20 Cancelled Doctor Who Episodes You Need To Know About

Unlike the Daleks, the Cybermen’s origins have only be explored relatively recently – on audio in the aforementioned Spare Parts and on television in World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls.

However, the notion of a Cybermen origin story was first floated by their co-creator, Gerry Davis, in the early eighties.

Set on Mondas before the events of The Tenth Planet, Davis’ storyline revealed the Doctor to have unwittingly played a part in the Cybermen’s creation, leaving a powerful component behind when the TARDIS is accidentally sent forwards in time.

Upon arriving in the future, he discovers that the planet’s king, Dega, has used this device to turn himself, and his subjects, into Cybermen. The ensuing action would have seen Dega slayed by his wife, Queen Meta, but their chief of staff Krail (one of the Cyberman later encountered by the First Doctor) getting away.

In a final twist we would have seen the moment Mondas was forced out of our solar system – the direct result of rebel spaceships fleeing to Earth.

At the time Genesis of the Cybermen was vetoed pretty much immediately, on the grounds that it was out of step with the show’s current style of storytelling. An audio version was finally released in 2025.