Ascension of the Cybermen written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

Oh Brilliant: Interesting to see that when she is facing an impossible situation and one of her oldest foes that Whittaker’s Doctor drops her smiles and becomes panicked, snappy, desperate and out of control. I love the contrast here with how she normally plays the part because it makes the situation seem far more tense and anxious than normal because the Doctor is reacting to it in such an extreme manner. When they land in the Cyber Wars, the Doctor is faced with having to try and keep her companions alive in a situation where her technology is useless and she cannot get them back to the TARDIS. It’s great that the Doctor is throwing herself into action at the deep end to try and salvage a mess that she has already made. Very often these penultimate episodes see the Doctor and co just showing up on their adventures and being swept up in events that have been tied into the season but this time they are a team on a mission. This is a Doctor who has always had time for people but facing an imminent Cyber-attack and she spits ‘I don’t need your life story!’ When the chips are down she orders her friends to safety with the caveat of ‘this isn’t a discussion.’ She’s the only one of the four of them who knows how nasty it gets with the Cybermen and she berates herself for bringing them along and risking their lives in such a deadly scenario. Can I draw your attention to scene where the Doctor hotwires a Cyberfighter. Not only is it a supremely cool idea but watch at how adept Whittaker is now at these kinds of monologues. It’s effortless now where this kind of scene felt laboured in her first year. It makes me salivate for what we might get from her in her third season. The scenes between the Doctor and Ashad parallel those of Resolution where she had scenes over hologram with the Dalek and what really stands out is how she has lost the smugness and a little of the sparkle from her eyes. The universe has given her a beating this year and there’s less of a sense that she is in control and more that she is desperately making it up. With series 12, both Chibnall and Whittaker have raised the bar of the series both in terms of the type of performance she can give and the sort of material that the 13th Doctor is getting. Whittaker has been exceptional all year but the stakes have been raised here and she raising her game even further with them. I think it is no exaggeration to say she has, through her talent, made this season one to remember.

Graham, Ryan and Yaz: Weirdly enough given the situations of peril that they have been in over the past two seasons, this was the first time I felt that the Fam was genuinely in danger and with no hope of survival. Chibnall lets them enter the story all piss and vinegar, with technology that looks like it might bring the Cybermen to their knees and within ten minutes all that bluster is swept aside and they are running for their lives. Suddenly the danger is very real and the Doctor is screaming at her friends to get away from the fight as swiftly as possible…or die. It’s a shame that this is the Fam’s second season rather than their first because in the latter half of this year (since Praxeus) suddenly the writing team have figured out how to give all three companions a slice of the action without anyone feeling short changed. Not only that they all feel essential and useful by this point, as exemplified by their individual chats with the human survivors and the weapons they have brought to bring down the Cybermen. It’s almost as though Chibnall has been listening to feedback from last year and how Graham and Yaz barely spent any time interacting because they are separated from the Doctor and Ryan here and prove to be quite the formidable force together. They have been paying attention on their travels and know enough to get Ravio’s ship into the Cyber Warship…although that is really taking them into the lion’s den.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The Cybermen were defeated. The victors of a billion battles, broken. An empire of might and terror, fallen.’
‘This planet, this time period…we’re in the very far future. Immediately aftermath of the CyberWars. Cybermen have hunted down and wiped out the majority of the human race. Sorry, it was never a good time to break that news to you.’
‘You’re human. If they capture you, they’ll convert you.’
‘I didn’t expect you to take it that well. I’ll have to bill you for therapy at this rate.’
‘We’re carrying Cyberman that makes other Cybermen scream.’

The Good: The cold open is one of the best, a minefield of Cybermen parts floating through space at the end of the Cyber Wars finally resting on a soulless head that leers straight towards the camera. It is a crushing indication of how far the Cybermen have fallen at this point, nothing but spare parts hanging in space. It’s exactly what Revenge of the Cybermen was trying to depict, an army of automatons that has been brought to its knees and on the verge of extinction and with the desire to crush mankind and rise again. Ascension of the Cybermen manages to show what a terrifying force the Cybermen are when they are desperate, rather the Revenge’s effort which served to show a force that was easy to bring down and embarrassing to fight. These Cybermen are clever, nasty and brutal. They are determined to see their Empire back at its height and they have the tools to do so now. It’s the chilling premise that this entire episode is built on. Ashad continues to be their mouthpiece, a partially converted Cyberman who was a nasty character before he was converted and somebody who can butt heads with the Doctor in some gripping scenes. When the setting for your story is the last remaining settlement on this side of the galaxy and it consists of the last seven humans then I’d say the stakes are pretty high to try and keep them alive. You can’t have a resistance without anyone to resist. I still haven’t forgiven Julie Graham for what she put Sarah Jane through in the fourth series of SJA…and she proves to be just as adept at handling a very different character here. A tough refugee from the CyberWars, this part needed somebody who was convincing enough to be desperate and yet commanding enough to want to fight back. Graham does a lot with very little characterisation and I don’t think that that is necessarily a problem because (and this is just a hunch) I think the truth about this character is going to be a lot more exciting than is depicted here. I have a feeling that Ravio is going to be a major player in the last episode, and perhaps not as friendly as we have been led to believe. That ship of hers is very hexagonal, isn’t it? I’d like to take a step back from the plot and mention how stunning the production values have been this year and for this episode in particular. The direction of the show has been taken to a whole new level with series 12 and as this is a (mostly) action set piece let me say that the show looks more like a movie for television than it ever has before. The big set pieces are brilliantly staged with fire and brimstone and at points I was convinced that not everybody was going to make it out alive. The tone is pure panic and it takes some skill to successfully portray pandemonium on such a scale. The location work looks gritty and memorable, the Cyberman ship is a wonderfully gothic and epic environment and action in the various spaceships as they dash to the Boundary is well paced and claustrophobic. Jamie Magnus Stone is quite a find and I hope we see him back next year. Patrick O’Kane continues to be a formidable presence as Ashad, providing the Cybermen with a frightening mouthpiece with which to issue their threats. It’s what they often lack (and I guess what they were trying to go with in Rise of the Cybermen and John Lumic and failing), coming across as an entirely robotic (and not very interesting) force. This half-finished monstrosity manages to capture the horror of the Cybermen and give them an emotional advantage at the same time. Bravo. Graham and Ravio walking around the deserted Cybership and discovering the ranks of foot soldiers waiting to be activated gave me a chilling reminder of Earthshock, albeit with the shows powerful new cinematography. The new Cyberdesign, a hybrid of classic and modern designs, is a triumph because it pleases both crowds. I like the fact that we get to see the RTD Cybermen, Ashad and a brand-new design in one story. Like The Doctor Falls, there is a feeling that different Cybermen were created for different battles but they can all come together for a common cause. When you realise there are several thousand Cybermen on this ship it is a great ‘oh fuck’ moment. I said it out loud, which earned me a look from Ludo.

I’ve heard people commenting that the Brendan subplot has irritated some people and intrigued others and it stands out because it is entirely separate from the main storyline and yet eats up a fair amount of screen time. Obviously, this is hugely relevant to the finale but what I liked was how it was a fascinating little mini story in its own right. It shows how far Chibnall has come in a season because it is a subplot that is full of great character moments, warmth and shocking twists, a far cry from the dry and dusty action of Av Kolos. Who is Brendan? Why is he on earth? Why does he seem to have Captain Jack style regenerative powers? Why does his father turn at the climax to this narrative and abuse him at the end of his life? We don’t know where this is going and that is both unsatisfying and really exciting…so I guess that means that both camps are right. What really stands out is the terrific acting of all the guest actors in this narrative cul de sac, the gorgeous Irish themed music and how they manage to convincingly portray Brendan ageing across his entire life in the space of 45 minutes. It’s a story with pace and realism and yet still has room to breathe.

The Bad: The Cyberdrones continue a very famous Doctor Who tradition of having opponents that are both comical and terrifying. The way these Cyber-heads swoop into action made me want to stifle a giggle but at the same time I was impressed at the absolute carnage they managed to cause. The POV shots are awesomely realised and how they reduce the Doctor’s defences to nothing in a matter of seconds left me breathless. It’s a direct steal from the Toclafane, continuing Chibnall’s obsession with series three this season.

The Shallow Bit: 30 seconds of the Master and my tummy is butterflies. Damn him.

Result: ‘The death of everything is within me…’ Part Earthshock, part The Sound of Drums but with a grim and unrelenting tone unlike either of them, Ascension of the Cybermen is a gripping and lead into the finale and a fine piece of action drama in its own right. It’s a story that brings some real muscle and monstrousness back to the Cybermen in a way we haven’t seen since their Troughton heyday and their revival in Davison’s first season. I’ve found the way they have been treated during the new series to be largely disappointing, portrayed as stompy drones and easily defeated. By setting this at the fag end of their Empire, by bringing in Ashad as a mouthpiece (think Locutus of Borg but far more vicious) and by showing how their numbers could so easily swell and swarm again, Chibnall has managed to achieve the impossible for me – turning the Cybermen into a genuinely formidable force. We’re off Earth, which is a god damn miracle this season and there is a feeling of being lost in a really exciting outer space adventure, which we haven’t had since Moffat’s era. You can get lost in this kind of story and completely forget the world around you. Some of the imagery is unforgettable. In particular I love the slow pan back to reveal the bits of Cyberman floating through space and bashing against the hull of Ravio’s ship, the Cybermen that scream as they are upgraded and the Cyberdrones have to be seen to be believed. This isn’t paced like your usual penultimate episode. Normally they build in momentum and reach desperation point at the climax (think Army of Ghosts, The Sound of Drums, The Pandorica Opens and The World Enough and Time) whereas this is more like half of a story that plays out with a sudden cliff-hanger that leaps out of nowhere. More than all the others I’m sure the real effectiveness of this episode will ride on the conclusion. But Ascension of the Cybermen remains a superior slice of action Who with a palpable atmosphere and tense and stifling scenes throughout. If Chibnall wanted to show how far he has come since Av Kolos, then this episode shows that he is upping the stakes and then some and he’s throwing characters I have come to really care about in extreme peril. Almost relentlessly exciting, with a terrific reunion in the last 30 seconds: 8/10