One of the most iconic monsters in Doctor Who are the terrifying Cybermen. Emotionless cyborgs who were once people until they lost all of their humanity and most of their organic components were replaced with metal and steel. The Cybermen have faced the Doctor many times during his travels through time and space. The Cybermen are an allegory for communism (they want everyone to be the same as them) in the same way that the Daleks are an allegory for fascism. Doctor Who has turned me into a communist. ☭ Communism will win! The Cybermen are often cited as the second most popular monster in the show after the Daleks. Although personally, as a kid I always thought that the Cybermen were more scary than the Daleks because they used to be human. Consequently, these metallic monsters have appeared many times throughout Doctor Who‘s history. The Daleks and the Cybermen are the most iconic Doctor Who monsters!

The Tenth Planet

★★★★★

TX: 08–29/10/1966

Written by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis    Directed by Derek Martinus

The TARDIS lands in Antartica in 1986 and the First Doctor, Ben and Polly find a Snowcap Base. The base has spotted via telescope that Earth’s twin planet, Mondas has drifted into Earth’s solar system and is heading towards Earth. A spaceship from Mondas lands near to the Snowcap base and the alien intruders reveal themselves to be Cybermen. The Cybermen used to be people like humans until they replaced their flesh and organic matter with metal and steel. They became terrifying, emotionless cyborgs. Worse still is that they want to take the humans back to Mondas to be turned into Cybermen too. Meanwhile, Mondas is draining energy from Earth in order to sustain itself. However, the Doctor deduces that Mondas will absorb too much energy from Earth, which ultimately happens – causing Mondas to disintegrate. The Cybermen die as the energy they relied on from Mondas is lost with the planet. The Doctor, weary from this adventure, stumbles back to the safety of the TARDIS (followed by Ben and Polly) where he regenerates.

The Moonbase

★★★☆☆

TX: 11/02/1967 – 04/03/1967

Written by Kit Pedler    Directed by Morris Barry

The TARDIS lands on Earth’s Moon in 2070 and the Second Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie discover a nearby moonbase. The moonbase operates a Gravitron which controls Earth’s weather. However, a group of Cybermen have infiltrated the moonbase by poisoning the humans’ sugar supply. The Cybermen intend to use the Gravitron to disrupt Earth’s weather and destroy life on Earth. Polly creates a ‘Polly Cocktail’, a mixture of gold with other liquids which is lethal to Cybermen because of their allergy to gold. This enables the Doctor, Ben, Polly, Jamie and the humans on the moonbase to repel the Cybermen. The Doctor uses the moonbase’s Gravitron to blow the remaining Cybermen off the face the of Moon. The time travellers depart in the TARDIS, satisfied that Earth’s weather is once again safe in the hands of the moonbase staff.

The Tomb of the Cybermen

★★★★★

TX: 2-23/9/1967

Written by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis    Directed by Morris Barry

A human expedition to the planet Telos uncovers the lost tombs of the Cybermen. The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria join the explorers and archaeologists as they journey inside the terrifying tombs. The Cybermen have remained in hibernation for centuries. However, a rogue group of Logicians reawaken the Cybermen in order to exploit them to gain power. The Cyber Controller reveals that the Cybermen planted traps inside the tomb so that one day intruders would eventually reawaken them. The Cybermen begin converting members of the expedition into Cybermen. They also use their pet Cybermats to attack members of the team. The Doctor and Jamie narrowly avoid being killed by the Cyber Controller before they escape through the tomb entrance to Victoria and the other survivors. The electrified doors to the Cybermen’s tombs are sealed permanently by Toberman, who sacrifices himself to protect the others and to destroy the Cyber Controller. The Doctor, Jamie, Victoria and the others leave without noticing an escaped Cybermat…

The Wheel in Space

★★☆☆☆

TX: 27/04/1968 – 01/06/1968

Written by David Whitaker, from a story by Kit Pedler    Directed by Tristan de Vere Cole

A gigantic space station called the Wheel hangs in space in the late 21st Century. Onboard, a computer genius called Zoe Heriot meets the Second Doctor and Jamie, who were rescued from a nearby spaceship, the Silver Carrier. The pair arrived on the spaceship in the TARDIS before being attacked by a servo robot. The Silver Carrier discharges Cybermats, which also travel to and enter the station. The Cybermats infest the station in order to prepare for a full scale invasion of the Wheel by the Cybermen, who intend to use its direct radio link with Earth as a beacon for their invasion fleet. The Doctor sends Jamie and Zoe Heriot over to the Silver Carrier to fetch the TARDIS’ vector generator rod. Meanwhile, the Doctor frees the Wheel’s crew from the Cybermen’s hypnotic control. He aims to destroy all the Cybermen on the station. When Jamie and Zoe return, the Doctor installs the rod in the station’s X-ray laser, making it powerful enough to destroy the Cyber-fleet. An approaching force of space-walking Cybermen is also obliterated. Zoe decides that she wants to join the Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS, but the Doctor warns her that they will face many other deadly dangers.

The Invasion

★★★★★

TX: 2/11/1968 – 21/12/1968

Written by Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler    Directed by Douglas Camfield

The TARDIS reforms after the events of The Mind Robber and the TARDIS crew narrowly avoid being hit by a missile fired at them from the dark side of the Moon. The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe materialise on Earth where they find that the company International Electromatics (later seen again on a parallel world in Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel) supply all electrical devices. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe meet photographer Isabelle, the daughter of Professor Watkins. The group try to infiltrate International Electromatics, where they meet the CEO Tobias Vaughn, who is secretly in league with the Cybermen. Vaughn (who is later also reimagined as John Lumic in Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel) has become partly Cybernetic and he and other scientists are helping the Cybermen to prepare for an invasion of Earth. Cybermen are wandering the sewers of London and the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce have to fight them. The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (U.N.I.T) is a military organisation headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart whom the Doctor and Jamie previously met (as Colonel) in The Web of Fear, and is tasked with defending the Earth from extraterrestrial threats. U.N.I.T rescue Jamie, Zoe and Isabelle from the Cybermen in the sewers of London. But back at U.N.I.T HQ, the Doctor discovers that Professor Watkins has been tasked with creating a device to grant immunity to a hypnotic signal which is sent around the Earth by IE devices to paralyse humanity. The Cybermen begin their invasion and they emerge from the sewers of London and march in iconic scenes near St Paul’s Cathedral (which were recreated decades later in Dark Water/Death in Heaven). The Doctor returns to International Electromatics and convinces Vaughn that the Cybermen are not his friend and that they will dispense with him. U.N.I.T battle the Cybermen on the streets and fire missiles into space which (with help from Zoe) destroy the approaching Cyberfleet. Vaughn is killed by the Cybermen during the battle. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe return to the TARDIS and say goodbye to Isabelle and U.N.I.T. The Second Doctor has faced the Cybermen more times than any other Doctor.

Revenge of the Cybermen

★★★☆☆

TX: 19/04/1975 – 10/05/1975

Written by Gerry Davis    Directed by Michael E Briant

The Cybermen have lost a war with humanity in the far future, owing to the human development of the glitter gun that fires liquid gold which is lethal to Cybermen. Earth’s supply of gold came from the planet Voga, so the Cybermen have come to destroy it. The Cybermen infiltrate the Nerva beacon orbiting Voga and kill most of the crew with a plague carried by Cybermats. The Fourth Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Harry arrive in the midst of the chaos and the Doctor attempts to find a cure. The Cybership docks with the Nerva Beacon and the Cybermen board the station. The Doctor and the other members of the crew are captured and have Cyber Bombs attached to them before being sent down to Voga. However, the Doctor is able to remove his bomb in the nick of time. The Cybermen beam down to Voga and begin battle with the Vogans. The Vogans plan to fire a rocket to destroy the Cybership. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane beam up to the Nerva Beacon where they are captured by the Cybermen. The Cyber Leader programmes the Nerva Beacon to crash down to Voga before leaving, but the Doctor and Sarah-Jane are able to save themselves. The Vogan rocket narrowly misses the Nerva Beacon and hits the Cybership, destroying the Cybermen. The Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Harry leave in the TARDIS, as they have been contacted by the Brigadier using the space-time telegraph (later used in The Day of the Doctor). This adventure leads directly into the events of Terror of the Zygons. The Cybermen’s allergy to gold is explored in further Doctor Who stories. I have an allergy to nuts (particularly peanuts) as you will see below.

Earthshock

★★★★★

TX: 08–16/03/1982

Written by Eric Saward    Directed by Peter Grimwade

The Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric land on Earth in the 26th Century, just before an important conference that aims to wipe out the Cybermen. The Cybermen have stationed drones in a cave system that some archaeologists are exploring. The drones are protecting a massive Cyber bomb which the Cybermen intend to use to destroy the Earth and the conference. However, the Doctor disables the bomb and Adric manages to help the soldiers to destroy the drones. The Doctor realises that the Cybermen must be in a ship in orbit and that they are being watched. The Doctor and his companions take the TARDIS to a space freighter on approach to Earth, which is secretly full of Cybermen. They awaken and take over the ship. “When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal?” On the bridge, the Cyber Leader reveals that the Cybermen will now use the freighter full of Cyber bombs to destroy the Earth and the conference as a backup plan. However, Adric transports the freighter back in time to 65 million years ago, so the freighter crashes into Earth and wipes out the dinosaurs… and Adric.

The Five Doctors

★★★★★

TX: 25/11/1983

Written by Terrance Dicks    Directed by Peter Moffatt

The first Five incarnations of the Doctor and some of their companions are brought to the Death Zone on Gallifrey to participate in the Game of Rassilon. Along the way, the Doctors and their companions fight familiar enemies, such as a Dalek, the Cybermen, the Master, a Yeti and the Raston Warrior Robot. The Fifth Doctor realises that there is a traitor on the High Council of the Time Lords: Borusa. Borusa frames the Castellan for his own misdemeanours. The Doctor unmasks Borusa as a traitor. Borusa intends to claim immortality from the legendary Rassilon inside Rassilon’s tomb. However, the Doctors realise that this a trick, as Borusa is sealed inside the tomb forever. The Doctors and their companions return to their proper places in time and space. Chancellor Flavia offers the Doctor the office of the Presidency of the Time Lords, but the Doctor turns this down and runs away in the TARDIS once again.

Attack of the Cybermen

★★★☆☆

TX: 05–12/01/1985

Written by Paula Moore    Directed by Matthew Robinson

The Cybermen are still on the planet Telos (The Tomb of the Cybermen) and the Cyber Controller has concocted a new plan. The Cybermen intend to use Halley’s Comet to destroy the Earth in 1985, the year before Earth destroys Mondas – the birthplace of the Cybermen, during the events of The Tenth Planet. The Sixth Doctor and Peri arrive in Totters Lane, Shoreditch, London, 1985 where the First Doctor landed in An Unearthly Child. In the sewers of London (a reference to The Invasion), the Doctor and Peri meet Lytton who is a mercenary for the Cybermen, having previously been employed by the Daleks in Resurrection of the Daleks. The Cybermen capture the Doctor and his companions inside his TARDIS and force him to pilot it to the planet Telos. The Doctor and Peri meet the native Cryons who have been enslaved by the Cybermen. Lytton is converted into a Cyberman and his assistant is also killed along with two escapee Cyber slaves. The Doctor escapes and destroys the Cyber Controller and the Cyber Leader, but he is too late to save Lytton. Peri consoles the Doctor as they leave in the TARDIS, telling him that there was nothing that he could do save Lytton.

Silver Nemesis

★★☆☆☆

TX: 23/11/1988– 07/12/1988

Written by Kevin Clarke      Directed by Chris Clough

A group of Neo Nazis, a squad of Cybermen and a 17th-century sorceress called Lady Peinforte all plan to steal an ancient Time Lord artefact called the Nemesis Statue. Centuries ago, the Doctor sent the Nemesis into space, into an elliptical orbit that takes it into Earth’s atmosphere every 25 years. After listening to the Courtney Pine quartet, the Seventh Doctor and Ace arrive at Windsor Castle where they briefly encounter Queen Elizabeth II. Meanwhile, the Cybermen and the Neo Nazis clash multiple times, but the Cybermen’s fatal allergy to gold proves their downfall. Lady Peinforte and her servant Richard make their way to present day Windsor too, in possession of a golden arrow. The golden bow is briefly stolen by the Doctor. When reunited with the Nemesis statue, the golden arrow and the golden bow activate it. The Nemesis statue is in the shape of Lady Peinforte. Lady Peinforte tries to blackmail the Doctor into giving her the statue by threatening to reveal all of his secrets, including his true identity. The Doctor ignores this and surrenders the statue to the Cybermen instead. The enraged and insane Lady Peinforte jumps onto the statue, bonding with it. The Cyber Leader commands the Nemesis Statue to launch, however it flies into space and destroys the hidden Cyber fleet instead, which was the Doctor’s trap all along. Ace and the Doctor destroy the surviving Cybermen before travelling to 17th-century England where they are serenaded by Lady Peinforte’s servant Richard. Ace asks the Doctor who he is, but he refuses to answer.

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel

★★★★☆

TX: 13/05/2006 – 20/05/2006

Written by Tom MacRae    Directed by Graeme Harper

In a parallel world, billionaire businessman John Lumic invents the Cybermen (metal men with human brains welded inside them) as the next evolutionary step for mankind. Lumic’s lucrative Cybus Industries manufactures all technology on the planet, including the EarPods worn by most citizens for the daily download. Lumic’s henchman Mr Crane has been kidnapping the homeless using the bogus company lorries of International Electromatics (The Invasion) so that they can be turned into Cybermen. The Tenth Doctor, Rose and Mickey accidentally arrive in the parallel universe, where Rose discovers that her father Pete is still alive and Mickey discovers that his grandmother is still alive too. In the parallel world, Pete and Jackie are rich and they live in a mansion because Pete now works for Lumic (although he is secretly working against him on behalf of Gemini). The Doctor and Rose infiltrate Pete Tyler’s house staff on the night of his busty wife Jackie’s birthday. Unfortunately, the party is stormed by a squad of Cybermen who kill everyone in the house, including the President of Great Britain who vetoed Lumic’s obscene ‘Ultimate Upgrade’ proposal. The Doctor, Rose, Pete, Mickey and the Preachers (an anti-Cybus Industries rogue group) escape in a van, whilst Jackie hides in the house’s basement. Lumic activates a signal to bring all of the humans in London under his control by inducing hypnosis via those wearing EarPods. The hypnotised humans walk towards Battersea Power Station to be converted into Cybermen. Cyber Conversion is a process that involves a human brain being removed (without their consent) and put inside a suit of armour – a painful death for the victim. Whilst escaping from the Cybermen, Mickey’s parallel counterpart Ricky (the leader of the Preachers) is killed, however the Doctor says that he did not die in vain.

The Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Pete and the Preachers infiltrate Battersea Power station at three different points: above, between, below. The Doctor and Mrs Moore make their way through cooling tunnels. However, Mrs Moore is killed by a Cyberman and the Doctor is captured. Rose and Pete make their way through the factory floor with fake EarPods, whilst thousands of unfortunate humans are converted into Cybermen around them. Pete and Rose make the shock discovery that the parallel Jackie has been turned into a Cyberman too and they have arrived too late to save her. Pete and Rose are captured and are brought to Cyber Control along with the Doctor. The Doctor, Rose and Pete meet the Cyber-Controller, Lumic has been unwillingly upgraded after his henchman Mr Crane attacked him. Mickey and Jake gain access to Lumic’s zeppelin on the roof, where they disable the EarPods allowing the surviving humans to escape. Jake and Mickey also cancel the emotional inhibitors of all the Cybermen, causing them to go insane and explode. The Doctor, Rose, Pete, Mickey and Jake escape in Lumic’s zeppelin, narrowly avoiding deletion by the Cyber Controller – which falls to its death in the exploding factory below. Mickey chooses to stay behind on the parallel Earth to continue the fight against the Cybermen, so the Doctor and Rose return to our universe without him.

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday

★★★★★

TX: 01/07/2006 – 08/07/2006

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Graeme Harper

The Tenth Doctor and Rose return to present day London to visit Rose’s mum Jackie. However, the world is overrun with ghosts that appear on regularly shifts thanks to the Torchwood Institute. The Kasaavin ghosts in Spyfall resemble the Cybermen ghosts from Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. The Doctor conducts experiments on a ghost to find its origin. Then he, Rose and Jackie travel to Torchwood’s headquarters in Canary Wharf to find out more. The head of Torchwood, Yvonne Hartman informs the Doctor that the secret Torchwood Institute was established in 1879 by Queen Victoria in order to combat extraterrestrial threats, including the Doctor (Tooth and Claw)! Yvonne Hartman hopes that, by harnessing the power of the Void breach, Britain would no longer be dependent on the Middle East for energy. The Doctor discourages Torchwood from conducting further ghost shifts, as this is further fracturing the fabric between dimensions caused by the arrival a gigantic sphere kept in the base. The sphere is a void ship which contains the last surviving Daleks, the Cult of Skaro – a secret order created by the Dalek Emperor. The ghosts turn out to be Cybermen that have followed the void ship and crossed into our universe from a parallel world that the Doctor and Rose previously visited.

The Cybermen have infiltrated Torchwood through the use of their drones, but Rose’s boyfriend Mickey Smith has also crossed over from the parallel world. Mickey and Rose become prisoners to the Daleks. The Daleks need the handprint of a time traveller to open the Genesis Ark, a dimensionally transcendental Time Lord prison ship containing millions of Daleks. The Daleks and the Cybermen wage war against each other and Torchwood becomes their first battleground. The Cybermen and the Preachers (who have also arrived from the parallel universe via parallel Torchwood technology) use weapons that attack polycarbite, the skin of a Dalek. During the Battle of Canary Wharf, the Doctor unites with Rose’s parallel father Pete Tyler and Jake Simmonds whilst Jackie narrowly escapes being upgraded into a Cyberman (Yvonne Hartman is less fortunate). The Doctor realises that he, Rose, Mickey, Pete, Jake and all of the Daleks and Cybermen are soaked in background radiation as a result of travelling through the void between the dimensions. The Doctor plans to reverse the ghost shift which will suck all of the Cybermen and the Daleks back into the Void. The Doctor tries to convince Rose to join her mother and the rest of her family in the parallel world where she will be safe. But, Rose refuses because she doesn’t want to leave the Doctor’s side. The Doctor and Rose open the breach which sucks all of the Daleks and Cybermen back into the void. Rose is almost accidentally sucked into the void too, but Pete returns and rescues her at the last moment. Rose is trapped in the parallel world with her family, but she manages to say a heartbreaking goodbye to a hologram of the Doctor on Bad Wolf Bay.

Torchwood: Cyberwoman

★☆☆☆☆

TX: 05/11/2006

Written by Chris Chibnall    Directed by James Strong

The Torchwood base in Cardiff discovers that there is a Cyberwoman in their basement, which has been smuggled in by Torchwood member Ianto Jones. The Cyberwoman is Ianto’s girlfriend Lisa, who was partially converted into a Cyberman during the Battle of Canary Wharf, when she and Ianto were employed by Torchwood One in London. The Torchwood team try to break the lockdown that the underground base has gone into. They attempt to escape, narrowly avoiding deletion in the process. Outside, the team try to convince Ianto that the girl he loved is gone and that she is now just a monster. Ianto disagrees and he goes back inside to save her. However, Cyber Lisa has already transplanted her brain inside another woman (a pizza delivery lady). Ianto despairs that Lisa is gone, while the rest of the Torchwood team pump bullets into what is left of her. There is an awkwardness in the air in the Hub after this incident and the team will never look at Ianto in the same way again.

The Next Doctor

★★★★☆

TX: 25/12/2008

Written by Russell T Davies      Directed by Andy Goddard

The Tenth Doctor arrives in Victorian London, 1851 where he meets another man claiming to be the Doctor, whom he fights a Cybershade with. At first, the Tenth Doctor assumes that this is a future incarnation of himself. However, as time passes the Doctor finally realises that the truth is far worse. An ordinary man called Jackson Lake arrived in London with his wife and son and his mind was scrambled by a Cyber info stamp, which fooled him into believing that he was the Doctor. He even has a wooden sonic screwdriver and a TARDIS hot air balloon of his own. Jackson Lake and his companion Rosita help the real Doctor to rescue some workhouse orphans (and Jackson Lake’s son) from the Cyber factory beneath London. The Cybermen use EarPods to control undertakers in this story (Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday). A woman called Miss Hartigan has been helping the Cybermen, however she soon becomes their new Cyber King. The gigantic Cyber King emerges from the River Thames and stomps across Victorian London. The Doctor uses Jackson Lake’s hot air balloon to confront the Cyber King and restore Miss Hartigan’s memories. This drives her insane and it destroys the Cyber King, which the Doctor teleports into the time vortex. The Doctor shows Jackson Lake the real TARDIS and Jackson Lake offers him Christmas dinner.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

★★★☆☆

TX: 19/06/2010 – 26/06/2010

Written by Steven Moffat    Directed by Toby Haynes

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond arrive at Stonehenge in 102 AD after following a trail of messages left for them by River Song. River is posing as Cleopatra as part of a Roman Legion stationed by Stonehenge. The Doctor, Amy and River discover an underhenge cave beneath Stonehenge, which contains the Pandorica – a legendary box built to contain the most feared thing in the entire universe. A corroded Cyberman was stationed as a sentry to protect the Pandorica. The mystery deepens when the Roman Legion is revealed to be a squad of plastic Autons, one of which is Amy’s fiancée Rory – back from the dead! An Alliance of the Doctor’s worst enemies, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Silurians and the Autons, have come together to imprison the Doctor inside the Pandorica. The Alliance have deduced that the cracks in time that the Doctor and Amy have witnessed throughout the universe are the result of the Doctor’s TARDIS exploding and they have therefore incarcerated him to prevent this from happening. However, the TARDIS explodes anyway with River inside, causing the universe to end. In an alternate timeline, a young Amelia Pond dreams about the stars even though there are no longer any left in the sky due to the TARDIS exploding. The young Amelia receives a note telling her to go to the museum where the Pandorica is kept. It opens revealing the adult Amy inside, who was placed in there by Rory and the Doctor because the Pandorica has a restorative effect. Rory freed the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver given to him by a future version of the Doctor. The Roman Auton Rory guards the Pandorica for 2,000 years to protect Amy from harm. In the present day, the Doctor, Amy and Rory reunite with the young Amelia Pond in the museum. They get chased by a Dalek restored by the light of the Pandorica. The Doctor uses the vortex manipulator to go back and give Rory his screwdriver. As the universe continues to collapse, Amelia disappears. The Doctor discovers that the “sun” is the still-exploding TARDIS. River, trapped inside the TARDIS, is being kept alive in a time loop. The Doctor saves River. The Doctor creates a diversion for the Dalek, allowing him to rig the Pandorica to fly into the TARDIS explosion, using what exists of the original universe inside the Pandorica to create a second Big Bang. Before this, the Doctor instructs Amy to focus on her family and Rory to restore them in the new universe. The Doctor begins witnessing events in his life in reverse as the cracks in the universe close. The Doctor has to stay outside this new universe for that to happen. After a final goodbye to Amelia on the night they met, he enters the cracks and disappears. Amy wakes in her home in 2010 to discover that her parents and Rory have been brought back into existence. Amy and Rory celebrate their wedding day. At the reception, River leaves her diary for Amy which prompts Amy to recall the Doctor. She interrupts her father’s speech, imploring the Doctor to come to the wedding. The TARDIS and the Doctor appear at the reception. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor explains to Amy and Rory that unanswered questions remain about the TARDIS explosion. The Doctor is sent an invitation to travel on the space Orient Express (Mummy on the Orient Express).

A Good Man Goes to War

★★★★☆

TX: 04/06/2011

Written by Steven Moffat    Directed by Peter Hoar

The Last Centurion Rory Williams sends a message to the Cybermen by blowing up the Twelfth Cyber Legion, posing the question: where is his wife? On the battle outpost of Demons Run, the Headless Monks and Madame Kovarian have kidnapped Amy Pond and her newborn baby Melody on the order of the movement known as the Silence. The Silence have engineered baby Melody to grow up to be an assassin that will kill the Doctor. The Doctor, Rory, the Paternoster Gang (composed of Silurian Madame Vastra, her Victorian wife Jenny and Sontaran Commander Strax), Dorium Maldovar, Silurians and Judoon arrive at Demons Run and defeat Colonel Manton and his troops. However, the victory comes too easily and Dorium and Vastra suspect that this is a trap. Their suspicions are confirmed when the Headless Monks mount a surprise attack on the Doctor’s friends. Madame Kovarian confronts the Doctor and tells him that the Silence intend to destroy him and that Melody Pond is part of their plan. During the battle, it is revealed that Amy’s baby has been switched with a Ganger avatar. The real baby Melody has been kidnapped by Madame Kovarian! With the battle over, Amy and Rory are in despair at the loss of their child. But the Doctor reassures them that he will find Melody and he dashes off in the TARDIS. River Song has arrived and she reveals to Amy and Rory that she is their daughter Melody!

Closing Time

★★☆☆☆

TX: 24/09/2011

Written by Gareth Roberts    Directed by Steve Hughes

The Eleventh Doctor visits his friend Craig Owens who is struggling with parenthood. To make matters worse, a nearby department store (where the Doctor has started working at) has been infiltrated by Cybermen from a spaceship buried deep underground. The Cybermen have been stealing energy via their Cybermats in order to power their spacecraft. At Craig’s, the Doctor reprograms a captured Cybermat to track down the Cybermen’s signal. The Doctor leaves on his own to locate the Cybermen at the store. Craig follows, bringing Alfie along. The Doctor finds the underground spaceship below the store, accessed from the changing room. With the siphoned energy, the Cybermen will soon have enough power to convert the human race. Craig leaves Alfie at the store, follows the Doctor, and is captured and placed into a conversion machine to become the new leader of the Cybermen. Alfie’s cries over the closed-circuit television echo in the ship. Craig, hearing Alfie, fights and reverses the conversion. The rest of the Cybermen painfully experience the emotions they have repressed from Craig’s struggle, and their circuits start to overload. The Doctor and Craig escape via the teleporter as the ship explodes. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS to face his death at Lake Silencio in 2011.

Nightmare in Silver

★★☆☆☆

TX: 11/05/2013

Written by Neil Gaiman    Directed by Stephen Woolfenden

The Eleventh Doctor, Clara Oswald and two kids that she babysits (Angie and Artie) arrive at Hedgwick’s World in the far future, a closed-down galactic fair ground. The Doctor and his companions meet Porridge, a short man who fought the Cybermen during the Cyber wars. However, the Cybermen are not extinct and they soon begin killing soldiers stationed at Hedgwick’s World having infiltrated the site with Cybermites (evolved Cyber Mats). Angie, Artie and the Doctor are captured and the Doctor is converted into the Cyber Planner (‘Mr Clever’) previously seen in The Invasion. Mr Clever reactivates the Cyber Army beneath Hedgwick’s World which emerge from their tombs (in a similar manner to those seen in The Tomb of the Cybermen) as the real Doctor battles with Mr Clever inside his mind by playing chess. Mr Clever is temporarily stopped by the Doctor placing a golden ticket on his face, explaining that the Cybermen’s weakness to gold is still present in their current code; Mr Clever soon installs a patch to overcome this weakness. Clara relocates the platoon to elsewhere in the park and they take stock of minimal arms: one large anti-Cyberman gun with a limited charge, five hand pulsers, and a planet-imploding bomb. The Doctor returns with Angie and Artie, and demands that Clara tie him up to let him finish his chess game, while the platoon hold off poorly against the Cybermen, who can quickly adapt and upgrade to overcome any obstacle. Mr Clever destroys the bomb trigger, leaving the group defenceless. Clara and the soldiers mount a hopeless defence against the Cybermen, who try to upgrade them to the Cyberiad. However, Mr Clever loses his chess match to the Doctor. The Doctor uses a hand pulser to remove Mr Clever from his mind. Angie realises that Porridge is the Emperor after recognising him from an imperial penny and a waxwork model. Porridge then activates the bomb verbally and signals for an imperial spaceship to teleport them away. At the Doctor’s request, Porridge retrieves the Doctor’s ship the TARDIS just before the planet implodes, destroying the Cybermen army.

The Time of the Doctor

★★★☆☆

TX: 25/12/2013

Written by Steven Moffat      Directed by Jamie Payne

The Eleventh Doctor and Clara follow a signal to the planet Trenzalore. The planet is surrounded by various battle fleets. The Doctor and Clara beam aboard the Church of the Papal Mainframe where they meet Tasha Lem, who informs the Doctor that the signal is coming from the surface of the planet, so the Doctor and Clara beam down to find the source. After dodging Weeping Angels, the Doctor and Clara find the town of Christmas. In the town, there is a crack in time through which the trapped Time Lords are calling through. This is the same crack in time that the Eleventh Doctor discovered in The Eleventh Hour et al. Tasha Lem tells the Doctor that if he states his real name, the crack in time will open and the Time Lords will return and the Time War will resume. The Doctor stays in the town of Christmas for 300 years (with a Cyberman head called Handles), defending the town from Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Silence and the Church of the Papal Mainframe. He sends Clara home in the TARDIS but she returns. Clara and the old Doctor talk where he reveals that he has now used all 12 of his regenerations and he will inevitably die. The Doctor and Clara beam aboard the Church of the Papal Mainframe where they discover that Tasha and the other clerics have all been killed and replaced by Dalek puppets. Before her death, Tasha explains that the Silence went back in time and destroyed his TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens and also engineered a psychopath (River Song) to kill the Doctor in The Wedding of River Song. These were both attempts by the Silence to prevent the Doctor from ever reaching Trenzalore. However, blowing up the TARDIS created the cracks in time in the first place that the Time Lords are now calling through. The Silence are therefore caught in the destiny trap paradox. The Doctor returns to the town of Christmas, and he sends Clara home again. But Tasha Lem returns in the TARDIS and brings Clara back to Christmas hundreds of years later. The battle is lost and the Doctor is now incredibly old. The battle weary Doctor talks to Clara and tells her that his time is up. As he leaves to confront the Daleks, Clara calls through the Crack in Time and begs the Time Lords to help the Doctor. The Time Lords send the Doctor a brand new regeneration cycle which enables the Eleventh Doctor to regenerate and destroy the Daleks with his regeneration energy. Back in the TARDIS, Clara meets the Eleventh Doctor, whose face is about to change. The Eleventh Doctor gives an emotional final speech before he quickly regenerates into the Twelfth Doctor, who is far older and more aggressive than his previous incarnation. The Twelfth Doctor asks Clara if she knows how to the fly the TARDIS as the ship crashes. This story leads directly into the events of Deep Breath.

Dark Water/Death in Heaven

★★★★★

TX: 01-08/11/2014

Written by Steven Moffat    Directed by Rachel Talalay

Clara Oswald is on the phone to her boyfriend and fellow Coal Hill School teacher Danny Pink when he is accidentally hit by a car. The depressed Clara confronts the Twelfth Doctor and orders him to change history to bring him back. She tests the Doctor by stealing TARDIS keys. The Doctor, impressed by Clara’s determination, eventually agrees to go to hell with her to find Danny Pink. The Doctor is convinced that there is some kind of afterlife and they try to find it by following Clara’s thoughts about Danny. The TARDIS lands in the 3W institute, which was set up following Doctor Sclarosa’s discovery of the three words: “don’t cremate me!”. The horrible reality is that the dead remain conscious following death and they can still feel. The minds of the recently deceased have been stored in a Nethersphere by a woman called Missy. Missy reveals herself to be a female incarnation of the Master, who has been converting the bodies of the dead into an army of Cybermen which she gives to the Doctor as a gift. The Cyber Army includes the dead Danny Pink. The flying Cybermen begin their invasion of Earth and some of them march in iconic scenes near St Paul’s Cathedral that reference The Invasion. After narrowly avoiding being killed by Cybermen on a U.N.I.T plane (staffed by Kate Stewart and Osgood), the Doctor and Clara confront Missy in a graveyard, where Missy gives the Cyber Army to the Doctor. Danny Pink and the Cyber Corpses fly into the sky and self destruct, making it rain. Clara is about to shoot Missy but the Doctor stops her. Missy tells the Doctor that Gallifrey has returned to its original position. However, Missy is apparently killed by a Cybernised corpse of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Later, the Doctor and Clara lie to each other, telling each other that he has found Gallifrey and that she has got Danny back. Clara and the Doctor bid farewell to each other… for now. This story leads into the events of Last Christmas.

World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls

★★★★★

TX: 24/06/2017 – 01/07/2017

Written by Steven Moffat    Directed by Rachel Talalay

The Twelfth Doctor, Bill, Nardole and Missy land on a gigantic ship from Mondas which is near a black hole (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit). The effect of the black hole means that time is moving faster at one end of the ship than the other. Bill is shot by a scared blue man and she is taken away by some patients to be ‘repaired’. The patients take Bill to the other end of the ship, where time is moving much faster. Bill meets Mr Razor and spends years in his company. However, Bill is eventually tricked by Mr Razor into a conversion chamber where she is painfully converted into a Cyberman (Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel), as part of a new race of Mondasian Cybermen (Spare Parts, The Tenth Planet). By the time the Doctor, Nardole and Missy reach the bottom of the Mondasian ship, they are too late to rescue Bill, who is now a Cyberman. Mr Razor reveals himself to Missy as her previous incarnation of the Master (Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, The End of Time). The two Masters team up and capture the Doctor, where they show that the genesis of the Cybermen is unfolding all around them (Spare Parts, The Tenth Planet, Genesis of the Daleks). The Doctor is electrocuted by a Cyberman (Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel). The Doctor, Nardole, Cyber-Bill and the two Masters escape to a higher floor of the ship where there are vast fields and a farm. Cyber-Bill is sheltered in a barn so she won’t scare the children. The Doctor, Nardole and the humans prepare for an imminent attack from the Cybermen below. The two Masters settle their differences and decide to leave together in the Master’s TARDIS. The Doctor begs them for their help and encourages them to be kind. But they don’t listen and they leave instead. However, back at the Master’s TARDIS, Missy stabs her previous self, redeems herself (Extremis, The Lie of the Land) and decides to stand with the Doctor against the Cybermen, having been moved by his speech. However, the Master kills Missy with his laser screwdriver. The Master leaves in his TARDIS and regenerates into Missy. Back at the farm, the Cybermen have begun their attack and the humans mount a hopeless defence. Nardole leads the children to safety whilst the Doctor destroys dozens of Cybermen with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor references the many previous times that he has defeated the Cybermen (Telos (The Tomb of the Cybermen), Voga (Revenge of the Cybermen), Canary Wharf (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday), Planet 14 (The Invasion) and the Moon (The Moonbase)) as he does so. However, the Doctor is injured and he starts to regenerate. The Doctor blows up the remaining Cybermen with his sonic. Cyber-Bill arrives and grieves over the Doctor’s body. Heather the Puddle Girl shows up because where there’s tears, there’s hope (The Pilot). Heather and the consciousness of Bill leave the Doctor inside his TARDIS before flying off to have adventures together (Hell Bent). Inside the TARDIS, the Twelfth Doctor begins regenerating, but he refuses to change. The Twelfth Doctor steps outside the TARDIS at the South Pole where he accidentally bumps into the First Doctor who is also refusing to regenerate following the events of The Tenth Planet. This story leads directly into the events of Twice Upon a Time, which also depicts some of the events of The Tenth Planet.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati

★★★★★

TX: 16/02/2020

Written by Maxine Alderton    Directed by Emma Sullivan

The Doctor takes Graham, Ryan and Yaz to Lake Geneva in 1816 to witness Mary Shelley gain the inspiration to write Frankenstein, though she warns them about revealing this to her. Meanwhile, Mary, her infant William, along with John Polidori, Claire Clairmont and Lord Byron are staying at the Villa Diodati. Mary’s fiancé Percy Bysshe Shelley, is inexplicably missing. Because of the inclement weather, Byron suggests each write a ghost story to scare the others. Later, the Doctor and her companions arrive, only to discover that the expected ghost story sharing has been abandoned, and that Percy is not there, although he should have been. Strange events occur in the villa, such as the repeated rearrangement of its layout, objects moving of their own accord, and skeletal hands crawling around the halls. Byron suggests it is a ghost that haunts the villa but the Doctor suspects something else is occurring; the events are part of a security system designed to hide something. The group sees an apparition which the Doctor recognises as a being moving through time; the apparition resolves into a half-converted Cyberman. Graham, Ryan and Yaz remind the Doctor of Jack Harkness’s warning of the “lone Cyberman” and giving it what it wants (Fugitive of the Judoon), but she angrily orders them not to follow her and tells them to protect Mary and the others, before heading off to confront the Cyberman. The Cyberman, named Ashad, was sent back in time to look for the “Cyberium”, a liquid metal with the collective knowledge of the Cybermen. Ashad had tracked it to the villa but then his power had been sapped. As the Doctor tries to lure Ashad away from the villa, he is struck by lightning, recharging his power core and he prepares to attack the villa again. Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers Percy’s room, the walls of which are covered in strange gibberish in his handwriting. The Doctor races to warn the others but instead finds Percy hiding in the cellar with a crazed look. She discovers he is possessed by the Cyberium, having found it a few days prior and the Cyberium had created the supernatural events to prevent discovery. The Doctor loses her temper with her companions and brings Percy to Ashad and to stop Ashad from killing him, tricks the Cyberium into leaving Percy’s body and entering hers. Ashad threatens to destroy the planet, forcing the Doctor to turn the Cyberium over to him, despite Harkness’s warning. The Doctor and her companions depart, making plans to follow Ashad to the future using coordinates from Percy’s Cyberman-based writings.

Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children

★☆☆☆☆

TX: 23/02/2020  – 01/03/2020

Written by Chris Chibnall    Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

The TARDIS crew arrives slap bang in the middle of the Cyber Wars of the future (Revenge of the Cybermen) where they are pursued by the Lone Cyberman Ashad that they previously encountered in The Haunting of Villa Diodati. The Doctor and her companions are chased by the Cybermen to a Cyber outpost, full of thousands of inert Cybermen which are awoken by Ashad (The Tomb of the Cybermen). However, on the planet below is a portal to the Doctor’s home planet of Gallifrey. The Master arrives and captures the Doctor and brings her to the Citadel of the Time Lords (The Deadly Assassin, The Sound of Drums) to reveal the truth about her origins: the Timeless Child. The Timeless Child was a mythical being within Time Lord history. The Master discovered the secrets of the Child in the Matrix upon his return to Gallifrey. The revelation of the Child’s origins and its significance within Gallifreyan history enraged the Master so much that he destroyed his own people, the Time Lords and Gallifrey (Spyfall). The Master captured the Doctor and revealed to her that the Timeless Child was an immortal being that fell through a portal in space and (via morbid experimentation by the Shobogan scientist Tecteun) granted the Time Lords with the ability to regenerate in the first place. This led to the foundations of Time Lord society. Perhaps more shockingly, the Master revealed that the Timeless Child was in fact the Doctor, who had had her memories wiped by the Division centuries ago (The Timeless Children). The hitherto suggestion that there had been many incarnations that preceded that of the First Doctor (The Brain of Morbius) was now an indisputable fact. This revelation was a watershed moment in both the Doctor’s personal life and within the lore of Doctor Who itself. The Master and his army of Cyber-Masters (half Time Lord, half Cyberman – Hell Bent) team up to conquer the universe. The Doctor regroups with her companions, and discovers Ashad’s miniaturized body (miniaturised by the Master – Terror of the Autons et al) contains a “Death Particle” capable of destroying all organic life on a planet. The Doctor and her friends blow up the Cyber-carrier, destroying Ashad’s army in the process and foiling his plot to rebuild the Cyber-Empire. Finding a TARDIS, she programs it to take her allies home. The Doctor takes one of Ko Sharmus’ explosives to set off the particle. She is unable to trigger it when goaded by the Master, but Ko Sharmus appears and takes it, as penance for failing to suitably hide the Cyberium. The Doctor escapes in another TARDIS as the explosion consumes Gallifrey, as the Master escapes with his CyberMasters. The Doctor’s allies arrive on contemporary Earth in their TARDIS. The Doctor lands the other TARDIS near her own, but as she prepares to take off, she is arrested by the Judoon (Fugitive of the Judoon) and teleported to a prison located inside an asteroid (Shada). This adventure leads directly into the events of Revolution of the Daleks.

Flux

★★☆☆☆

TX: 31/10/2021 – 05/12/2021

Written by Chris Chibnall & Maxine Alderton    Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone & Azhur Saleem

During the Great Disruption caused by the Flux and the Ravagers (Once, Upon Time) that made “time run wild”, the Dalek Empire, like other hostile powers, tried to assert its power, exploiting the power vacuum and lack of opposition. The Daleks expanded their empire quickly, with their “borders” growing to encompass a sector—which Bel dubbed the “Dalek Sector” as she tried to escape it—of the galaxy, including conquering abandoned Lupari space. In effect, powers like the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontaran Empire were acting as they always did, expanding and fighting for, as Bel put it, “the spoils” amid a universe–wide destruction. As such, she hoped that the three powers would destroy each other in the end. After avoiding a Dalek patrol on a forested world, Bel managed to barely escape the sector while under fire from Daleks, later avoiding the expanding borders of the Dalek Empire once again after escaping a Cyberman-invaded planet (Once, Upon Time). As the Flux continued to rage, the Daleks knew the danger it posed to themselves, so they and the Cybermen agreed to meet the Sontarans to form an alliance (The Vanquishers). The Dalek War Fleet (Eve of the Daleks) was sent to the designated location in the year 2021, but the Sontarans had tricked their rivals and, once all Dalek and Cyber battalions had arrived, the Sontarans shielded behind a battalion wall of Lupari vessels intending to let the Flux ravage the Dalek flying saucers and Cyber-ships, only for the Sontarans themselves to be left outside of the shield due to the Doctor’s meddling, leaving their craft to face the same fate as the Daleks and Cybermen (The Vanquishers).

The Power of the Doctor

★★★★★

TX: 23/10/2022

Written by Chris Chibnall    Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

Shortly after Dan decides to leave the TARDIS, the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz are summoned to U.N.I.T by Kate Stewart who also reunites the Doctor with her former companions Tegan and Ace. Kate believes there to be a connection between volcanic activity, Tsarist Russia, some paintings and a scientific lecture and she is right! The Master (disguised as Rasputin) has returned and he embarks on his most diabolical plan yet! After being freed from U.N.I.T HQ by the Cybermen, the Master uses the Daleks to capture the Doctor. The Doctor is placed into a DNA chamber and forced to regenerate into the Master. The Doctor-Master takes Yaz in the TARDIS, but Yaz escapes and manages to find the Doctor’s old friend Vinder. The two lay a trap for the Master. Meanwhile, Kate, Ace and Tegan narrowly escape being upgraded by the Cybermen. Between regenerations, the Doctor encounters the Guardians of the Edge, former incarnations of herself! The Doctors unite mentally to defeat the Master, whilst a hologram of the Doctor assists Yaz and Vinder. The Master-Doctor is cornered and his CyberMasters shoot each other after being tricked by the Fugitive Doctor. The Daleks are destroyed by the global volcanic eruptions. The Master-Doctor is forced to regenerate back into the Thirteenth Doctor, freeing her at last! Defeated, the Master mortally wounds the Doctor with the Qurunx’s energy beam, before seemingly dying of his own injuries without regenerating. The Doctor is fatally injured and carried back to the TARDIS by Yaz. The Doctor bids goodbye to her companions, who form a support group on Earth. Alone on a cliff top, the Doctor regenerates back into a familiar face…