Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Ascension Of The Cybermen
8. Why Are There Different Cybermen Designs?
It’s not quite on the level of Steven Moffat’s every Dalek ever, but fans of the Cybermen were treated to a couple of different designs from yesteryear. The new army resemble the Russell T Davies Cybermen from the neck down, but their helmets are more of a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s Cybermen. These were different races of Cybermen, but unlike World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, Chibnall is not interested in telling a new origins story for the silver warriors.
The old-style helmets are for nostalgia only, though they have featured at least twice before since the 2005 revival – once as a museum piece (Dalek) and the second time when Kate Stewart wanted to prove UNIT had thwarted a previous invasion (Death in Heaven).
The Doctor uses her knowledge of past victories to build a number of devices to exploit known weaknesses, including their allergy to gold (Revenge of the Cybermen), but none of them work, raising the stakes even higher than normal. The unpredictability of having the emotion-driven Ashad as their leader gives them the advantage of surprise and tells us that the newly awakened army, however familiar, are going to be quite different.
Ravio says these Cybermen are warrior class, a handy in-universe explanation for their different designs. But that idea was tried with the new paradigm Daleks and never went anywhere, chances are this will end up going the same way even if the design is much more popular with fans.