DW S34E7: Nightmare in Silver

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok then. Judging from the episode, at a rough guess its about four times the size of the full moon which makes it 2.25 degrees. Assuming it's an Andromeda sized spiral galaxy it has a diamter of 220,000 light years (according to the best available data from Keck) and therefore is ~93,000 light years away from the theme park world, nicely in the range of a dwarf satellite galaxy.

Ok forget that. It actually works out as 2.7 million light years. Oops.

EDIT: If we assume it's the same size as the Milky Way rather than Andromeda the distance drops to 1.3 million light years.

[Havok]

It is bullshit like that that sucks all the fun out of sci-fi.

As for having the story without the kids? Really? Why would they go to an amusement park planet? Why would the cybermen activate? The story without the kids is idiotic.

[Captain Seafort]

EDIT: If we assume it's the same size as the Milky Way rather than Andromeda the distance drops to 1.3 million light years.

Huh? What numbers are you using? I thought the MW was as big or bigger than Andromeda.

[Eternal_Freedom]

EDIT: If we assume it's the same size as the Milky Way rather than Andromeda the distance drops to 1.3 million light years.

Huh? What numbers are you using? I thought the MW was as big or bigger than Andromeda.

I used 220,000 light year diamter for Andromeda and 100,000 for MW. MW is smaller physically but might have a lot more dark matter and hence be more massive.

[Broomstick]

As for having the story without the kids? Really? Why would they go to an amusement park planet? Why would the cybermen activate? The story without the kids is idiotic.

Really? The Doctor that's been known to swing on swings a remodel a house as a kid's playhouse for Christmas? He and his companion can't simply just go to an amusement park? Someone else can choose to play chess with the cyberman mechanical turk. The kids aren't necessary. I don't think they're totally useless as far as making the plot go forward, either, but their presence seems gratuitous to me. I would have preferred something that made them more necessary but maybe that's just me.

[Rossum]

Really liked the episode (sans the kids) particularly since I'm a fan of the cybermen.

I found it interesting during the Doctors argument with Mr. Clever that when he said "nobody has to die" that Clever didn't respond with "Of course, we upgrade people, not kill them."

I mean, with races that routinely assimilate (or cyber-convert) their victims, you'd think the "we don't technically kill" thing would be a useful argument to shake up your opponents. Unless the cybermen themselves don't really consider cyber-converting that different from killing.

Other than that, the cybermites were a pretty awesome and scary "weapon" to see. The ability to spy on and assimilate people with tiny drones is a wicked tool to have. If they had the potential to make more of themselves, I could see them infesting who planets and just waiting to convert someone when they get the chance.

Few cybermites land on a planet, they make more, upgrade someone, said guy turns into a worker or cyber-planner (actually saw the term cyber-slave used to describe a semi-converted human in one of the recent video games). Said mooks get the resources to start making full-blown cybermen while the mites keep converting and you've got an epidemic on your hands.

So yeah, the existence of those cybermites could justify the whole "blow up the planet" approach. If you see one cyberman, there is probably a few thousand mites in the woodwork ready to make more. Really, looks like an upgrade on the borg need to run up and stick tubes in people.

As for seeing the destroyed galaxy when it's a few hundred thousand light years away... maybe what we saw was a holographic projection? It was a theme-park world (with the former emperor hiding on it). Maybe someone sprung for a device that lets you see the blown up galaxy to remember what happened?


Suppose my only real complaint (aside from the kids... or the Doctor keeping the kids around after seeing that "deactivated" cyberman) is that the introduction of Mr. Clever was pretty... weird. I gotta say that when Matt Smith started twirling around I was pretty convinced he was in Wacky Doctor mode. Wasn't until he started yelling "Get out of my head!" that I rethought that. Seeing it again let me get a better feel for the transitions, but I feel that maybe dialing down the twirly-ness or at least add a robo-voice or some red lights during Mr. Clevers dialog would have made things clearer.


Plus, I don't recall seeing the kids get 'cured' of the cyber-conversion process. I know the Doctor cured himself with the sonic crewdriver and something else but I don't really remember the kids between Doctor dragging them back in a coma and them showing up all fine to tell everyone who the Emperor is. Or I just preferred them as cybernetic vegetables and blocked the scene from my memory.

[Parallax]

In regards to the superspeed thing. I may be misremembering but when we saw the one example of it, was that Cyberman not the only really active one at the time? Perhaps moving at such speeds takes a lot of processing power - and when the other Cybermen booted up, that processing power got used up?
Or maybe Timey Wimey Wibbly Wobbly.

[Broomstick]

Suppose my only real complaint (aside from the kids... or the Doctor keeping the kids around after seeing that "deactivated" cyberman) is that the introduction of Mr. Clever was pretty... weird. I gotta say that when Matt Smith started twirling around I was pretty convinced he was in Wacky Doctor mode. Wasn't until he started yelling "Get out of my head!" that I rethought that. Seeing it again let me get a better feel for the transitions, but I feel that maybe dialing down the twirly-ness or at least add a robo-voice or some red lights during Mr. Clevers dialog would have made things clearer.

When you see Matt Smith's profile with the cyberwidgets on it that's Mr. Clever talking. When you see the profile with bare skin that's the Doctor talking. There are a few ambiguous spots, but they're intended to be ambiguous and are Mr. Clever trying to convince someone else he's the Doctor.

So they had a visual signal but maybe it wasn't obvious enough for all viewers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Something that occurred to me upon rewatchign the episode. Both when the Doctor needs to find somewhere for the kids to stay and when the soldiers have to go somewhere defensible...why not just withdraw to the TARDIS?

The kids wandering off in the bowels of the ship can be solved by, I don't know, locking the door to whatever room or section they're in.

[Parallax]

The Doctor seems reluctant to allow people into the TARDIS unless he already trusts them. With all the violence, hi-jack attempts and stowaways that have happened over the years in there, you can't really blame him if there are other options available. Look at an episode or two back as an example, people got in and started messing with dangerous stuff even when told explicitly not to.

Making the TARDIS a target for the Cybermen is probably not a good idea either. While it may be next to indestructible, they could certainly hold it as a bargaining chip ("Doctor, we have your people and your machine. We know none of them can operate it. They are trapped and you are alone.") or whatever.

I don't think Clara has a key to the TARDIS and the Doctor kind of just ran off so she didn't have that option.

I do take your point, and it's not a bad one, but using the TARDIS as a stronghold isn't always the best of ideas.

[Hillary]

Plus, I don't recall seeing the kids get 'cured' of the cyber-conversion process. I know the Doctor cured himself with the sonic crewdriver and something else but I don't really remember the kids between Doctor dragging them back in a coma and them showing up all fine to tell everyone who the Emperor is. Or I just preferred them as cybernetic vegetables and blocked the scene from my memory.

You clearly weren't watching very closely. He did a deal; he sacrificed the Queen and Mr Clever let the children go.

[jwl]

Plus, I don't recall seeing the kids get 'cured' of the cyber-conversion process. I know the Doctor cured himself with the sonic screwdriver and something else but I don't really remember the kids between Doctor dragging them back in a coma and them showing up all fine to tell everyone who the Emperor is. Or I just preferred them as cybernetic vegetables and blocked the scene from my memory.

The kids get cured when the doctor does a deal with the cyber-planner. Let the kids go and the doctor will let him take his queen.

The doctor freed himself by amplifying a hand pulse he got when porridge lands right next to him with his sonic (a hand pulse is a knuckleduster-type weapon used by the empire to take out cybermen.) I wouldn't say this is deus ex machina on the sonic's part, because we don't even know amplification is necessary here until the doctor decides he needs to amplify it.

[Korto]

The screwdriver didn't feel like a deus ex to me. It was already established what the emp things did, the doctor used trickery to get a hold of one, and the screwdriver only played a supporting role. I'm really suspecting that the writers have decided to tone the "sonic" down a bit, which I'm bang alongside of.

As for seeing the destroyed galaxy when it's a few hundred thousand light years away... maybe what we saw was a holographic projection? It was a theme-park world (with the former emperor hiding on it). Maybe someone sprung for a device that lets you see the blown up galaxy to remember what happened?

I like this explanation. While at first I thought "Would you really want a downer like that at an amusement park?", the park was built on an old cyber-world and a memorial to all the horrific destruction might have been felt appropriate. I'm going with this one.

As for leaving the kids in the TARDIS, another question is, is the TARDIS really the safest place to leave people without the Doctor there, anyway? Even if the kids didn't touch anything (fat chance) the damn thing has its own agenda.

[jwl]

Has anyone thought of an explanation for the light problem in turn left?

[Starglider]

I really liked this, because they tried a lot of new ideas, and you felt that the writer was really throwing themselves into the show and trying to produce something exceptional. The end result lacked polish and there was some stuff that didn't work well - random speedy cyberman, mediocre acting from the soldiers, felt like they ran out of budget for the ending. I'm ok with that though because the stuff that did work was engaging and the cybermen reimagining was effective and interesting.

[Rossum]

Has anyone thought of an explanation for the light problem in turn left?

The one where Donna Noble was trapped in an alternate universe due to a psychic parasite and thus lived in a reality where the Doctor died and the stars started going out?

Eh... my guess is that the various stars and galaxies were actually ceasing to exist in the past due to Timey Wimey. Maybe something to do with the cosmic entropy that Logopolis was trying to avert. Or just part of the nature of the alternate reality Donna was in.

Or perhaps the TARDIS was using its psychic field to communicate with people by making them think that the stars were vanishing from the sky. The light was reaching them, it's just the TARDIS put some perception filter thing so they couldn't see them in an attempt to communicate the need to save the universe.

When you think about it, the TARDIS is practicaly the sort of thing you'd expect in Lovecraftian tales about elder gods and ancient evils. Like the Necronomicon... except instead of a book that drives people mad with knowledge of forbidden arts, it's a box with a world inside that carries a mad deity to any point in time and space where he can do the most dama... I mean good.

If the Tardis lost the Doctor, I wouldn't be surprised if it enacted some scarily alien plan to make people desperate enough to re-write history to bring him back. Heck, it could have done it before and it's just nobody remembered it.

[Broomstick]

If the Tardis lost the Doctor, I wouldn't be surprised if it enacted some scarily alien plan to make people desperate enough to re-write history to bring him back. Heck, it could have done it before and it's just nobody remembered it.

Which makes her dialogue in "The Doctor's Wife" along the lines of my Doctor, my Thief, and whatever makes you think I would give you back? new levels of creepy. She's quite... possessive.

[Eternal_Freedom]

She's been with the Doctor for over a thousand years. After that kind of time anyone is going to be possesive. I know that she doesn't see Time that way which probably makes it worse.

[The Yosemite Bear]

In regards to the superspeed thing. I may be misremembering but when we saw the one example of it, was that Cyberman not the only really active one at the time? Perhaps moving at such speeds takes a lot of processing power - and when the other Cybermen booted up, that processing power got used up?
Or maybe Timey Wimey Wibbly Wobbly.

I think I tried to say that earlier

[jwl]

Maybe all the Cybermen take their extra battle energy from some underground source, so when a lot of them have to use the same source at a time, each individual Cyberman gets less energy.