WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
To say that this episode was highly anticipated by fandom at large would be an understatement, after all Neil Gaiman delivered perhaps one of the finest episodes of post 2005 Doctor Who in "The Doctor's Wife" and given the brief of making The Cybermen scary again (although I'd argue they've never been particularly frightening), you'd feel safe betting that if anyone could do it, Gaiman could.
Like 2005’s "Dalek" and this terms "Cold War", the episode does its best to refresh a familiar monster, and most of the tweaks are excellent. Their tighter, more streamlined armour, croaky voices, odd, blank faces, and more mechanised movements.. The nasty, bug like Cybermites are a clever spin on the slightly too cute and cuddly looking Cybermats, and the slow-mo sequence where a Cyberman zooms across a room to abduct a child is a thrilling moment straight out of "The Matrix". Unfortunately some of the other modifications, such as the reliance on a central Cyber Planner working with the hive mind, the fast adaptation to weaponry and their fondness for side of the face implants recall rather too strongly The Borg of Star Trek fame. I also found it a little disappointing that having set up the disturbing notion that The Cybermen snatch kids now the idea is put on the back burner in deference to our favorite Time Lord battling the Cyber Planner inside his own brain case.
I think how much you enjoy this episode will largely hang on how convinced you are by Matt Smith's performance, many I think will find it too cartoonish and broad where it maybe should have been more dark and disturbing. There have been more than a few hints in the past that The Doctor's head is not the most pleasant place to hang out and I would have loved to see some more of The Doctor's nasty side come out to play. I really like the design choice made in portraying The Doctor's mind, the blue Cyber text vs the orange Gallifreyan script was extremely cool looking. Alongside a strong Matt Smith performance guest star Warwick Davies was excellent as someone who obviously knows something he's not telling.
Despite these two good performances the real let down of this episode for me was the rest of the performances. Jenna-Louise Coleman who is normally great was acting oddly out of character, much more like departed companion Amy in my view. I wonder was Amy originally who Gaiman was writing for? The kids in Clara's care, Angie and Artie were simply awful, to the point of killing all the momentum of the story every time Eva de Leon Allen's Angie said "I hate you!" for no reason yet again. The punishment unit lead by Tamzin Outwaite's Captain which is just a collection of every cliche going, fat bloke, speccy ginger nerd, scaredy cat skiver and over zealous jobsworth, are pretty inconsequential with not enough to do to really justify their presence.
Despite the gripes I have about the performances this was a fun, knock about romp, perhaps not what we were expecting from a writer with a reputation of the macabre and esoteric. It also opened a new frontier for the Cybermen, just as The Daleks have been given another lease of life by a radical rewrite in "The Asylum of The Daleks" you hope the same might be true of the big guys in silver.
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