9. Roger Lloyd-Pack (John Lumic, Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel)
I expect one of my new series choices might anger or provoke disagreement amongst some readers. But not this one, I imagine. "There can be only one". It's from another sci-fi property, but it clearly applies here: Doctor Who already had a brilliant madman in a wheelchair who created bio-machine abominations with takeover by any means necesssary in mind. That's Davros, and he created the Daleks. At the point where the Cybermen were being retooled to a parallel universe with a rather familiar sounding originator, some alarm bells MUST have gone off.... Or, perhaps it was just down to casting the right person. Unfortunately, they didn't. Roger Lloyd-Pack reportedly modelled his performance on Donald Rumsfeld. I'd be interested to see what film footage he saw where Rumsfeld declaims and bellows as though he's only ever seen community theater performances of "King Lear". John Lumic is supposed to be a broken, dying man who is barely supported by machines keeping his being alive. A TV performance is made for this sort of thing, subtle facial tics and a haunting whisper could've made this role terrifying. His mind is clearly both functional and quite wicked, but his body is a frail thing - An evil Stephen Hawking, if you will. Hawking himself could've put a better performance in, and probably gotten the emotions right even WITH his speech limitations. Lloyd-Pack's Lumic bellows as though he needs the back of an imaginary theatre to hear him (Those lungs and respiratory muscles clearly are better off than they seem). There is nothing subtle in his performance; That the President of the UK (or anyone, for that matter) couldn't figure out this man was basically signposting doing evil and unethical things based on his bellowing, adamant statements almost backs up their conversions to Cybermen - It's not like they had any understanding of emotional expression in the first place.
(Less than) Shining Moment:
Lloyd-Pack falls to his death as the converted Cyberleader, and clearly chose to study for THIS moment by watching Star Wars Episode III. The man isn't even ON SCREEN, and talking through a ring-modulator, and he STILL can't do anything without being overblown and ridiculous. This is one of my least favourite Cybermen stories, and Lloyd-Pack's a big part of that.
In a parallel universe where game shows' final jackpots and consequent fortunes depend on knowledge of obscure music trivia and Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes, I've probably gone rich, insane, and am now a powermad despot. But happily we're not there, so I'm actually rather pleasant. Really.
