Who Review: Ascension of the Cybermen

Following the mad scribbled coordinates Shelley provided (under the influence of Cyberium) from the last episode, the Doctor and friends end up on at a remote outpost where the last remaining humans are hiding out, trying to survive. The Doctor sets up equipment to help this handful of humanity ward off incoming Cybermen only to have their plans foiled by Cyberdrones that destroy the Doctor’s tech and kill a couple of the humans. Angry with herself for putting her human companions in danger, she orders them to escape with the survivors in their salvaged ship. Meanwhile, she faces down the incomplete Lone Cyberman from the last episode who has come to finish the war. But this time he’s not alone. And somewhere in space is a ship full of Cybermen waiting for the call…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those who haven’t seen the episode. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

This is part one of this season’s two-part finale, which means it is supposed to set us up for the final episode. And it does this well. There’s not a lot to the basic plot. Essentially, the TARDIS team and the last humans are trying to escape the Cybermen and reach Ko Sharmus. They have been told there is a barrier there they can cross to safety. Meanwhile, the Lone Cyberman is giving them chase, determined to track them down and destroy them all. And while this is a basic cat-and-mouse story, it is engaging, if for no other reason than the fact we know it is all building up to the finale.

Once again we see The Doctor taking command and ordering her friends to leave. It has taken her two seasons to realize that, as much as she wants to be just one of the crew, she isn’t. She’s not human, and she is clearly the leader. This was good to see last week, and it’s good to see again here, if a long time coming.

But who is this Lone Cyberman? In their little holographic tête-à-tête , he reveals to the Doctor that he had been rejected. But now he has come back at the point of their defeat to raise the Cybermen from the ashes. (As a sidebar, I really didn’t like this scene. Why would the Cyberman tell the Doctor his backstory? It makes no sense, other than the fact Chibnall has a penchant for info-dumping, and can’t seem to weave this information into the plot any other way.) Is that all there is to him? What of the prophecy of the Timeless Child? Is that who the Cyberman is?

And what about Brandon?

The episode starts in rural Ireland. We aren’t given a date, but it looks to be the early part of the twentieth century. A man finds a baby in a basket in the middle of the road and takes it home. When no-one steps up to claim the child, the man and his wife are given legal custody. They call him Brandon and he grows up to eventually join the police force, “to make a difference.” All this seems sweet and innocuous and irrelevant to the rest of the episode… until Brandon is shot in the line of duty and falls off a cliff. He should be dead, but instead he gets up as if nothing happened. Then, upon his retirement, Brandon’s adopted father and the police chief who hired him meet him at the police station door. Neither have aged since Brandon was a baby. They lead Brandon to a back room where they cuff him to a chair and do something to him that he will not remember, saying something about starting over. Is Brandon the Timeless Child? Or is he the Last Cyberman? Or both? Or neither?

I have to say, this is all good stuff. What’s more, with all these threads, threats, and chases going on, there’s less time for the Doctor to woke-preach at us, which is a very good thing. In fact, the wokiest thing about this episode is possibly the fact that the last surviving humans are all non-military and non-government. And yet, despite this, they know how to fly a ship and they’re prepared to fight. With weapons. And for some reason, they’re all British. How did that happen??

So it turns out Ko Sharmus is a person. At the end of the episode, the Doctor, Ryan, and one of the survivors, Ethan, find Ko Sharmus and the barrier. Graham, Yaz, and the other survivors are on their way–along with hundreds, if not thousands, of awakened Cybermen. When the Doctor approaches the barrier it reveals Gallifrey. Gasp! And it’s Gallifrey in ruins. Is this where all the people are going? And then, of course, the Master jumps through the barrier. Everything is about to change for the Doctor… forever! Or so he says.

That’s the set-up for the finale. We have lots of questions, though I have to say, while the Timeless Child thing is intriguing, I’m anxiously awaiting a resolution to the Ruby mystery. Remember Ruby? She’s the regeneration of the Doctor we met in “Fugitive of the Judoon”–the regeneration the Doctor doesn’t recognize. Is she somehow a part of the things that are going to change forever for the Doctor? Does the Master’s taunt of “everything you knew was a lie” include Ruby?

And how come there was oxygen in the Cyber ships that the humans stole? After all, why would Cybermen need life support systems? Sorry–I know that was a non sequitur, but it bothered me. 🙂

Summing up, I think this was a good episode. Since it’s only the first part of the story, however, I’ll reserve final judgment until next time. A lot could go south. They could RetCon* the Doctor’s past to make it more woke. They could make the entire episode a political sermon, or they could forget about plot altogether and make it a rambling mess–both of these have happened already this season.

One thing I do know for certain: the finale will need to be CLASSIC if I am to be convinced Doctor Who should return for a Season 13. We shall see…

Did you see “Ascension of the Cybermen”? Share your thoughts in the comments…

* For those who don’t know, the term “RetCon” is short for “Retroactive Continuity.” It refers to later parts of a series changing or contradicting fundamental facts that were established in previous parts of that series. For example, if it turns out Ruby was part of the Doctor’s real past, and the previous 12 Doctors never actually happened.