Spare Parts

The Doctor and Nyssa arrive on a cold grey world on the edge of a nebula where no planet should be. The people of the planet are dying; an underground city with its technology stalled in the 1950s holds the last of the inhabitants as their rulers make a last desperate effort to save their race. The planet is Mondas. And the people are destined to become the Cybermen.

FANTASTIC. There are not enough words to describe Spare Parts, so fantastic is going to have to do. Every minute of the script is a delight to hear; Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton deliver one of their best performances as the Doctor and Nyssa in this format. The spectre of Adric's death in their last encounter with the Cybermen still hangs over them both; the Doctor knows that Mondas is heading back towards Earth eventually to arrive in 1986, he knows the patterns of history, but Nyssa sees a chance to stop the development of the Cybermen before they can begin their conquest.

Writer Marc Platt takes a look farther back into the past of the Cybermen than any other to date, illustrating the plight of the common people who are slowly dying and being replaced by artificial limbs and organs. The things being done to the people are truly chilling, the fate of Yvonne Hartly being particularly frightening, and the final rise of the CyberPlanner out of the group mind of the Planning Committee a delight to hear. And speaking of hearing, and sounds, the voices of the Cybermen are recreated to match the originals from The Tenth Planet.

More of the audios should be like this: simple plot, incredible performances, and real relevance to the series as a whole.

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