Nightmare in Silver

238 – "Nightmare in Silver"
Doctor Who episode
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companion Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara Oswald)
Others Eve de Leon Allen – Angie Maitland Kassius Carey Johnson – Artie Maitland Jason Watkins – Webley Warwick Davis – Porridge Tamzin Outhwaite – Captain Eloise Joseph – Beauty Will Merrick – Brains Calvin Dean – Ha-Ha Zahra Ahmadi – Missy Aidan Cook - Cyberman Nicholas Briggs - Voice of the Cybermen
Production
Directed by	Stephen Woolfenden
Written by	Neil Gaiman
Produced by	Denise Paul Marcus Wilson (series producer)
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Caroline Skinner
Music by	Murray Gold
Series	Series 7
Running time	45 minutes
First broadcast	11 May 2013 (2013-05-11)
Chronology
← Preceded by "The Crimson Horror" Followed by → "The Name of the Doctor"

"Nightmare in Silver" is the twelfth and penultimate episode of the seventh series of the British science-fiction drama Doctor Who and was first broadcast on 11 May 2013. It was written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Stephen Woolfenden.

The episode starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara Oswald. The episode marked the return of the Cybermen, following their last appearance in the sixth series episode "Closing Time".

Plot

The Doctor takes Clara, and her nanny responsibilities, Angie and Artie, to Hedgewick's World of Wonders, an extraterrestrial theme park. However, the park is closed down, under military occupation. With his psychic paper and a gold pass like Willy Wonka, the Doctor convinces Captain Alice Ferring that he is an ambassador looking for their missing Emperor, and allowed to stay.

Webley, hiding from the troops, shows the visitors his "Webley's World of Wonders", a collection of galaxy oddities in his crashed spaceship. Deactivated Cybermen are harmless museum pieces, because Cybermen were defeated and exterminated a thousand years ago. He promises a silver "Imperial penny" for defeating one converted into a chess-playing machine, but they discover the operator is really Porridge, a chess champion with dwarfism.

After having fun at the Spacey Zoomer ride, one of the few working park attractions, Clara wants to return home. However, the Doctor decides to stay, suspicious of metallic thin scorpion-like insects infesting the park. The bugs are Cybermites, and reactivate the Cybermen, who abduct and partially upgrade Webley, Angie, and Artie, placing glowing controllers on their temples.

The Captain and her platoon are incompetent, a punishment unit banished to this planet to keep them out of trouble, unfit to defend against Cybermen. Porridge explains the Cybermen were only defeated by blowing up a galaxy occupied by billions, "blow up" is now the default defense protocol. The Doctor puts Clara in charge of the troops, warning her not to let them destroy the planet while he rescues the children Angie and Artie. Clara orders relocation to the best defensible position, Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle which has a moat and drawbridge.

The Doctor finds Angie and Artie on "standby", Webley upgraded. Cybermen gathered on Hedgewick's to secretly rebuild the planet as "Cyberia", kidnapping people for parts. However, children are no longer required for their imaginative brains, if they have the Doctor.

Now, cyber-conversions can use any organic lifeform, not just humans, and cybermites infect the Doctor. The Cyberman über-consciousness "Cyber-Planner", powered up on his Time Lord brain, dubs himself Mr Clever. When the Doctor threatens regeneration, Clever agrees to play chess for control.

Back at the castle, Clara takes stock of minimal arms: one big anti-Cyberman gun, five hand pulsers, and a planet-destroying bomb. She takes the bomb hand trigger, and orders Alice not to use the bomb's verbal command. Porridge reinforces the order, and Alice recognizes him from her time in the Imperial Guard. Alice decides to make up for her past failure by activating the bomb, but is shot and killed by a Cyberman. Clara decides to go on the offensive, and the platoon destroys the one Cyberman.

The Doctor temporarily disrupts Clever with his gold park permit, and reunites with Clara and the troops, demanding they tie him up to continue the chess game. He warns that millions of dormant Cybermen are reviving, and Clever will not keep promises of freedom. Posing as the Doctor, Clever tricks Clara into leaning in too close, grabs and crushes the bomb trigger, and orders out the Cyberman army.

The Doctor bluffs Clever, claiming a defeat in three moves. Clever shuts down the 3 million strong Cyberman army for their processing power to reason out the Doctor's strategy, "local resources". Clara and the platoon are able to free themselves from the frozen cyber-army. The Doctor also uses "local resources", a hand pulser, to zap away Clever from his mind.

However, the Cyber army reactivates. Angie points out that Porridge is the Emperor, she recognized him on the Imperial penny, and waxwork. Porridge never wanted to be Emperor Luden Zimrog in the first place, reluctantly uses his voice command to activate the bomb, so his flagship teleports them aboard, then flies to a safe distance.

Porridge, impressed by Clara's beauty and intelligence, proposes marriage. She turns him down, having no wish to rule. Angie says one day she, Angie, will be Queen of the Universe.

Back home, the children thank the Doctor. The TARDIS gifts Angie with a new mobile phone and Angie apologizes for criticizing "the box". Clara says see you next Wednesday; the Doctor equivocates "some Wednesday". Meanwhile Porridge, relieved when a final scan for residual cyber technology comes up clean, orders his ship home. However, a single Cybermite is seen floating through space...

Continuity

Webley calls the chess-playing Cyberman, "the 699th wonder of the universe." This is a reference to Death to the Daleks -- The Doctor called the Exxilon city one of the 700 wonders of the universe. At its destruction, he muses the universe will have to "make do with 699 wonders."

The Cyber Planner first appeared in two Second Doctor stories, The Wheel in Space and The Invasion, though in these instances it was a stationary mechanical device.

The Cybermen having died out/been wiped out was also a plot element of The Moonbase (1967), The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) and Revenge of the Cybermen (1975).

The Doctor mentions the Cybermats seen previously in The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Wheel in Space, Revenge of the Cybermen and most recently in "Closing Time".

The Doctor tells the Cyber-Planner that earlier versions of the Cyber operating systems could be scrambled by gold or cleaning fluid. The Cybermen's weakness to gold was first shown in Revenge of the Cybermen and during The Moonbase, episode 3, the Doctor's companions Ben and Polly mix a cocktail of cleaning solvents (referred to as Cocktail Polly) that is used to dissolve the Cybermen's chest units.

The Cyber Tombs featured in two previous stories, The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) and Attack of the Cybermen (1985).

The Cyber mind-control on humans was first seen in The Moonbase, where the scientists operating The Gravitron are remotely controlled by the invading Cybermen using brain implants, in order to disrupt Earth's weather.

The revived series Cybermen from "Rise of the Cybermen" appear, as do Cybermen from our universe. Gaiman's explanation is that the "Cybus" Cybermen and the "Mondas" Cybermen joined together to upgrade themselves into the new look Cybermen.

When inside the Doctor's mind all ten of his previous incarnations appear, including the regeneration sequence into his eleventh form from The End of Time.

Whilst under possession by the Cyber-Planner, the Doctor mimics the Ninth Doctor's accent and catchphrase of "Fantastic", as well as the Tenth Doctor's of "Allons-y".

Outside references

A very similar chess-playing machine, the Turk, was constructed by the Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen in the 18th century. (This invention was also referenced in the Eighth Doctor audio The Silver Turk, where the Doctor encountered a damaged early Cyberman that was being used to play chess.)

The mindscape scene where the Doctor talks with his cyberself is similar to the scene from Radio Times comic strip Dreadnought where the Eighth Doctor battles a cyber version of himself inside his mind when the Cybermen attempt to convert him.

The Captain mentions a "solid state, sub-ether ansible class communicator" in dialog. This is a reference to sub-ether technology from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a former script editor for Doctor Who. Neil Gaiman, the author of this episode, wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion. Neil Gaiman considered Douglas Adams as a genius. It also references an ansible communicator, a fictitious machine capable of instantaneous or superluminal communication, coined by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Production

Writer Neil Gaiman had previously written the series 6 episode "The Doctor's Wife", which was positively received. Lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat contacted Gaiman about writing for the series and asked him to make the Cybermen "scary again". Gaiman announced his return to Doctor Who during his Hugo acceptance speech for "The Doctor's Wife", commenting that "only a fool or a madman would try again - so [he's] on his third draft now". Gaiman stated that the episode was planned for the second half of series 7, but could be delayed, as happened with "The Doctor's Wife".

On redesigning the Cybermen, Gaiman thought back to classic series serials The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) and decided to "take the 1960s Cybermen and [incorporate] everything that's happened since". However, Gaiman said that he "got completely side-tracked by a mad, strange romp". Moffat stated that the Cybermen were redesigned because they did so often in the classic series, and yet had been consistent in the new series. However, the previous design of the Cybermen also appear in this episode, but are not the primary threats. Gaiman was motivated to provide a "rationalisation" for the Cybermen in current Doctor Who continuity. The classic series had depicted the Cybermen as alien cyborgs, while the revived series depicted them as human upgrades from a parallel Earth; Gaiman opined that his Cybermen stemmed from an encounter and amalgamation of these two types of Cybermen following "The Next Doctor".

Warwick Davis stated that it was a "thrill" to be in Doctor Who, especially in an episode with the Cybermen written by Gaiman.

Some location filming took place in early November 2012 at Castell Coch.

Lost script

During filming at Castell Coch, a copy of the readthrough script was found in a taxi in Cardiff. It was marked as being Eve De Leon Allen's copy and had the working title of "The Last Cyberman", which was subsequently changed. The script was found by Hannah Durham, who posted a picture of the script to Facebook with the caption: "found Dr Who script in the back of a taxi. Cheeky spoilers anyone?" It was then posted to Reddit by Dan Rowling with the caption: "Look what a Facebook friend found in a taxi in Cardiff on Monday". Arrangements were then made by Hannah Durham and Dan Rowling to return the script to the BBC.

Broadcast and reception

Overnight viewing figures estimate that the episode was watched by 4.7 million viewers.

The episode received generally mixed to positive reviews. The Independent gave a mixed review saying "it was another episode which failed to live up to the hype," and that "None of this episode seemed to make much sense," but praised Matt Smith's performance saying "Matt Smith’s performance was one of the few reasons to watch this episode." The Telegraph gave the episode 4 stars out of 5. They felt that Gaiman succeeded in making the Cybermen scary again, though it "could have done with more variation in pace and tone". They also praised Smith's and Davis performances. IGN's Mark Snow gave a negative review saying there was an "underwhelming concept and execution," "terrible child actors." He thought that it was "hard to feel as though Gaiman missed an opportunity to reinstate the psychotic cyborgs as one of the Doctor's most terrifying enemies." He did however praise Warwick Davis' performance. Radio Times was negative, describing it as an "almighty Cyber flop", and comparing it to the "execrable" Silver Nemesis.

External links

• "Nightmare in Silver" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• Nightmare in Silver on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• Template:Brief
• "Nightmare in Silver" at IMDb