The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Oh! Oh! Oh! New Doctor Who merch!!! Okay, give me a second to calm down, you know how excitable my fanboy senses get around this sort of thing. The latest new Doctor Who goodies to go up on the site are some collectable mini-busts, which include both Eccleston and Tennant Doctors, Rose and the new Cybermen from the recent episodes. And just to make this even more enticing we’re offering 38% off the prices – take that intergalactic forces of evil!

Talking of which, how enjoyable were those two Cybermen episodes? The parallel London with airships and alternative technology made me think of Moorcock (never a bad thing) while the Cybermen were far more convincing on the show than the new design looked in still photographs. The blank faces with the classic ‘teardrop’ eyes and the narrower, more skull-like jaw design were terrific and the constant use of synchronised phalanxes of marching Cybermen lent them a remorseless, intimidating air which they had been lacking in latter years of the old show (where they went from almost unstoppable to easy to kill with a handgun, the same way Voyager degraded the Borg from uber-menace to stupid nasties who would always be fooled by Janeway’s tricks again and again – someone should give them a copy of the Odyssey to read). Adding in a scene where a character who had been ‘upgraded’ and is now a Cyberman recognises a still-human family member – the horror when they realise that the now emotionless brain of their loved one is in this cybernetic metal skin was one to make you squirm.