Doctor Who: The Power Of The Doctor Review - 5 Ups & 7 Downs

The Cybermen and playing second fiddle to the Master/the Daleks - name a more iconic duo. These absolute titans of the Doctor’s rogues gallery are once again sidelined this episode, being forced to share a story with the Master and the Daleks yet again. What a waste.

We also see the return of Ashad - the most interesting thing to come out of the Cybermen in recent years - only for him to be revealed as a mindless clone of the far more dynamic original. He does, however, get a fairly badass action sequence, not something that often happens in Who, which does soften the blow a little.

After Tegan falls for the Master’s not-so-subtle ploy (bringing a Cyber Russian doll into UNIT), it’s up to her and Kate Stewart to thwart the most pathetic invasion attempt of all time. While Kate plays distraction by undergoing a conveniently slow conversion process, Tegan jumps down the lift shaft of a skyscraper, presumably onto an industrial strength trampoline, and emerges in the basement a little bit dusty. She then zaps all the Cybermen by… unplugging an ethernet cable. Now that their wi-fi is down, the Cybermen self-destruct out of pure rage, because we all know the only thing stronger than the power of love is the frustration of broadband issues.

Tegan then collapses the entire building, killing every single UNIT employee except Kate, who takes a brisk jog from the top to the bottom of a skyscraper, just in time to escape.

Yeah. This B-plot really didn’t need to be here. But we’re not done yet, because the C-plot is even more pointless!