Rise of the Cybermen

Plot

The TARDIS, carrying the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Mickey Smith, makes an unplanned landing in a parallel version of London. The journey drains the ship’s power, leaving only a small cell functional. To jump-start it, the Doctor sacrifices some of his own life force, but the cell requires a full day to recharge. With time to kill, the group splits up to explore. Rose is stunned to see a billboard featuring her father Pete, who died when she was a baby in her own world. Mickey goes off alone, hoping to find his grandmother Rita-Anne, who passed away years earlier in his universe after a fall. The Doctor and Rose notice that nearly everyone in this London wears an EarPod, a device from Cybus Industries that streams information directly into the brain. Cybus also owns Vitex, a health drink company run by Pete. Meanwhile, John Lumic, Cybus’s head, tries and fails to get the President of Great Britain to approve his plan to “upgrade” humanity by transplanting brains into metal bodies. Unknown to the public, Lumic has already been secretly converting homeless people into Cybermen. A resistance group called the Preachers has been investigating Cybus, aided by a mysterious informant known as Gemini. One Preacher, Jake Simmonds, sees homeless people being tricked into lorries for conversion and goes to get help. He finds Mickey at Rita-Anne’s house, mistaking him for his parallel counterpart, Ricky. Jake brings Mickey to the Preachers’ base, where Ricky and Mickey meet. After some wariness, Mickey agrees to help the Preachers follow the Cybus lorries to Pete’s mansion. There, Jackie, Pete’s wife, is throwing a birthday party. In this universe, Jackie never had a child; she named her dog Rose. The Doctor and Rose also arrive at the party, disguised as caterers. The Cybermen break in, surrounding the guests and announcing their intent to upgrade everyone. When the President refuses, the Cybermen kill him, then other partygoers. The Doctor, Rose, and Pete escape the house and run into Mickey and the Preachers outside. The Cybermen surround the group, and the Doctor surrenders. The Cybermen declare that the group is “incompatible” and will be deleted.

Production

Doctor Who Magazine #368 confirmed that this story was inspired by the Big Finish Productions audio play Spare Parts. Russell T Davies had previously described Spare Parts along with The Holy Terror as some of the finest drama ever written for any genre, in any medium, anywhere. Spare Parts author Marc Platt received a fee and was credited in the end titles with thanks to Marc Platt, and there is an allusion in the dialogue with Mickey labelling himself a spare part. However, writer Tom MacRae noted that his television story was not a simple rewrite of Spare Parts, saying his story has a different setting, different themes, and different characters, and that the whole thing developed in a very different direction once they started talking. Early drafts of this story featured Body Shops, where wealthy people would purchase new cybernetic limbs. Davies vetoed this element because he found it unbelievable. He also instructed Tom MacRae to tone down the differences between the parallel universe versions of characters and their real universe counterparts. According to Graeme Harper on the episode commentary, the pre-credits sequence was written by Russell T Davies as he was not satisfied with the original opening. In the commentary, it is noted that Jackie's 40th birthday is a reference to the 40th anniversary of the broadcast of The Tenth Planet, the first appearance of the Cybermen. Location shooting took place at the Coal Exchange and Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay. The external shots of the chimneys and many of the internal shots were taken at Uskmouth Power Station in Newport. Mickey sports a large tattoo on his right bicep; according to actor Noel Clarke's commentary, the tattoo was make-up applied for the episode.

Broadcast and reception

The broadcast of this episode was originally scheduled for 7:00 to 7:45 p.m. in the UK, but it started at 7:23 p.m. because the FA Cup Final ran long. The companion show Doctor Who Confidential was then postponed until after the episode aired. Overnight ratings showed an average of 8.6 million viewers, representing a 39.7% share, with a peak of 9.65 million. The Audience Appreciation Index scored 86. The final consolidated figure reached 9.22 million, ranking it as the sixth most-watched program of the week. The episode was released on a "vanilla" DVD alongside "The Age of Steel" and "The Idiot's Lantern," containing no bonus features, and later appeared in the complete Series 2 box set.

Critics responded favorably. Dek Hogan of Digital Spy called the new Cybermen "stunning," noting they looked fantastic and were genuinely frightening. He praised the storyline for connecting to society's obsession with upgrades and for giving Noel Clarke more substantial material. Ahsan Haque of IGN rated the episode 8.5 out of 10, stating it delivered in scope and with strong dialogue. He was especially pleased with the Cybermen's return and the focus on Mickey and Rose. Nick Setchfield of SFX reviewed the two-parter positively, highlighting director Harper's work for adding imagination and menace to both the Cybermen and the parallel universe. However, he found Roger Lloyd-Pack's performance too over-the-top for the show's then-current, subtler tone, making the character feel "jarringly two-dimensional."

In 2009, Anne Cranny-Francis published a scholarly essay analyzing the Cybermen's iconic marching sound and the episode's music. She examined how sound creates meaning and explores the relationship between humans and technology. She argued that the use of songs like the 1961 hit "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" links unethical technology use to the progressive narrative of secular societies. She also drew parallels between the Cybermen's march and themes of aggression, loss of individuality, and dictatorial order, comparing it to the "boot stamping on the human face" from George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four."