Doctor Who fandom is a funny old place. Like a primitive tribe, it was born in the squalor of fanzines in the 1970’s and saw a particular generation effectively enforce the tribal rules and set the guidelines for what Doctor Who was, even when those guidelines flew right in the face of the reality of the series itself. When this generation started becoming cynical teenagers and disillusioned adults, they turned on the series that they professed to love. The magical, imaginative, inspired and monstrously successful Williams era was silly, and as for the 80s…! Anything that came after this generation’s own personal Golden Age was deemed inferior to their own “era” – generally either Pertwee and/or Hinchcliffe – while any of the absolute howlers in those times (Mutants, Time Monster, Android Invasion, Hand of Fear et al) were quietly overlooked.
The prejudices and often highly questionable tastes laid down in those first years of fandom remain today, lingering on like a bad smell, and while there is no shortage of stories that cry out for a more sensible revisionist attitude to be brought to bear on them, I chose Attack of the Cybermen for one simple reason – it was the first, but certainly not the last, time that I realised that conventional fan wisdom and anything resembling reality were often poles apart.
As a new young fan in the late 80s, Doctors other than number 7 were viewed on VHS, either the slow trickle of official releases or more often the copies recorded for me by a new fan friend. Even at that age I was already aware of a lot of the Official Fan History, in this case that Colin Baker was a crap Doctor who had crap stories. A quarter of a century later this view remains largely entrenched in the fan sphere, and one of the most commonly slated stories of his tenure is Attack of the Cybermen.
No particularly sensible reason has ever been offered for this continual attack (ho, ho) however. Of the few attempts that are offered (beyond the fact that controversial Who fan figure Ian Levine was involved in it, which seems to be the main “real” reason for the disdain it inexplicably attracts) the main objections appear to be violence and continuity. The former is a case of massive hypocrisy, with most of the anti-80s brigade being the type who spontaneously ejaculate over the frequently very violent Hinchcliffe era, while the second certainly makes little sense and holds no water whatsoever. As a young fan upon first seeing Attack, I had never seen nor read The Tenth Planet, Tomb of the Cybermen or even Resurrection of the Daleks, and yet none of the continuity points touched upon in the story were even remotely confusing to me, probably because anything that matters is explained quite satisfactorily within the narrative.
So if most of the criticisms are nonsense (as indeed they are), what is Attack really like then, in terms of the things that really matter; performances, production, script and entertainment value? Funnily enough the answer to all is “top notch”. Attack features some of the greatest guest performances in the series, from Maurice Colbourne’s cool and cold Lytton, Michael Attwell’s unstable Bates, and Brian Glover’s hilariously down-to-Earth Griffiths. Strong actors bringing to life strong characters, who are given some of the most quotable dialogue of any story outside of a Robert Holmes script. Production values are well above par, with the backstreets and sewers of London, as well as the mist-shrouded world of Telos, all realised convincingly and atmospherically. The Cybermen are at their nastiest, Colin Baker is giving a tremendously strong and confident performance in his first “proper” story, and between the great guest actors, dialogue, strong direction and plenty of action, Attack is certainly high in entertainment value.
On first viewing, I was quite taken aback by how good and high quality Attack really was, away from the warped prejudices and even more skewed priorities of the fandom gestalt. Twenty-five years later very little has changed. Fandom still has its sacrificial lambs and scapegoats, irrational and inane though they may be, and Attack of the Cybermen remains unadulterated good Doctor Who.
Written by Ian Kidd