they have about 80 seconds to be located and beamed off the planet. They all materialize in the throne room. The Doctor asks him to retrieve the TARDIS, and they get it back just as the planet explodes. Oddly enough, they didn’t bring Wembley with them. He died on the planet with the Cybermen.
Porridge, the Emperor, tells his new friends that it will be nice not to be alone again, but the Imperium will be keeping a close eye on him from now on so he won’t be able to run away again. “You don’t have to be lonely,” Clara tells him. Porridge agrees, and he proposes to Clara as the Doctor looks on. “Clara, this is an actual marriage proposal,” he tells her. Clara shushes him and politely tells Porridge that she doesn’t want to rule a thousand galaxies. The Doctor gives her a thumbs up. Angie thinks it’s stupid that she turned him down. One day she’ll be the Queen, she tells everyone. Porridge looks at the Doctor and says that he could just have everyone executed. But he’s joking. He sends them on their way with a thoughtful expression on his face.
Artie thanks the Doctor for their adventure. The Doctor gives Angie a new phone, and she apologizes for saying that the blue box was stupid. They run out, calling “Thanks, Clara, and thanks, Clara’s boyfriend.” Clara thanks the Doctor for the kid’s day out, and for getting them off the planet alive, and for whatever he did with the Cybermen. “See you next Wednesday,” she calls as she leaves. A Wednesday, he replies. You never really know with the TARDIS.
Once she’s gone, he reflects on his Impossible Girl. “Mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a skirt that’s just a little too…tight.” And then he’s off on a mission to figure out who his Impossible Girl is.
Back on the space ship, Porridge asks his lieutenant if she’d want to rule the galaxy. “No, Sir,” she replied. And that’s the right answer. Off they go.
Well, we’re almost to the end of Series Seven, everyone. I think this episode tonight had a little bit of everything, but the maddening part is that is gave us no insight into what’s going to happen next. Anyone who thought there would be buildup to the finale will be sorely disappointed. I was, however, thrilled by the images of all of the Doctors and the “allons-y” that paid homage to the Tenth Doctor.
As always, I welcome your comments, and I look forward to seeing you back here next week for the finale.
Geronimo!
Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy. She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness. Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com
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