Doctor Who Series 10: 7 Big Questions We're Asking After 'World Enough And Time'

Behind every Cyberman is someone like us. That fact alone gives the Cybermen the potential to be the most horrifying of all the Doctor’s adversaries. Rarely however do we see behind the silver masks unintentionally reducing them to unsympathetic robots.

To be truly horrifying there has to be a sense that a human being is still inside the machine - a theme explored fully in the new series (eg. Yvonne Hartman and Danny Pink). Usually the horror element is reserved for the process of conversion, which is swift and brutal. World Enough and Time at first ups the ante by stretching out the process over several weeks, showing semi-converted humans calling out in pain. But not content to turn them into robots Moffat goes a step further.

It has been an unchallenged piece of Cyberman lore that once the emotional inhibitors have been fitted, Cybermen can no longer feel pain – that being the point of conversion. But Moffat adds a chilling twist with the idea that the pain never goes away. These early Mondasian Cybermen have not perfected the technology. In place of an emotional inhibitor in the chest plate, the handles regulate how that pain is managed and perceived. The fully converted no longer have suicidal thoughts and are instead prepared to live with their pain.

On the plus side this gives us hope that Bill Potts can be saved, but disturbingly her tear reveals something of the torment inside. Later Cybermen may have found an effective way of switching off the pain receptors but the Mondasians are walking nightmares.