10. Roger Lloyd Pack - Rise Of The Cybermen
"And how will you do that- FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE?!?!?" Some actors are born hammy. Some achieve hamminess. Others have ham thrust upon them. Roger Lloyd Pack falls into the latter category. His performance as John Lumic, creator of the Cybermen, had a lot riding on it. Unlike the Daleks, the handlebar headed cyborgs had to wait till the new series for a properly fleshed out origin story. Compare to Genesis of the Daleks, though, and it seems much less consequential than it should. The blame for this falls in Lloyd Pack's wheelchair-bound lap. One of the reasons his performance doesn't work is not really his fault- he'll forever be known as the oafish Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, and it's a struggle to reconcile his maniacal plot to upgrade humanity with his inability to remember Rodney's first name ("How you going Dave?") Therein lies another problem. Lloyd Pack excelled as Trigger because the character was chronically morose- poker of face and mono of tone. He's better at underplaying, but here, he's trying to overplay- and he can't quite manage it. He delivers his dialogue in a strange, trembling staccato, possibly meant to signify insanity, though it sounds more like somebody fumbling for their next line. He makes his eyes bulge a lot too, which is a cool trick but also the sort of thing you would do if you were playing a baddie. And you're not a pro. Up against the unforced charm of David Tennant and Billie Piper, Lloyd Pack is a throwback to the very big style of acting that guest artistes in the classic series often gave- as we'll see. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense that the creator of the Cybermen would be a mad 'un, since they're supposed to be devoid of emotion. Now Trigger- he could've been a great CyberController.
Most OTT Moment: The above quote, from the pre-title sequence. Rog starts as he means to go on- loud and stupid.