I wish this particular episode could have been truly spoiler free. This was the one I knew the most about going in as the BBC made extremely sure that a few facts about it were widely known. Chris and I generally try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. He is more successful at this than I am as he does not actually have or use a personal Facebook and doesn’t really do social media other than for the blog. We both knew about the return of the previous incarnation of the Master though and I knew the original Cybermen would be coming back.
That said, the spoilers didn’t make it any less creepy. The man screaming pain over and over with the robotic voice of his digital voice generator in the shadowy ward was extremely eerie. The music added brilliantly to the ominousness of the situation. This was a very dark episode with Bill basically dying twice, or at least being pretty badly mutilated. I do wonder if the conversion to this type of Cyberman is more reversible than those from Pete’s world, which seemed pretty set in steel. Part of me thinks it would be a very ballsy move on Moffat’s part to leave her a Cyberwoman, but I also really like Bill and hate to see her go that way.
The use of actual science with the different rates of time passing near a black hole was fantastic. It should have tipped me off sooner that Bill’s new friend was really the Master as well, as no one else seemed to get what was going on or they wouldn’t have been carrying on with the project, while Mr. Razor understood the time dilation and had video of what was going on upstairs.
At any rate, they have finally truly made the Cybermen scary again. Well done!
A fantastic start to this two parter. Here’s hoping the conclusion will be as satisfying.
9.5/10