I am – Hercules!!
While we here in America are watching the 27th season of “Doctor Who” on the SciFi Channel, the wily Brits have already seen “Doctor Who” 28.6. The verdict …
“Kelvington” says:
Doctor Who – Age Of Steel (Major Spoilers)
When we last left the Doctor he was hip deep in Cybermen, who were about to “delete” him, a lot was made on the boards about how he would get out of this, and I’m happy to say, I don’t think anyone was even close to being right.
The open is a recap of last weeks episode right up to the cliffhanger, and it really gets you going, while I wanted to skip the title sequence I chose not to. When we come back we see the Doctor has something in his hand, not his sonic screwdriver, but another device that sends an bolt of energy to the first Cyberman which then jumps to the rest. Melting them down in a few moments, so that the Doctor and company can get away.
Jackie in the mean time is hiding in the caller. We find out that the bit that killed the Cybermen was the part of the TARDIS that the Doctor breathed live into from last week. And while it looks dead now, we are told it will recharge in about four hours. We also discover that Rose’s father Pete (in this reality) has been working for and against Lumic. Of which Ricky is none to keen about it.
Also it turns out this world’s Mickey isn’t quiet as notorious as we were led to believe, in that his most wanted status has to do with parking tickets, and not so much being an underground warrior. The Doctor decides to take a completely conventional, and unusual approach of not getting involved and destroying the Cybermen. But to inform the authorities of what has happened because Lumic after all, did assassinate the president.
After a short talk with his new creations, about their thinking habits. Lumic activates a city wide transmission for everyone who has a set of pods in their ears. He instructs them, including Jackie to come to him for upgrading. Think of Spock in “Spock’s Brain”, the entire city of London starts to walk, ala zombie style to Lumic’s upgrade center. The Doctor is amazed at how the human race just chooses to submit to this.
Rose proves to be more than just the typical companion when she says she has seen Cybermen before in the underground vault in Utah. The Doctor informs her that there are indeed Cybermen in our universe, and gives a brief history of them. Except in this universe they started right here on Earth. This conversation confuses and agitates Pete and he wants to know what they are on about, but he lets it go as quickly as the thought came.
Ricky decides they should split up into two teams, one comprised of Mickey and Ricky, the other made up of the rest of the Scoobies. After a bit of alley running, which is very reminiscent of running down corridors in the older “Doctor Who” series, the Cybermen chase after the Doctor’s group. It’s bloody amazing how they made only ten Cybermen appear as an entire army with careful editing and the clever choosing of shots. There are a few funny moments with the twins of Ricky and Mickey, talking to each other and slowly getting their thoughts and speech in sync. Sort of like the two John Cyrton’s in "Farscape".
The famous V formation of Cybermen start after Mickey and Ricky, while the Doctors team hide behind some barrels, as the Cybermen approach. The Doctor uses a setting on his sonic screwdriver, to send them a signal that keeps the Cybermen walking past. Bloody handy that thing is. We see many humans walking down from a van, including Jackie for what is presumed to be the final upgrade they will ever need.
All this time Mickey and Ricky have split up and one of them has been chased down an alley with a fence that can’t easily be climbed, as the dopple approaches from the other side to cheer him on over the fence. But it’s too late, the Cyberman deletes him. They do a nice job at the beginning of not saying which one got killed. Oddly the chain link fence seem to be a weakness of the Cybermen as they don’t pursue Mickey or Ricky and let him get away. As Willow would say, One down… one to go.
Cut to the inside of the factory where an encounter with Mr. Crane and Lumic. Crane has pulled his pods out of his ears earlier to avoid processing. He tells Lumic he wants to become a willing volunteer for the upgrade, then starts to kill Lumic by removing his medical support system and breaking it. The Cybermen of course kill Mr. Crane and offer to save Lumic’s life, with an offer to remove pain forever. Even as Lumic protests we know what his fate is about to become.
The Doctor and company meet up with what’s left of the Mickey and Ricky duo. It turns out Ricky is not the fence climber we thought he might have been, and Mickey and Rose have a bit of a tender moment as he reveals who he is, and what happened. They decide that the whole of London’s population is inside Lumic’s facility and they have to figure out a way to get in there and shut it down. Mickey accuses the Doctor of just making this plan up as he goes along and he’s absolutely right about that.
Rose’s father decides a frontal approach is a good way in and, he and Rose decide to use fake ear pods to walk in the front door, while the rest of them, plan to go through cooling vents into the heart of the plant. The Doctor assigns Ricky’s friend Jake the task of taking out the pod transmitter on top of the Zeppelin. Another freedom fighter named Mrs. Moore will accompany the Doctor so they can launch a three prong attack from the front, below and above. Leaving poor Mickey to sit with K-9 in the station wagon, oh wait, that was a few weeks ago. So Mickey goes with Jake to help him take out the tower.
As we go underground to the freezingly cold cooling tunnels we see the Doctor and Mrs. Moore come across a whole lot of frozen Cybermen, like sleeping Borg they don’t move because they aren’t activated thus far. The Doctor checks out a few of them as they proceed. Rose and Peter Tyler fake their way into the upgrade center, as Jake and Mickey prepare to turn off the transmitter. This weeks episode is jam backed from start to finish with action. It’s a shame these weren’t show back to back, it would have made for a hell of show.
Mrs. Moore (not her real name) and the Doctor set off an alarm by accident and get discovered in the cooling tunnel area. The Cybermen respond by walking up in order, not all at once, as our heroes run the gauntlet past them, again it looks like tons and tons of Cybermen, when there were only a few suits created. They barely get away, up what appears to be the mortal enemy of most “Doctor Who” villains, a ladder. Seems Cybermen and Daleks have a terrible time with subtle elevations. Although last year the Dalek did manage to hover a bit. While the Cybermen can climb ladders they don’t seem to have the super strength necessary to open a sealed hatch once the sonic screwdriver has done it’s bit.
We now see Rose and Pete watch as people are formed into Cybermen, in a scene very reminiscent of the Vader creation scene of Episode III. Including the lowering of a Cyberman helmet. They get found out when a Cyberman recognizes them and identifies them. It turns out this one was “Jackie Tyler”. They are then taken to Cyber command for processing.
In the meantime, Jake and Mickey are aboard the Zeppelin looking for the controls to transmitter. The Doctor and Mrs. Moore disable one of the Cybermen and accidentally turn off it’s emotion inhibitor which leads to a very sad scene. But it gives the Doctor an idea to turn off ALL the Cybermen’s emotional inhibitors, which will in fact KILL THEM ALL. Just then the Cybermen catch up and kill Mrs. Moore. They take the Doctor alive because he’s different and needs to be analyzed.
This leads to the hallmark of the new series, a great big laugh after something terrible has just happened. And in this one we get a dozy when the Doctor realizes that Rose and Pete have been captured as well. We are re-introduced to Mr. Lumic who has been upgraded and is now Cyberleader, who informs us this will be the age of steel.
Mickey and Jake find they can’t turn off the transmitter so they decide to crash the Zeppelin to destroy it. On board is what they think is just an empty Cybersuit which springs to life to stop their plans. Mickey in an amazing thought process moment, eggs the Cyberman to have a go at him, while he’s standing in front of the transmitter control, which the Cyberman punches instead of Mickey turning off all the ear pods of those who remain human.
A major uprising ensues and it turns out ten Cybermen are not a match for a throng of screaming extras. The Doctor and Cyberleader Lumic, have a bit of a Kirk like chat over imagination and the human spirit. We also get a reprise of the ordinary man can change the world speech, as Mickey and Jake watch on remote monitors. Tennent is amazingly good as the Doctor, and I thought Eccleston’s shoes would be very hard to fill. But when you see him do a bit of Eccleston’s speech you get the idea that these are indeed the same man.
While the Doctor goes on about finding the code and it’s location in the file system. Mickey is finding it, and program’s the code into his mobile and sends it to Rose. Thankfully in a tip to “Independence Day” all the Cyber technology is compatible and The Doctor plugs the code into the main computer by dropping the phone into a very convenient jack on the desk in front of him.
This sends the Cybermen in to sort of a dying jitterbug dance. Including shots of Cyberhead’s exploding as if someone had asked for some ketchup on their lobster. This also seems to cause the Cyber plant to start exploding in very James Bond style, as The Doctor, Rose and Pete run for their lives out of the dying plant.
Mickey tries to save the Doctor and friends by telling them to head to the roof as Lumic unplugs himself from his support system. Mickey drops a rope ladder from the Zeppelin in time to save Rose, Pete and the Doctor. They start to climb up, what they don’t know, is that Cyberleader is at the bottom of the ladder climbing up as well. The Doctor drops his sonic screwdriver to Pete and he proceeds to avenge the loss of Jackie Tyler by burning through the rope and dropping Cyber Lumic to his cold steel death. Again the Doctor’s enemies aren’t too keen on climbing.
We get back to the dead TARDIS and plug in the recharged bit to bring it back to life. Rose and Pete have a heart to heart talk outside, where Rose reveals that there could be Jakies alive in other universes. The TARDIS has only five minutes of power so they must leave ASAP. The Doctor tells Jake to find Mrs. Moore’s real family and tell them how she died saving the world. It’s at this point that Mickey reveals he’s choosing to stay here to help replace this world’s Ricky. Rose begs him not to, in an interesting reversal. But he wants to stay with his grand. Mickey finally figures out that Rose doesn’t really need him anymore now that she has the Doctor. Rose broken hearted says she will return, but the Doctor informs her this was an accident, and when they leave he will have to close the rift in time.
Overall this was a nice finish to the Cyber story, action packed and full of romance and heart tugging moments. But don’t count old Mickey out, I bet someday, somehow he will be back.
Just my 2¢
“The Knight Shift” says:
Heya Herc. Writing in with an American take on the new Doctor Who episode 2/28.6 "The Age of Steel", continuing from last week's episode.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!"
Best line of the whole darn episode. Said by the Doctor with great delivery when one of the Preachers stops a Cyberman with a really cool electro-bomb.
I thought last week's "Rise of the Cybermen" was one of the best of the entire revitalized series, and definitely tops so far as David Tennant's time as the Doctor goes. Last week there was no "teaser" for this week's episode, and that was a very wise decision as it ratcheted up the "oh @&#$ NOW what?!" factor waiting to see what happened next time. Well, "The Age of Steel" does NOT disappoint! If anything it's even better than last week's was. The Doctor and gang escape the Cybermen trap and make off in the Preachers' van (with a great Scooby-Doo reference by alter-Pete Tyler). Meanwhile Lumic has decided to move up the "upgrading" timetable: thousands of Londoners get zombified by those earplugs and start marching into the Cybus factor. The Doctor and crew quickly come up with a plan to break up and do what they can to stop Lumic… who is about to get an upgrade of his own after his "children" have sympathy for him after an assassination attempt.
There is horror, there is humor, and there is heartbreak in "The Age of Steel". Remember how Aaron took that last look at the moon as he's marched into the death chamber in "War and Remembrance"? That's what I thought of as Rose and Pete feign going along with the crowd walking toward the conversion chambers. This episode, more than any other Cybermen story I can think of, brings down the boom on the fact that these are **humans** beneath the steel, as we see not only the business end of them getting cut apart and reconfigured but also what happens when these poor saps get their souls back and finally realize what's been done to them. One scene in particular might strike up some controversy: the Doctor practicing euthanasia on a cyber-converted woman who was supposed to be married. And then there's the heart-rending sight of this world's Jackie as a Cyber-person.
But the biggest thing of this very emotional story is Mickey. This is Noel Clarke's final appearance on the show, and I've always liked his character immensely for some reason and am sad to see him go, but he definitely goes out swinging. He's been the "tin dog" for long enough and in "The Age of Steel" he makes his mark as fine as any other of the Doctor's companions. In the end he decides to stay on this alter-Earth, despite the fact that the TARDIS can never return to this other reality, but here he still has a grandmother and now a mission: stop the Cybermen. The last scene was a real "go get 'em tiger" moment. Clarke and Billie Piper have a really sweet goodbye scene that will have some weeping for sure.
Plenty of everything in this ep, including some old-school Cybermen lore from the Doctor and a quick nod to last season's "Dalek" episode from Rose. Roger Lloyd Pack is still in fine form this week as mad industrialist John Lumic… and just as bad-a$$ as the Cyber-Controller. If you're an American on this side of the pond like me, don't wait for Sci-Fi to run it next year, it's *definitely* worth grabbing off of torrent or wherever.
Call me The Knight Shift.
