Written by Various
Read by Jon Pertwee
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 192 Kbps

Doctor Who - The Tomb Of The Cybermen

Tomb of the Cybermen brought the Doctor, Patrick Troughton, into conflict with his silver cyborg nemeses for a third time, following The Tenth Planet (1966) and The Moonbase (1967). The Doctor, Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling) join an archaeological expedition on the planet Telos, where they encounter deathtraps, betrayal and a waiting army of frozen Cybermen. Scripted by Kit Pedlar and Gerry Davis, who would later write Doomwatch (1970-72), many of the essentials of the plot anticipate James Cameron's blockbusting Aliens (1986): the barren planet with abandoned city, the tense wait for a rescue ship, the human traitors, the implacable, more powerful enemy. Unfortunately for a story so centred on logic the characters display a worrying lack of sense; the supposedly highly logical villains assume the Cybermen will just do what they tell them, and the Doctor locks the chief human traitor in a room without first checking it for ray guns! There's also an astonishingly crass racial stereotype with the one black character, Toberman (Roy Stewart) being a muscle-bound, slave-like henchman. Flaws aside this is a superior Doctor Who adventure and a thoroughly entertaining piece of classic television.