Day 132: The Tenth Planet Episode 2

This episode is of course famous for introducing the Doctor's number two foe, the Cybermen. Created by the writer Gerry Davis and the scientist Kit Pedler, they are monsters with similar concepts to what we have seen before, but presented in a new and profoundly unsettling way. We have seen, particularly with the Robomen in Dalek Invasion of Earth, the idea of humans having their humanity taken away from them, something key to the Cyber-mythos, however it's presentation is different here, because it's willingly done. The inevitability of death, disease and destruction coupled together with the growing rise of technology leads for people to slowly lose their humanity and give into the cold heart of the machine. This is something that's depressingly plausible, and makes these foes different from anything else that's come before. The Daleks succeeded because of their design, while the Cybermen succeed due to their idea, the fundamental horror behind them. Their design accentuates this horror, showing us a human face behind the mask, and human hands, but still there is the machine and the mechanical voice. These creatures are terrifying, as they show us not the inevitability of death, but the inevitability of technology.