...NEW DR WHO TONIGHT, 20/05/06, 6.35pm, THE AGE OF STEEL...

[paulvonscott]

"Jackie getting cyberised was fantastic."

It was a good moment I thought, and there were a few of them in this episode.

"I reckon she'll be the head honcho at Torchwood, myself."

Mmmm... good call, we may well see more of the alternative dimension cast again.

[DavidXBrunt]

If anyone wants the goss mail me, though it's a) spoilerific and b) unconfirmed.

[Floyd-the-k]

you're all spawny gits for being able to watch it.  Now I have to (a) pester the ABC into showing it and (b) forget the spoilers by the time they do

What's the verdict on the new Doctor versus Ecclestone?

[Buddy]

DXB, just post it here...

[Cthulouis]

I enjoyed it, though i enjoyed the first episode more.

And, heh, I was so right on the other thread concerning the "Public enemy number one" thing:)

I find it amusing that in the first series, to make the daleks cool again they raided all the previous dalek episodes to make a kind of "Daleks greatest hits" thing. To make the cybermen cool again they raided all the previous... dalek episodes again! because all the previous cybermen stories were mostly chuff. This did however mean they only used the stuff they didn't use lsast season, ie, the stuff that wasn't quite cool enough to be justifed squeezing in. As such, once again the cybermen are going to come off second best.

[Bico]

One thing that bugged me about the Cybermen was that they didn't seem very driven.  The Borg in First Contact were pretty camp and unscary, but they did move with a purpose - not fast, not slow, just a sort of resigned stride and faith in their numbers.  The Cybermen, by contrast, sort of hold their arms out a bit and mince in a straight line towards a point somewhere off-camera.
Alternate Earth surely means Alternate Daleks on Alternate Skaro?  The most optimistic guess I've heard is that there'll be a war between alternate Cybermen/alternate Daleks led by Darth Trigger on his cyber-sofa that invades the 'real' Earth in the season finale.

And the Torchwood thing is really going to have to be good - they've pushed the whole thing too hard with incredibly unsubtle references and a follow-up spin-off series.  It could be a bit of a white elephant if not done right.  Captain Jack must be a shoe-in for the season finale, though.

[Eric Plumrose]

>> And the Doctor wasn't even THERE to be a cunt to him!

Heh. I've no doubt he would have had he been. Ungrateful git.

>> I'm in favour of the melodrama, because melodrama plus clanky robots equals THE THRILL POWER and it's why we're all here.

Nothing wrong with melodrama when it's done well but this was too twee for my liking.

And just how was a big clanky Cyberbloke able to sneak up and zap Angela?

[DavidXBrunt]

It was a Croatian Cyberman. They moonwalk.

[Eric Plumrose]

So that's what the 'C' chest emblem stands for.

[mondocoyote]

"Angela Price, wasn't it? Was it a nod to something? I don't recognise the name..."

well, its an anagram of Angelic Rape. I hope that doesnt turn out to be a spoiler...

[Dudley]

Just once, I would like a bit of science to creep in.  Even pseudo-science.  This is the second time that the villains have exploded FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.  "I'm very upset.  I think I'll explode now".

[Endjinn]

Why in a world where everyone has ear-pods was there a convenient slot for a mobile phone on the dashboard of the Big CyberMan computer? I have trouble finding a charger that fits my phone in this reality...

[The Monarch]

I am going to miss Mickey

[The Amstor Computer]

James --

As someone pointed out further up the thread, burning out the emotional inhibitor and letting the Cybermen realise what's been done to them is actually quite an effective way of disabling them. Quite why this should lead to explosive fits isn't really clear - it's all too reminiscent of the Simpsons sketch where the car rolls sloooowly toward a tree, touches it & explodes. It may not be as showy, but having the Cybermen collapse or actually try to destroy themselves would have been more in keeping with having their emotions/self-awareness returned to them.

Endjinn --

Heh, quite. What I don't quite understand is why the mobile had to be involved at all - if Mickey found his way into the computer and grabbed the code he needed, why not just have him hijack the broadcast and send the signal out to the Cybermen?

Bumsex --

Daleks vs Cybermen is not something I want to see. All it would serve to do would be to ruin the potential of both sets of villains for the sake of an hour & half season finale.

Cthulouis --

There have been some good Cybermen stories, but you'd have to go right back to Troughton to find them. I feel they work best in small numbers, in isolated locations - the full-on Dalek Invasions of Earth approach doesn't seem to be the best way of treating them. The other thing that interests me is that, in the first series, the writers went out of their way to emphasis just how deadly a single Dalek could be, then presented the viewer with thousands of them in the final episodes. This time, the Cybermen have been thrown at the Doctor & co. in their thousands and handily dispatched with a mobile phone - it's going to be hard to see them as quite as threatening as the Daleks if they do return later in the series.

Paul --

Yeah, Cyber Jackie was quite neat. It reminded me a bit of one of the closing scenes of The Great Escape - you know the one - but with Cyber Jackie taking the place of the German soldier.

I'm actually wondering now whether the Timelords might make a return appearance - escaping to an alternate dimension when facing annihilation at the plungers of the Daleks seems plausible. If they did, then the Doctor accidentally opening a rift between dimensions as he did in this story could lead to them making their way back through. Possibility?

[paulvonscott]

I've said before that there have been a few moments in Doctor Who, often RTD ones, where I've felt that he's borrowed things from Alan Moore.

I think the cyberman problem recurring here, with some of the same people onvolved, would be very much like Moore's Captain Britain storyline, and certainly possible.