On 'Nightmare'.

Subject: On 'Nightmare'.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-06-30 11:14:00 UTC

To my mind, the problem with 'Nightmare' was that the Cybermen weren't 'Mary Sue' enough. Think about it - they're robots. This particular version may or may not contain a human brain (I forget if it came up), but in essence, they're robots.

Why can we even see them move? They're made of metal and electronics - they think at the speed of light - they should be undetectable until you're already dead! We actually have a Cyberman moving ultra-fast in 'Nightmare', and it's just as lethally effective as it ought to be. So why, why, why do we revert to the Napoleonic War era tactic of marching in straight lines? Even the title suggests that we'll be seeing Cybermen slipping through the shadows like ghosts - something out of a nightmare. In this interview, Neil Gaiman actually says the idea of silent movement is what always scared him about them in the old days. So... why ain't they doing it?

And then there's the Cyber-Planner. I really liked the Matt-on-Matt acting extravaganza. My problem with this scene is that the Doctor's plan, uh, shouldn't have worked. Not with chess, and not without more setup. A Cyberman could literally work out every single move left in the game - telling it 'I know something you don't know' just... couldn't work. Play a different game - quantum chess, so there's always the million-to-one 'uncertainty' rule... and even after it's ruled that out, there's the billion-to-one chance, and it just keeps planning deeper into the maze? - absolutely. Throw in some technobabble about the Cyber-planner being corrupted or something, yes. But as it stood? No.

I think 'Nightmare' could have been a really scary episode, setting up the Cybermen as... anti-Weeping Angels. Angels are fast but freeze when you look at them; Cybermen are/could be so fast you can't look at them. Cyber-ghosts, if you will. One of them can take out an entire building. Throw in locked doors and basements, and you have a horror movie. Throw in some technobabble that lets humans accelerate to Cyberspeed for, say, a second at a time - then knocks them out for half an hour - and you have a Doctor Who story. Add the constant threat of cybermites taking over members of your team - it's a good thing they leave external hardware! - and the fact that the Doctor has a) been compromised, and b) claims that he can not only beat his own infection but also the Cyber-ghost running around murdering the army - and oh, by the way, also the three million Cyber-ghosts that have just woken up, half a world away but that's only half an hour's travel time - ... and you have a story worthy of the title Nightmare in Silver.

And I wonder whether the script used to be more like this, but was turned down a notch because of similarities to Hide. Hrm.

hS

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Doctor Who news update: Series 8 on Aug. 23 by SeaTurtle on 2014-06-29 06:58:00 UTC Reply

With a rehashed shot of the first trailer, with a bit more sound and video this time.

All aboard the hype train!

*train whistle* (nm) by eatpraylove on 2014-06-29 22:47:00 UTC Reply
Hrm. by Desdendelle on 2014-06-29 07:40:00 UTC Reply

My brother told me Moffat would be writing both this series and series 9. Is it true?

Confirmed. by SeaTurtle on 2014-06-29 08:01:00 UTC Reply

Source.

On the other hand, I remember Moffat once saying that he wanted to step down from Doctor Who so that he can work on Sherlock with Gatiss. We might see him leave after series 9.

Ick (spoilers for "Nightmare in Silver"). by Desdendelle on 2014-06-29 17:33:00 UTC Reply

I'm sad to say that Moffat being showrunner (together with the Mary Sue-race!Cybermen and DEM from "Nightmare in Silver") practically scared me away from DW. Especially sad since "Blink" is the best episode of DW I've ever seen.

On 'Nightmare'. by Huinesoron on 2014-06-30 11:14:00 UTC Reply

To my mind, the problem with 'Nightmare' was that the Cybermen weren't 'Mary Sue' enough. Think about it - they're robots. This particular version may or may not contain a human brain (I forget if it came up), but in essence, they're robots.

Why can we even see them move? They're made of metal and electronics - they think at the speed of light - they should be undetectable until you're already dead! We actually have a Cyberman moving ultra-fast in 'Nightmare', and it's just as lethally effective as it ought to be. So why, why, why do we revert to the Napoleonic War era tactic of marching in straight lines? Even the title suggests that we'll be seeing Cybermen slipping through the shadows like ghosts - something out of a nightmare. In this interview, Neil Gaiman actually says the idea of silent movement is what always scared him about them in the old days. So... why ain't they doing it?

And then there's the Cyber-Planner. I really liked the Matt-on-Matt acting extravaganza. My problem with this scene is that the Doctor's plan, uh, shouldn't have worked. Not with chess, and not without more setup. A Cyberman could literally work out every single move left in the game - telling it 'I know something you don't know' just... couldn't work. Play a different game - quantum chess, so there's always the million-to-one 'uncertainty' rule... and even after it's ruled that out, there's the billion-to-one chance, and it just keeps planning deeper into the maze? - absolutely. Throw in some technobabble about the Cyber-planner being corrupted or something, yes. But as it stood? No.

I think 'Nightmare' could have been a really scary episode, setting up the Cybermen as... anti-Weeping Angels. Angels are fast but freeze when you look at them; Cybermen are/could be so fast you can't look at them. Cyber-ghosts, if you will. One of them can take out an entire building. Throw in locked doors and basements, and you have a horror movie. Throw in some technobabble that lets humans accelerate to Cyberspeed for, say, a second at a time - then knocks them out for half an hour - and you have a Doctor Who story. Add the constant threat of cybermites taking over members of your team - it's a good thing they leave external hardware! - and the fact that the Doctor has a) been compromised, and b) claims that he can not only beat his own infection but also the Cyber-ghost running around murdering the army - and oh, by the way, also the three million Cyber-ghosts that have just woken up, half a world away but that's only half an hour's travel time - ... and you have a story worthy of the title Nightmare in Silver.

And I wonder whether the script used to be more like this, but was turned down a notch because of similarities to Hide. Hrm.

hS

Not quite. by Desdendelle on 2014-06-30 16:28:00 UTC Reply

My problem with NiS' Cybermen is their "upgrading" schtick. OK, so those guys are tough, that's fine; weak villains are usually less interesting. So you can only beat those guys in a certain way - also fine, though a bit cliché. The problem is that they can No Sell everything you throw at them, and the only way to get rid of them is to nuke the planet from orbit. That's OK in the grimderpness of WH40K, but not in the Whoniverse. The Whoniverse isn't grimderp.

Not... quite sure what all your words mean. by Huinesoron on 2014-06-30 16:57:00 UTC Reply

'No Sell'? But I get the picture. I'm not sure what the 'certain way' in question was - TARDIS Wiki talks about some sort of pulse device, I guess it's that?

But no, I have no problem with 'they can upgrade to account for everything you do'. Not 'become immune to', naturally - but if you're rolling boulders down on them, they should be able to upgrade thick body armour, possibly tripod-style supports. Phobos' idea of total physical restructuring is the key to that version - and given that we have the cybermites and detatchable hands, it's absolutely not out of the question.

But a change introduces new weaknesses. So now they're immune to boulders - but to get the mass, they've had to merge several Cybermen into a single unit, and they're also ridiculously heavy. Got a gravity globe you can shoot, like in Flesh and Stone? That's an escape route for you, since there's no way a Cybertank can make the 'jump and catch the reverse gravity'. Or, with a little technobabble, maybe you focus the reversal on the single-unit tank, which can't hold on against the pull - so then they separate, and you go back to the boulders.

The problem with the nuclear strike, to my mind, isn't that it was dark (er, 'grimderp', apparently?); Doctor Who has never shied away from megadeaths for any stretch. No, the problem is that it wasn't clever. It's like Macgyver's gun; we signed up to watch the Doctor come up with a clever plan to fix things, not to watch him resort to brute force.

As I've said elsewhen: both RTD and Moffat have a tendency to have someone else provide the solution at the end of the episode (whether it's a true deus ex machina depends on the story). The difference is that RTD drove the Doctor into situations he couldn't fix; Moffat sets him problems he can't fix without dying, or without massively compromising his principles (The Beast Below). And the nice - and slightly scary - thing about Eleven is that he almost always chose to save the world (or whatever) anyway.

(Random Example, for if my explanation broke down somewhere in there: The Parting of the Ways sits the Doctor in front of a Dalek invasion of Earth. He is unable to do anything except send Rose home; she then shows up out of nowhere and saves him. Nightmare in Silver sits the Doctor between the Cybermen and the universe, and gives him a nuclear bomb - which he is willing to use, despite the fact that he's sitting pretty at Ground Zero. I'm not saying the difference is universal, but it's a definite theme)

hS

Well... by Desdendelle on 2014-06-30 17:23:00 UTC Reply

No Sell is what Superman does to bullets. Anyway, yes, it was that pulse device gizmo.
My problem is, the new upgrades didn't introduce any weaknesses; if, say, the heroes used electrified water to slow the Cybermen down... "Up-grade-ing" and suddenly it doesn't work, and they don't get, Iunno, a 'weakness' to fire like rubber has. If it'd have worked the way you've described here, it'd have been fine, since it's not being invulnerable, it's being adaptable. Problem is, it doesn't.
As to the difference between RTD and Moffat... well...
-counts on his fingers-
The only annoying DEM I remember from RTD's time as showrunner is, well, Jesus Doctor. And it's not even close to 'herp, derp, let's destroy the whole planet to get rid of those guys'.

You know the main thing I thought during that episode? by Cyba Zero on 2014-07-01 09:37:00 UTC Reply

Apart from the entire chess thing being absolutely terrible, as soon as the Cybermen started upgrading, I immediately thought of a certain other cyborg race that likes to do that...

Seriously, I would love to see NiS Cybermen versus the Borg in an upgrade/adapt-off against each other. Oh, and nanites *would* beat cybermites flat.

The trouble with Moffat is that the Cybermen have so much fun potential... and he just wastes it.

I agree with you by Phobos on 2014-06-30 16:28:00 UTC Reply

I only just saw that episode this week, so it is really fresh in my mind. I would love the Cyber-horror angle.

Let me take this a different direction, though. With all the upgrading they do, why are they still limited by the human form?

"Can Cybermen fly?" No? Why not? Upgrade to some wings! Is there a thick door in your way? Upgrade to a tank made from multiple Cybermen. What about a wall? Upgrade to Cyber!Spiderman. The whole point of Cybermen is that they can think around corners and upgrade to overcome any obstacle. I want to see them actually do that.

It goes back to your point about Napoleonic war tactics. The Cybermen never really change in the show, but they should.

-Phobos

I have a plan... by Huinesoron on 2014-06-30 16:42:00 UTC Reply

... for a story that does pretty much exactly that, but with Daleks. We've seen enough Dalek variants over the years (Special Weapons being the one that springs to mind) that it could work. I'd set it in the Dalek Dark Archive - the place they keep all the prototypes they aren't yet desperate enough to use. ;) So the characters (it's actually the Alchemist and one of his companions) could face the flying Dalek Swarm - a collection of centrally controlled Dalek Drones - a spike-covered Dalek Maiden (as in Iron) - a radioactive and incandescent Dalek Furnace... all manner of things. All in a dark and maze-like factory.

Uh, back to Cybermen. Since their very first appearance, they've been claiming to be super-smart and emotionless. Except... they never are. All their plans consist of '(sneak around and then) frontal attack'. It's not like the Daleks, who occasionally actually have brilliant plans (even if the Doctor then beats them); I can't come up with a single well-thought-out Cyberman scheme. Even their sneaky plans (The Next Doctor are just schemes to get big enough weapons to hit everything until it breaks.

hS

I'd read that by Phobos on 2014-06-30 17:16:00 UTC Reply

The Dalek thing, that is. Sounds fun.

On the Cybermen, part of the problem is that they have a quick and easy shortcut for writers. Just press upgrade to make them more powerful. Done. You don't need to think if you are writing them.

However, if you do think when you are writing them, you could have a really dangerous villain, that lives up to its hype.

The Daleks have interesting plans because they don't have that kind of shortcut. They don't really change because they think they are perfect beings. The only thing they can do is plan better. Asylum of the Daleks was, I think, a good example of that. How do we, the Daleks, take down the most beautiful of our kind to solve our problem? Send in our greatest foe, let him do it, and then nuke him from orbit. It is a brilliant plan, because it needs to be a brilliant plan. There is no other way.

-Phobos