2. The Tomb Of The Cybermen
At this very moment, sci-fi authorial legend Neil Gaiman is hard at work reviving the Cybermen in time for a new adventure in the 2013 run, The Last Cyberman. Why is such a resurrection and redefining of this famed foe necessary, you ask? Its safe to say that writers on the modern era of the show appear to have lost their way with the metallic enemies, fiddling with parallel continuity strands and wonky emotional resolutions too much to retain their core horrific nature. Gaiman cites the Patrick Troughton classic The Tomb Of The Cybermen as his source material for this refinement of the (second) biggest adversary on the show, and rightly so. Tomb takes place on the planet Mondas, where an excavation team are burying deep into the morgue of the Doctors old foes. The tombs of thse ancient creatures have laid undisturbed for centuries, but as is always the way for excavators on Who, one false step and faster than you can say Prometheus, the Cyber menace becomes a threat to the universe once more. Slowly but surely, the tension starts to build as the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe and their human allies begin to realise theyre facing up to the danger of a potential universal invasion, and that if they dont act soon, sacrificing some of their pack along the way, nothing can ever be the same again. This is by far one of the most effectively directed stories of the classic era of Who, brimming with the kind of chills and fears that only horror movies of the time could successfully parallel. Steven Moffat riffed on the concept of an old enemy tomb in his Season Five two-parter The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone to great effect, but we can only truly highlight the story that sparked it, a bold Cyber outing that defines how terrifying the soulless metal army of cyborgs that plagues the Time Lords life can be when put to the best of uses.
1. The Edge Of Destruction
Those of you who have been sticking around to watch Who every week since its premiere the day after Kennedys assassination, bear with me a moment while I explain this rather strange final choice. As someone who started following the show in 2005, watching regularly from the Season One finale onwards and now catching up on many of the classic era stories, I find the First Doctor era a rather bizarre one at times, a period of the shows history whereby its initial writers seemed to be finding their feet in the balance of Doctor Who being an educational show and a science-fiction drama. William Hartnells tales were in my view at their finest when the writers veered into the latter genre, and thats no more apparent than it is in the third ever story, The Edge Of Destruction. Having just escaped the planet of the Daleks, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan rest safe aboard the TARDIS, recuperating before their next adventure. Little do they know, the time machine isnt
quite as safe as its Time Lord drivers might have assumed. Until Amys Choice (well, technically), The Edge was the only ever story in the history of the show that took place completely on the TARDIS, as its crew have their perceptions and minds altered by the bending dimensions of the ship that have been fluctuated as a result of its accidental proximity to the Big Bang. Few writers would attempt to have a single-set episode on the show today-although Russell T Davies Midnight came close- so its incredible to see the budget-advisable feat pulled off with such a psychological horror vibe intact and present here. The Edge Of Destruction represents William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill and William Russell at their absolute finest as the TARDIS crew, capable of leading 50 minutes worth of television solely via their performing merits in much the same way as the cast of Midnight did forty-four years later. It stands testament to the continuing legacy of Doctor Who that it can do in the space of two episodes what American dramas take entire 22-part seasons to achieve, a fact that still resonates in the minds of viewers worldwide to this day as Matt and the Moff continue to drive the programme forward to everywhere and anywhere we can possibly think of- and all the places wed never think of besides.