3 out of 5

Directed by: Derek Martinus

Some quality acting from our companions and Robert Beatty as General Cutler, a featured character in ‘Tenth Planet’, as well as the appearance of a now classic baddie – the Cybermen – makes for a pretty quality serial, though by part 3 it obviously starts stalling to make suspense within its very limited setup.  The Tardis lets our crew off on a wintry planet, and a crew emerges from underground to escort them inside.  Woop woop we’re on Earth, but it’s the future – the 80s – and DW has stumbled onto a spaceship monitoring base.  While our visitors are received somewhat grumbly by the General, it turns immediately suspicious when the spaceship being monitored notices a tenth planet in orbit, which appears to be draining their power, and back on Earth, Doc predicts exactly that outcome… including what is to follow: a visit from the Cybermen!  The costumes at this point, with cloth masks with clear eyeholes and tape holding the helmets together, benefit from the lack of clarity of film at the time: they actually look pretty cool, excepting those times the actors move their lips or actions out of sync with their dubbed (or perhaps spoken from off set?) dialogue.  The ‘men explain that they need to siphon power from our planet to rejuvenate their own planet, that tenth one: Mondas.  But hey, we’ll take you back to Mondas and Cybermen-ize you, so don’t worry.  Except obviously this isn’t received too well by everyone, and for the remaining episodes, Doc’s crew and the General butt heads over how to deal with the matter.

Ben and Polly carry over their ready-for-action mentality from the previous serial, and it really helps to energize things.  Beatty’s Cutler is intense, and the build-up to his frenzied solution to the Cybermen problem is well-effected, though his arc ends oddly anticlimactically after taking time to establish his character and role.  ‘Tenth Planet’ also suffers a bit from selective sci-fi, not mentioning much about what effects the very presence of another planet appearing so close might have, and though the Cybermen prove willing to kill, their passivity – and willingness to engage in discussion, initially – removes a note of threat.  And as we’re essentially locked into one or two rooms for the entire serial, these muddled elements make the momentum hit a snag about halfway through.

So you get two notables: the new badguys, and… the first regeneration, in part 4.  These probably classify the serial as a classic, but excusing those, on the whole it’s a good setup that has to wander a bit despite its compact length.