Revenge of the Cybermen vs Silver Nemesis

[Deleted]

Two of the least popular Cybermen stories of the classic era.


I've warmed to Revenge, but by all accounts it isn't very good. It just feels so stale and tired and the design is tacky too. Nemesis however is generally quite a lot of fun despite the obvious faults. I know it's a remake of Remembrance, but it has nice locations (the countryside, Windsor Castle) and more action. At three parts long it goes by very quickly and there's a lot of fun stuff involving the mystery of the Doctor and Ace being a total badass. I know people don't rate it on here, but I think it's an enjoyable Cyber adventure. Nemesis gets my vote then.

[Monster X]

Oct 19, 2021 14:03:34 GMT @gusgorman83 said:

Two of the least popular Cybermen stories of the classic era.


I've warmed to Revenge, but by all accounts it isn't very good. It just feels so stale and tired and the design is tacky too. Nemesis however is generally quite a lot of fun despite the obvious faults. I know it's a remake of Remembrance, but it has nice locations (the countryside, Windsor Castle) and more action. At three parts long it goes by very quickly and there's a lot of fun stuff involving the mystery of the Doctor and Ace being a total badass. I know people don't rate it on here, but I think it's an enjoyable Cyber adventure. Nemesis gets my vote then.

It's not usual for me to prefer something from the '80s over something over the '70s, but in this case I'll make an exception - Silver Nemesis is the more enjoyable serial.  I haven't watched Revenge Of The Cybermen for donkey's years, but I don't remember being particularly impressed with it, despite it coming from one of my favourite eras of the show and featuring my fave Doctor.   I certainly loved it as a kid though, and it's always great to see David Collings (Vorus) in Who (maybe I need to rewatch Revenge).   
However, I like an awful lot about Silver Nemesis - Lady Peinforte and Richard, the Jazz music, the skin-heads, Anton Diffring's Wagner-loving character - plus  this was the first McCoy story I ever watched, so its kind of special to me. 

[burrunjor]

Well I'm going to go against the grain and say Revenge for the following reasons.

The Cybermen are more impressive: Despite their stupid flair trousers, two Cybermen in this story are at least shown to mow down hundreds of guys in a few seconds. Also their weakness to gold isn't actually as ridiculous as people make out. I like the fact that they choke on it, as it reminds you that they are still part organic, rather than just robots. Also you have to actually ram gold dust into their chest units. It's not as though you can just touch them with gold and they blow up. The Doctor actually fails to kill them with gold dust because he doesn't get enough dust in there, whilst even the Vogans due to their primitive state are unable to build weapons that can make use of the gold in an effective way. The Cybermen are also shown to have weapons that can blow up a planet,  for the first time we see them attacking other life forms besides humans, and it took an entire alliance from the galaxy to wipe them out. Granted the name they gave the gun, "the glitter gun" is unfortunate LOL, but that aside and the campiness of the Cyber leader, the Cybermen are at least shown to be powerful. 

In Silver Nemesis meanwhile good god are they lame! Gold coins fired by a slingshot are enough to make them blow up. FFS give Bart Simpson a bag of gold rocks and he could wipe them out! They also don't bother to attack a mad old lady at one point out of fear that she could kill them with her arrows. They are also hilariously stupid, like the Cybermen Ace trick into shooting each other, the Cybermen the Doctor burns to death, and the Cyber Leader who for some reason accepts that the Doctor is now going to give him everything? He doesn't even have to trick the Cyber leader like he did Davros LOL. 

Both stories meanwhile suffer from making the Cybermen too over emotional, and writing them as generic robo killers rather than monsters who convert humans, but at least Revenge made them a bit more powerful. 

Silver Nemesis is more unoriginal: It's just a lazy retread of the vastly superior Remembrance of the Daleks. Lets see warring factions want an old time lord weapon that the Doctor has stashed somewhere, he tricks one of them into blowing themselves up when they think they have it, one of the Doctors old enemies works with Nazis in the modern day who they eventually betray, Ace gets a kick ass scene where she beats up a couple of them, etc, except it's all done much more poorly. (It's made even worse by the fact that the Dalek adventure was in that same season!)

Revenge meanwhile, whilst not the most nuanced story, at least tries to do something new. The Vogans are a decent enough concept, the idea of Cybermen fighting aliens, the space plague, etc are all at least decent ideas even if they aren't as well realised as they could be. 

The only way that Silver Nemesis is better than Revenge is that it's better made. The Cybermen vs Nazis fight is quite cool, the Nemesis statue looks creepy and the Cyber costumes themselves are better. Still overall Silver Nemesis is about as low as it gets for the Cybermen in the Classic era.

[Deleted]

To be fair, they're scared of the arrows because the head is made of gold, which is their weakness. Had they lost more troops from Peinforte's arrows their plan would have failed and caused the Cyber race to become extinct.

[iank]

SN is the weakest of 25, but it's still better than Revenge.

[burrunjor]

Oct 20, 2021 10:41:53 GMT @gusgorman83 said:

To be fair, they're scared of the arrows because the head is made of gold, which is their weakness. Had they lost more troops from Peinforte's arrows their plan would have failed and caused the Cyber race to become extinct.

Kind of my point though. 

A/ Gold arrows shouldn't do anything. In Revenge it's gold dust that when sprinkled into their chest units clogs them up that kills them. Hence why the Doctor isn't able to kill one when throws gold dust at it, because he doesn't get it straight into its chest unit, or doesn't get enough in. Hence why the Vogans who have a planet of gold can't fight the Cybermen. The Vogans have been reduced to primitives, and don't have the tech to build weapons that can fire waves of gold dust into their chests. (Like the unfortunately named glitter gun LOL.) As a result the mountains of gold beside them are completely useless and the Cybermen thrash them.

That was a fine weakness to give the Cybermen, but in Silver Nemesis it's turned into an insane allergy. Now gold simply touching their chest units blows them up, as seen with Ace a teenager firing a gold coin via a sling shot into them and killing about seven of them! With this in mind Mr T could wipe out the Cyber race just by running through them. 

B/ Even if she has weapons that can kill them, the Cybermen shouldn't be such pussies as to be scared of losing a few men. They have an entire space fleet of warships manning the planet. Are we expected to believe an army that big couldn't take down one made lady and her short supply of arrows? Again at least Revenge has two Cybermen mow their way through hundreds of guys on a planet made of gold. 

[Deleted]

The only problem I have with Nemesis is the fact that everyone is dressed for summer even it's supposed to be set in November. At least characters in Remembrance wears coats and scarfs. It's a minor issue to be honest. You could criticise Remembrance for having a scene set at 5:15pm and it being broad daylight outside but it would be nit-picking.

[billpatjontom]

Nemesis does have a certain charm for sure but I definitely prefer Revenge. Both stories do have flaws but Revenge is elevated I think by the superior team of Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter. If possible though, I'd only recommend watching this story nowadays via the blu ray version with the enhanced special effects.