Day 574: Earthshock Part 3

Somehow evading me mentioning this fact for the past couple of episodes, this story features the return of the Cybermen. They've changed a fair bit since we last saw them, but in a way, they haven't really changed at all. These Cybermen are just a little bit more threatening than we remember, marching through darkness to kill all that comes in their way. Their emotionless, robotic faces add to this feeling of threat, giving an impression of something that will kill without any sort of remorse. An example of this is in this episode, where the Cybermen's spy on the ship is immediately killed by them as he gave them some incorrect information. It doesn't matter that he didn't know the correct information, instead all that matters is that he inadvertently lied to them and he should pay the price for his actions.

But all of this should feel familiar. The Cybermen always worked best in darkness, skulking through the shadows, like in The Moonbase. Their dependence on logic is strong, as explored in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and there are certain aspects of the other Cybermen adventures taht get brought up again here. But they've never really been brought up in such a way that makes them relentlessly menacing, essentially reviving the Cybermen to fight the Doctor and send audiences scurrying behind the sofa.