Doctor Who: Upgrading The Cybermen | Video Essay 

This man predicted the series 12 finale

The Bill/Rise of the Mondasian Cybermen is the most disturbing cyberman episode I've seen. Seeing the 'evolution' of them and the ones in the hospital shaking and saying "Pain! Pain! Pain!" only to have their voices muted bc no one wants to hear it or seems to care. Truly frightening!

If they did asylum of the daleks with cybermen. Imagine seeing all the 60s and 80s versions all there as well 😱

I forgot Nardole was a cyborg until it was mentioned in this video, I think that does say a lot about him.

I feel that 'World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls' was the one story in Modern Who where the Cybermen were done right and lived up to their true potential. The first part explored the disturbing body horror aspect while the second part explored their unrelenting and never-ending nature. Yes, there maybe were other things going on but that was because it was Capaldi's last stand so of course it would focus on other elements besides them. Plus, I thought it felt more like a Cybermen story than a Master story since the threat of the Cybermen looms over whilst the two Masters are just mere supporting players.

Jesus Christ do I want to see Asylum of the Cybermen now.

you pointed out my one frustration with the series 12 finale. the cybermen finally had this amazing story and i was loving it, and then the master came and highjacked it and the cybermen just became footsoldiers for the master again :(

The cyber men are such a gorgeous original sci-fi idea that adapts so beautifully to each generation that I can’t help but view them as my favourite while still being incredibly underwhelmed by how they are portrayed now.

Yeah those Cybus conversion chambers traumatised me. Every time I see a clip from rise of the cybermen or age of steel, my heart rate goes up. Good job Russel T Davis

I think Chibnall saw this and thought “Timelord, Cyberman....Timelord....Cyberman.............Timelord......Cyberman........Cyberlord.....Hmmm....”

I like how they gave Cybermen super speed and then immediately got rid of it once they realized how powerful it made them

Nightmare in Silver seems to have turned the Cybermen into the Borg from Star Trek, and then crossed with Aliens, which, as you said, completely misses the point of them. A lot of Dr Who episodes only half dive into the themes they are presenting. Especially in the Moffat era, it was all about getting an emotional response by having some major twist or tragedy. He was much better at writing individual episodes than at running the show, in my opinion.

I agree with you about Series 10 finale up to a point, I feel it strikes the balance between the many threads rather effectively and it is one of my favourite stories because of that. However, I recognise how frustrating it is when the episode shows such a chilling and profound understanding of the Cybermen, only to focus on other factors.

I always thought Doctor Falls would have been way more interesting if Bill was seen in Cyberman form more often. I know her appearing as a human is important to her character, but it would have been cool, even if just for one or two scenes, to have her talking with the Doctor in her Cyberman form.

I always thought the ending of "The Age of Steel" was really grim. Letting all those people realise who they are and what happened to them was horrifying. And I always thought The Doctor should have shown more emotion about it.

Another wasted opportunity: One of the Doc's best companions (Lethbridge Stewart) was turned into a Cyberman. He is only shown once as a cameo helping him and his daughter mildly. Knowing that it was one of his best human friends that made that choice should make Doc think about his effect on his companions and the loss that the Cybermen themselves are representing for others

But we all can never forget that one cyberman who made us all cry Rest in peace handles PS I don't think he ever did patch the phone into the tardis.

Always liked Age of Steel as an alternative universe origin. The only downside of it is the design of the Cybermen they went far too robotic and once the horror of the zombie population being upgraded subsides then the final form is a bit Naff. That being said its still a heck of an episode and does most things correctly for a very good cyber story. Great Video!

Chinball: "They now want to become robots now,"

Watching this on the bus and there is a round blue night light behind me that reflected off my phone screen. My emotions and bowels are definitely working 😨🤖

Honestly, I had no clue Nardole was a Cyborg until you mentioned it... Yeah, they really missed the opportunity there. Damn.

Ngl when the human cybermen of petes world see themselves and go insane it’s honestly the saddest scene in doctor who you see the whole race perish in pain just because they could see and feel who they’d become every cyber scream is just a person screaming themselves to death at the moment they saw they were stuck in a cold metal body that didn’t eat feel or breathe

I’d never even considered asylum of the cybermen before and now I can’t think about anything else.

I hadn’t thought about Nardole or Asylum being more suited to Cybermen good shout

That's crazy! I LITERALLY just finished watching your Peter quill video!

The season 12 rendition of the cybermen had amazing potential in my opinion, and definately could have taken them in a new direction. I thought the idea of tying them in with the story of Frankenstein was very clever, as the original version of Frankenstein was a critique of those who seek to improve humanity through artificial means simply for the sake of doing so. it was also written in a time when people were just starting to view society and technology as something that should naturally progress with time, part of the reason why the novel is still relevent today. I feel like this comparison between Frankenstein and the cybermen was realised by the writers but never really explored. Doing so would have hammered home the point about how the creation of cybermen-like technology could have threatened any race that sought to advance itself, and could be initiated at any point in history. Unfortunately the cybermen ended up getting shoved to one side in the finally to become secondary villains to the master AGAIN, and ended up being bystanders to perhaps the worst twist in DW history. Perhaps something could have been said about techtaioon's (not gonna try and spell it) relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge for the sake of doing so? Nahhhhh.

I love World Enough and Time + The Doctor Falls. It’s a great watch and although you don’t see much of the humans before they’re converted, that scene in the hospital where the patients plead for their death to Bill really gives you the same feeling as the dying cyberman scene from Rise of the Cyberman/Age of Steel

Forget just the Modern series, I feel like the latter half of the Classic series also utilized the Cybies incredibly poorly. I think, with the Chibnall era apparently going in a relatively more experimental direction, I think we need a straight up horror story with the Cybermen. Do something that’s scary *primarily,* like Blink. I personally feel like the strongest showcase of the Cybermen as something genuinely horrifying is World Enough and Time. It was immediately undercut by The Doctor Falls making them featureless flunkies again. I’d love to see something in the vein of “Dalek” or “Resolution”; revitalize the Cybermen by doing a story about *one.* ONE Cyberman, not even necessarily anything to do with an action plot. Excellent point about Nardole, by the way. Such a waste to never capitalize on his cyborg nature in a Cyberman story.

Yessss. I LOVE the Cybermen, probably my favourite Who villain. It sucks that they haven't had many great stories in New Who. Their concept is so tragic and terrifying at the same time.

Wish they would make "spare parts" into an episode or two easily the best Cyberman story since tomb

Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel reminds me a lot of MGS4 as in that soldiers get nanomachines that suppress the trauma of killing people and when it gets turned off at the end of the first chapter all the soldiers get overcome by grief and misery. I wish The Doctor Falls was better, World Enough and Time was great imo and then it just fell flat. The same with all the Moffat finales.

You must be excited for the “darker” turn of season 12 and the return of the Cybermen with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein as the backdrop?

i really want to see a story were they explore the transition from human to cyberman. World Enough and Time went into it, but only explored the physical changes, what if instead it started with just wanting to remove pain, or sadness, and it just kept going form there. What would someone who couldn't experience those things be like.

But that funeral scene in The Next Doctor though...

6:23, “...at every turn...” That was a nice touch, boys.

Asylum of Insane Cybermen? Holy fuck that'd be terrifying.

this is why i want a full season where the cybermen are the primary antagonists

I've got to say I really appreciate your doctor who videos. They're always good fun and interesting to watch

I think a modern update, as you partly discussed, should focus on a heathy use of machines vs an obsession.

The issue the Cyberman have is fundamentally, they kind of always been the "Not-Daleks" Heck the only reason they got to have a heyday in Second Doctor's era was because they couldn't use the Daleks. And as much as people make a big deal of the converting as what makes them unique and the revived era lost that, even the classic series never used it much. It barely shows up in their golden age of Second Doctor. Of their four appearances "Tomb" is the only one to really focus on conversion and "Moonbase" and explicitly have them want to invade Earth for it's non-human resources. And then conversion doesn't come up again until "Attack" in the 80's! The series as a whole has never really figured out what to do with these guys. The best we've ever really done is use them to lend importance to an episode is, but at the same the Cybermen are not so important that the episode has to focus completely on them. And then you get stuff like the comics where some writers does a: "what if they were the most bad-ass species?" Even though their other big thing is being on the verge of extinction, or thought extinct. With that theme showing up in some form in six of their nine classic series appearances.

Damn... I'm watching this on my phone too

I found the Mondasian Cybermen chilling in Capaldi's last episodes. The patients in particular, an existence of "PAIN" as an upgrade really chilled me to the core.

How did I just find your channel?! Your Whiplash video was phenomenal, and every video else so far. A well earned subscriber my friend, keep it up ❤️

I disagree with World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls being a Master story. I think that was what Moffet knew people were expecting so the twist in the The Doctor Falls was that it was a Cyberman story, that both Masters end up having to flee with the Doctor when he makes it so Cybermen think they could upgrade Time Lords

*" At every turn "* *Shows Cyberman doing a 180 degree angle with it's head.* I see what you did there.

I really liked peter capaldi's last story. Genuinely a great cybermen episode

I've always liked that no matter if The Doctor completely gets rid of the cybermen whether it be The Mondasians or Cybus Industries they'd always evolve back into existence as if humanities goal of forever improving is a curse and the result being the Cybermen being inevitable and the doctor just delays the inevitable

Classic series cybermen were indeed more chilling, sneaky and stealthy. Then they just became another stompy robot. Even the new series Mondassian model didn’t escape deafening stomping hydraulics.

10:00 There're canonically loads of different factions/species of Mechanoids and Techno-organics in the Whoniverse... I never really questioned it myself.

I really enjoy Series 10 and was so surprised that I've never even thought of the potential Nardole could have in the series finale. A brilliant point, and top video as always - keep it up lads

I love your Doctor Who videos! Always informative and interesting. Much love from across the pond!

My favourite Cybermen line, which reminds me of that famous line from the Controller in Tomb, is from Doomsday - "... Cybermen will remove fear, Cybermen will remove sex, and class, and colour, and creed, you will become identical, you will become like us."

I like the story idea of humans willingly or enthusiastically becoming cybermen. Have no deception, cohersion, or delusion. Give the upgrading peoples a really compelling argument which is not a straw man and then see what the doctor does. Likely the enviroment challange already mentioned.

BOY DO I MISS DAVID TENNANT!

Nardle being a cyborg is so inconsequential that I don't even think I ever thought about it or realized. I even completely forgot he was there and I watched these episodes 2 months ago

Another awesome video guys, good to see great quality uploads in my sub box

the cybermen of rtd era gave me nightmares - a week of sleepless nights after rise of steel/age of the cybermen, mostly involving myself and my family getting upgraded - but i absolutely loved how they were done

We definitely need more Doctor Who villains like the Cybermen. I have no qualm whatsoever with stating that the Mondasian Cybermen from World Enough and Time was quite easily one of the stand-out sci-fi villains I've seen in the past decade. And it's funny to think that if you took a concept from 1966 and basically gave the costume department the resources needed to give it an "upgrade", as it were, you end up with such a terrifying presence! I agree with this video completely, Doctor Who could do so much with these guys now!

Rise of the cyberman/Age of Steel aged magnificently. It's like demolition man. They only got more relevant with time

The idea that Chibnall would want to return anything to its roots is just comical

The cyber men scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.

Nightmare in silver works that the human drive led them to wanting to be the most powerful they can be and they didn't stop, which is such a human concept, until they got it.

I suspect there are cut script pages doing with cyberNardole exactly as you suggest, but the two parter is just so jam-packed that it got back-burnered.

cant wait to see what season 12 is doing with the cyberman seemingly as the main villain for the season

The Cybermen gave me nightmares for months after the first time I saw one of thier episodes. Not even the Daleks got me as scared

Although I agree with the whole, body horror, emotion issue aspect, I think the upgrade continually aspect is an incredibly likely and maybe obvious? conclusion. I don't know how to change that being the case, but when they DON'T upgrade more than they have, it makes little sense to me. They either want upgrades or not. They can't think they're already perfect. That being said I really like the Cyber Men, and the reveals and environment of the ending story there was pretty awesome. I too agree that Clara should have been a Cyberman. It would have made much more sense. Good call.

Your videos are just the best as always

Great video! You should do a video explaining more about the tombs and how the cybermen become withered and insane and also what the regular cybermen would do in that type of situation i'm referring to attack of the cybermen btw.

Man, I forgot that the ‘Nightmare in Silver’ Cybermen had hyper-speed

Love that Lumic and Tennant both showed up in Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch and Barty Crouch Jnr

The Cybermen are actually a weirdly specific enemy. The idea that they are a dystopian version of Human 2.0 is cool, but if you pick up that concept and run with it then you're likely to find that every Cyberman story are going to have the same themes. What makes us human? How different would we have to become before we stopped being human? Are the things that make us human objectively good things? If you could remove humanity's flaws, wouldn't that be an improvement? Those are all interesting philosophical questions, but equally they are not so interesting that it wouldn't get boring if that were the focus of every Cyberman episode.

The Mondasian cybermen are the only Doctor Who monster which genuinely give me nightmares. I can't explain it but there is something so revolting about them. They are like zombies but worse. Reanimated corpses which don't realise they're dead. Idk.

Finally! Other people besides me prefer the Cybermen as villains for the Doctor! The Daleks are almost too cute. And the preponderance of LOUSY storylines (the Third Doctor did them NO FAVORS!) reduced their malevolence. THey had a brief rebound with Genesis of the Daleks but went back to being silly. That said, Daleks were best in the 1960s. I thought the Cybermen were best in the 1960s, too, but they still have that malevolence and creepiness cyborgs have always had for me.

I'd recommend checking out the big finish stories Spare Parts and The Silver Turk, they both explore great cyberman concepts 👍

I’ve always thought that it might be interesting to see them address something like the boat paradox. A boat is slowly upgraded and has old parts replaced but eventually there is nothing left of the original so is it still the original. I would love a story where someone went through to rebuild someone who had been tuned into a cyberman. Slowly tracking down parts until eventually they have to track down the cyberman version of whoever was transformed for the last few chunks of brain or other parts.

It's quite ironic that the Davies era truly understood the Daleks but the use of the Cybermen was quite underwhelming the only exception being Rise of the Cybermen/Age of steel and Moffat truly understood the horrors of the Cybermen but his use of the Daleks was underwhelming the only exception in my opinion being The witch's familiar

0:09 "While there's no question that the daleks are The Doctor's greatest foe" Master:.. (cries inside)

The Age of Steel Two-Parter is the best the cybermen have been period. It's a fantastic story and was my introduction to the cybermen as a kid.

3:47 man Tennant was great. Did he ever have a line delivery that wasn’t completely awesome?

"The Doctor Falls" has that one scene where the doctor shouts all his victories against the Cybermen as he blows them up. I think there's something very cool about that. The Cybermen happen everywhere there's people, which make them an unstoppable CONCEPT than a race or species, meaning that they will never stop existing because they will appear and come about somewhere in the universe. The doctor puts himself as the reason why they will never win, the man that stops the monsters. The one smarter than any cyber computer, who's selflessness and emotions that the Cybermen lack is what brings about his victory against them.

I had a dream once of a fully fledged doctor who episode that doesn't exist. Took place on what essentially was a cyberman refugee vessel. One that contained the damaged and discarded cyberman that were left behind from the doctors various encounters with them. The vessel was taken over by an outdated cyber controller, who overpowered the cyber wardens that managed it with the help of the defective units.

We definitely need a return to form for the Cybermen, they're amazing when we can clearly tell they're an upgraded version of us because it's something that is believable in terms of our future, the Mondasian Cybermen stick with me as a favourite design because they have such an uncomfortable nearly human but more robotic voice, and they retain many human features, most New Who representations take away from the physical side of things, while Rise of the Cybermen and Age of Steel just about get away with it as we see the conversion process. I'm really hoping we get some Cybermen stories in the same vein as the revered Cybermen stories from Big Finish, stories like Spare Parts manage Cybermen in a way that New Who needs to take lessons from.

11:26 I was laughing so hard when I watched the new year special, I was like “it’s a garbage darlek, literally!”

I think the latest cybermen were only fitting in nightmare in silver because of the storyline. After many years of war at some point they become unstoppable...

I always thought the writers struggled, particularly during the RTD era to construct stories around them beyond the typical 'Convert lots of people into Cybermen', they couldn't keep going back to that one story and seemingly found it impossible at first to think of anything else they could or would plausibly do. Moffat's shift into making the Cybermen scary not because of what they were but what they could do (consistently upgrade and get stronger, utilise dead bodies) did make for some more interesting stories but it was the Series 12 finale that really finally brought a classic for the ages story involving the Cybermen.

great video!

imagine orphan 55 but with cyberman instead that climate change and a resource war left the earth so bad people became cybermen think it would have been a far more chilling story

In Nightmare in Silver the Cybermen became an analogue (or is that digital) of the Borg - same concept instant adaptation - taken to the extreme they would be unstoppable as no matter what you throw at them they adapt / upgrade. I thought that was just lazy writing.

One of the best cyberman doco's I've seen.

As a Warhammer 40000 fan I love Nightmare In Silver. There’s so many parallels between the Necrons and Cybermen, once I got into 40K the cyber conversion factory from Rise of The Cybermen was how I pictured Necron Biotransferance. To me, Nightmare in Silver reads like the story of an Imperial Guard regiment accidentally awakening a tomb world, from their fatigues, to their lasguns, to using Exterminatus on the the planet for the sake of the greater human empire, the humans feel straight out of 40K. Likewise we see a full on necron style silver tide of near indestructible soulless former people who keep reanimating no matter how many are killed. It’s an incredible necron story, as far as human perspective ones go but I’ll certainly agree it’s no Cybermen story.

Woah caught this just in time!

Hi, got a quick question. At the end of the series finally of season 11 it shows planets being restored from the small cubes (havent seen it recently so i might be wrong) but could the red planet being shown be gallifrey? It's given a lot more attention than the others. Thanks in advance

What I really want is to see an evolution of them, over a few seasons, starting really human and as the seasons progress, them become more robot

Nuwho's Cybus cybermen was a brilliant way to recreate the Cyberman from the ground up. It built on the idea that, as humanity is a possible evolutionary end result on countless world across time and space, then so Cybermen of one form or another will evolve as part transhumanism and connect to a greater whole.

Rise of the cyber men absolutely shat me up as a kid

What is the music playing in the background? It's really nice.

honestly the 'phones bad' message is pretty hackneyed. people used to draw cartoons depicting subway carriages full of people reading the newspaper, making exactly the same point as the current ones about phones

I haven't really watched the show for ages but now I feel like I've gotta check out World Enough and Time.

Funny thing is about Age of steel and Rise of the Cybermen is, Tennant and Roger Lloyd Pack have worked together previously in Harry Potter, so I can just imagine the behind the scenes with them.

Listen to the Big Finish Audio "Spare Parts" - Age of Steel and WEAT reference it a rather lot.