Silver Nemesis

''Silver Nemesis'' is the third serial of the 25th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 in three weekly parts from 23 November (the 25th anniversary) to 7 December 1988. In New Zealand, all three parts were broadcast on TVNZ on 25 November.

In the serial, the neo-Nazi De Flores ( Anton Diffring), the 17th-century sorceress Lady Peinforte ( Fiona Walker), and the Cybermen fight for control of the Nemesis, a statue containing a living metal which crash-landed near Windsor Castle in 1988.

The serial marks the final appearance of the Cybermen in the original run.

Plot

In the year 1638, the Doctor launched a statue into space, that was created by the Lady Painforte in her likeness. A statue made of a living metal, validium, that was created by Omega and Rassilon as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey. Lady Peinorte is a sorceress, who is in possession of a silver arrow from the statue, and using black magic takes her servant Richard, and travels to the year 1988 in pursuit of the statue when it returns to earth.

In 1988, a Neo-Nazi group lead by a man named De Flores is on a mission to begin the Fourth Reich. They are in possession of a bow from the statue and are monitoring its eventual descent back to Earth from an asteroid the Doctor had trapped it in. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are in England, and survive an assassination attempt by two unknown men. The Doctor determines that Earth is in danger, when he remembers the statue is due to descend there. This asteroid has been approaching Earth at twenty-five yearly intervals ever since, leaving a succession of disasters in its wake, and has now crash-landed near Windsor Castle.

At the crash site through some suspicious power outages, and evidence to support a third party, De Flores arrives with a regime of men at his side. Lady Peinforte watches from a distance armed with gold tipped arrows dipped in poison. When the Doctor and Ace arrive, a ship full of Cybermen show up and the three rival groups start to battle one another. De Flores has only one man by the time the Cybermen are through with them, and as the Doctor seizes the bow, Peinforte fires an arrow which hits the TARDIS and remains there. The Cyber leader takes control of the statue.

The Doctor has Ace take the TARDIS back to 1638 and retrieve a bag of gold coins after discovering a suspicious chess set with an invisible player, and return to 1988 to destroy the Cybermen ship, as Lady Peinforte using the arrow approaches where The Cybermen are in possession of the statue. De Flores makes a deal with the Cyber leader and seizes the arrow from Peinforte. Going back on said deal, the Cyber leader prepares to have De Flores converted to a Cyberman before the Doctor and Ace temporarily unite the statue with the bow, scattering all groups. The "Asteroid" takes off with the statue and the arrow to a nearby hanger, awaiting to be united again.

The Doctor and Ace take the TARDIS to the hanger, where the Doctor unites the statue and gives it instructions to destroy a fleet of Cyber warships that are hiding next to the moon. Using a sling and the gold coins, Ace takes out the Cybermen until only the Cyber leader remains. De Flores and his last man approach the nemesis statue but are killed by the Cyber leader. Peinforte and Richard arrive laying claim to the statue from the Doctor on threat of revealing a secret of his true identity. The Doctor ignores this threat as the Cyber leader does not care about the secret and gives the statue to the Cybermen. The statue wipes out the fleet, but not before Lady Peinforte attempts to seize the statue merging with it herself.

Consequently, the Cyber leader attempts to kill the Doctor only to be killed by Richard using the gold arrow that was recently shot at the TARDIS. The Doctor and Ace then take Richard back to 1638, the foreboding destruction of Earth averted.

Production

The working titles for this story included ''The Harbinger'' and ''Nemesis''. Writer Kevin Clarke, who appears twice in the serial itself playing a tourist at Windsor, discusses the development of the plot on the DVD. He points out that he had seen very little of ''Doctor Who'' and that he met the production team without any idea of what his proposed story would be about. He made up a story on the spot in front of producer John Nathan-Turner that the Doctor is literally God, though this was not realised on-screen. The Cybermen were added later at the request of Nathan-Turner, to tie in with the programme's silver anniversary.

Locations

Permission was refused for filming at Windsor Castle so those scenes were shot at Arundel Castle. According to the DVD commentary, scenes were shot in woodland areas around Arundel Castle, notably the climax of Part Two, when the Doctor and Ace discuss the Cyber-threat while sitting near a fallen tree. The damaged and fallen trees were a result of the Great Storm of 1987 that had caused widespread damage throughout southern England. Scenes at the gas works where The Doctor and Ace meet and combat the Cybermen were filmed on the site that later became the Millennium Dome, now the O₂.

Cast notes

Fiona Walker had appeared in '' The Keys of Marinus'' in 1964 as Kala. Leslie French, who plays the Mathematician, had turned down the role of The Doctor in 1963; thus, his casting was another nod to the series' beginnings in this Silver Anniversary story. Anton Diffring's performance in ''Silver Nemesis'' was his last before his death in 1989. The production team tried to get Prince Edward involved in the show, but his office politely declined in March 1988; the programme instead used an Elizabeth II look-alike. Nicholas Courtney makes a cameo appearance, conversing with other visitors in the queue to tour Windsor Castle.

Broadcast and reception

Part One was transmitted on the 25th anniversary of the first episode of ''Doctor Who''. Parts Two and Three were the second and third respectively of the series ever to be premiered outside of the United Kingdom (the first being " The Five Doctors"), shown on 25 November as part of a compilation broadcast of the story on New Zealand's TVNZ, after Part One had shown in the UK but before the other two were transmitted there.

Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in '' The Discontinuity Guide'' (1995), "A bit of a mess, really. Some passable scenes, but the story lacks pace and character involvement. Its plot is virtually identical to '' Remembrance of the Daleks'' only two stories previously." In 2012, Mark Braxton of ''Radio Times'' said that the story had "a certain comic-strip effervescence" despite many of the plot points not going well together or missing the mark. DVD Talk's Ian Jane gave ''Silver Nemesis'' three out of five stars, describing it as "phoned in" and a remake of ''Remembrance of the Daleks''. However, he felt that the story was still enjoyable due to the chemistry between McCoy and Aldred, as well as the faster pace. '' SFX'' reviewer Ian Berriman said that the story was too ambitious, and criticised the Cybermen. Despite this, he noted that the serial still had "a great concept, ... some cool moments, a couple of enjoyably awful puns and one superb character: nutjob Jacobean villainess Lady Peinforte". Alasdair Wilkins of io9 wrote that it is "not an unmitigated disaster, but it's definitely the worst of classic ''Doctor Who'' creative resurgence in its final two seasons". He also felt that the story packed in too many elements and did not do much with the Cybermen. Den of Geek listed the Cybermen's reaction to jazz as one of the "great things in not-so-great 'Doctor Who''episodes".

Commercial releases

In print

A novelisation of this serial, by Kevin Clarke, was published by Target Books in November 1989.

Home media

On 3 May 1993, an extended version of this three-part serial was released on VHS. Apart from featuring footage not shown in the original broadcast, the video included an hour-long documentary made by New Jersey Network during the production of the adventure and featuring interviews with cast and crew. This documentary was not included on the 2010 DVD release due to rights issues. The broadcast version of this serial only was released on DVD as part of a box set with '' Revenge of the Cybermen'' on 9 August 2010. The documentary eventually got cleared for release as part of the special features for Silver Nemesis on the season 25 Blu-ray Collection in 2024. Alongside other stories in the season, this included extended special editions for each episode with new special effects and some additional footage of cybermats (missing from the original production). A condensed 'ommibus' edition, in the style of televised repeats of earlier serials, was also included.

Extended VHS release (1993)

Special Edition Blu-ray release (2024)

References

External links

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Target novelisation

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On Target — ''Silver Nemesis''

{{Cyberman stories, selected=Television

Seventh Doctor serials
Doctor Who pseudohistorical serials
Doctor Who serials novelised by Kevin Clarke (writer)
Cybermen television stories
Fiction set in 1638
Fiction set in 1988
1988 British television episodes
Doctor Who anniversary specials
Anniversary television episodes
Television episodes set in the 1980s
Television episodes set in London
Television episodes set in England
Television episodes set in the 17th century