Celebrated writer Neil Gaiman returns to DOCTOR WHO in the run-up to the Series 7, Part 2 finale. And, this time, he's left the wife behind and brought the Cybermen with him. A lot of them.
"Ha, ha. You see? I told you it was amazing…. Well, it used to be."
Secret out (see "The Crimson Horror), the Doctor, Clara, Angie, and Artie arrive on Hedgewick's World, "the biggest—and best—amusement park there will ever be." They've got a golden ticket for a day out. And a Spacey Zoomer Ride. And free ice cream. But…
"It closed down."
Impresario Webley should know; he's been stranded on the planet for six months, alone, but for an assistant and an imperial platoon, apparently sent to guard the place as punishment for not following orders; they give him the heebie-jeebies. Hoping to earn something for his troubles, the curator of Webley's World of Wonders, collection of "miracles, marvels, and more," invites the Doctor and his companions to see his waxwork representations of the famous and the infamous and to play chess with the 699th Wonder of the Universe, a 1,000-year-old—
"Cyberman!"
"No need to panic, my young friends! We all know there are no more living Cybermen."
This one—Webley has not one, but three Cybermen in his collection—only appears alive; an empty shell, it is puppetted from a hidden box beneath the chess board by Webley's assistant, Porridge. Discovered, Porridge agrees to give the children a ride on the Spacey Zoomer, turning Hedgewick's World into a wonderful day out. But as the ride comes to and end and Clara announces that it's time to get the kids home, the Doctor's not ready to leave.
"Insects. Funny insects. I should add them to my funny insect collection."
As the Doctor suspects, the insects aren't insects at all, but upgraded Cybermats—Cybermites. Unfortunately, for Webley, Artie, and Angie, the Doctor's discovery comes too late: each is taken—Angie, right before his and Clara's eyes by a living Cyberman—to be upgraded.
Placing Clara in charge of the punishment platoon, the Doctor goes to get Angie and find Artie. It's a trap. A Borgish Webley explains: "As the battle raged between humanity and the Cyberiad, the Cyber planners built a valkyrie to save critically damaged units." That valkyrie was located on Hedgewick's World. The people who vanished from the amusement park became spare parts. But the Cybermen needed children—and their brains' infinite potential—to build a new Cyber Planner, and the children had stopped coming. Fortunately, the Doctor brought them children. Even more fortunately, the Cybermites have been scanning the Doctor's brain and found it "quite remarkable." But, most fortunately of all, where, a long time ago, they could use only human parts, current Cyber units can use almost any living components. Timelords included. The Cybermites attack, and the Doctor finds himself engaged in a figurative-turned-literal game of chess for control of his mind with a Cyber Planner who calls himself Mr. Clever.
Meanwhile, Clara orders the punishment platoon to Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle—believing that the real castle, drawbridge, and moat make it a defensible location. A Cyberman attacks, picking off members of the platoon one by one. Against Clara's orders, Captain Alice Feiring threatens to blow up the planet with the desolator in the platoon's possession, but is herself killed by a Cyberman—prompting Clara to go on the offensive. Using an anti-Cyber gun, she successfully eliminates the threat, but not before three more members of the platoon are killed or upgraded.
The Doctor arrives, Webley, Angie, Artie, and, for the moment, a kidnapped-by-golden-ticket Cyber Planner in tow. Clara isn't happy to learn that the children are in a walking coma—chasing the Doctor into the castle at anti-Cyber gunpoint.
Once inside and immobilized, the Doctor resumes his chess match with Mr. Clever, who's installed a patch for the golden ticket. During the game, the Cyber Planner wakes the Cybermen, manages to trick Clara into getting close enough to the Doctor to destroy the remote triggery thing for the desolator, threatens to kill the children unless the Doctor sacrifices his queen, and reveals, "It's mate in five moves." All appears is lost. But the Doctor surprises the Cyber Planner: "Sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Timelords invented chess! It's our game. And, if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves." Confused, Mr. Clever puts in extra processing power, and three million Cyber brains join him in working on one tiny chess problem. Outside, the Cybermen shut down. It's the opening that the Doctor has been waiting for:
"Three moves! Want to know what they are…? Move one: turn on sonic screwdriver. Move two: activate pulser. Move three: amplify pulser. Ha, ha, ha. See ya."
The amplified pulser forces the Cyber Planner out of the Doctor's head—redistributing him among the three million Cybermen outside. As they are about to wake up, Porridge steps forward, revealed by Angie, who's recognized his face from an imperial coin and one of Webley's waxworks, to be the Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff, XLI. He activates the desolator, which summons the imperial flagship, which, in turn, transmats all of them—and the TARDIS—to safety.
Hedgewick's World implodes, taking the Cybermen with it.
Day saved.
Awkward marriage proposal.
"See you next Wednesday."
Great Lines
Angie: "Clara? She's not my sister. She's stupid. She's talking to Porridge."
Captain Feiring: "She talks to her porridge?"
Clara: "We need to find somewhere defensible. Where?"
Captain Feiring: "The Beach. The Giant's Cauldron. Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle."
Clara: "Real castle? Drawbridge? Moat?"
Captain Feiring: Yes. But comical."
Clara: "We'll go there."
Webley: "Hail to you, the Doctor, Savior of the Cybermen!"
Clara: "The only reason I'm still alive is because I do what the Doctor says. Can you guarantee me you'd bring me back my children alive and unharmed…? I trust the Doctor.
Captain Feiring: "You think he knows what he's doing?"
Clara: "I'm not sure I'd go that far."
Doctor: "Hey, Clara, you haven't let them blow up the planet! Good job!"
Clara: "Do you think I'm pretty?"
Doctor: "No. You're too short. And your nose is all funny."
Doctor: "Oh. Yeah. Nice ship. A bit big. Not blue enough."
Angie: "That's stupid. You could be Queen of the Universe. How can you say no to that? When someone asks you if you want to be Queen of the Universe, you say, 'yes.'"
Doctor: "Impossible girl. A mystery wrapped in an enigma squeezed into a skirt that's just a little bit too… tight…. What are you?"
Wibbly-wobbly Timey-wimey… Stuff that You Might Have Missed
As Clara walks with Porridge—discussing the Cyberwars—the pair pass two large flower sculptures. One of these is clearly of a rose. The other may be of a rose bud. In addition to sharing Clara's signature color, the flower seems—particularly in this episode, which features an emperor and a castle, kings and queens (in chess), and even an imperial marriage proposal that would have crowned Clara Queen of the Universe if it were accepted—connected to the Rose & Crown, the London establishment where the Victoria barmaid/governess Clara Oswin Oswald worked, as well as to a former companion, Rose Tyler.
In the same scene, as Porridge recounts the fate of the Tiberian Spiral Galaxy, a large clear globe can be seen behind Clara (see "The Snowmen"). And, in the center of the shot overlooking Hedgewick's World, a pair of spotlights can be seen merging with a pair of wheels to form a heart—contrasting the "nothing," the "just black… no stars… no nothing," that fills the corner of the sky where the galaxy once was. One could argue that these latter symbolize love and broken-heartedness/emptiness/lonliness—contrasting emotions that have been featured heavily as themes in Series 7, Part 2.
Incidentally, Clara is also wearing red again—visible at her collar and in the flowery pattern on her skirt.
Also incidentally, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, porridge is "a dish consisting of oatmeal or another meal or cereal boiled in water or milk" (emphasis mine).
The Oxford American Dictionary also defines a valkyrie as "each of Odin's twelve handmaidens who conducted the slain warriors of their choice from the battlefield to Valhalla."
The set used for the punishment platoon's barracks appears very similar to a set used in "The Doctor's Daughter." It may even be a redress.
In the scene just before the Doctor transmats down to the Cybermat's "home," the head of a Shansheeth can be seen on a pedestal along one of the walls that surrounds the chess board. In The Sarah Jane Adventures two-parter "The Death of the Doctor," featuring the Eleventh Doctor, the Shansheeth appear, first, as mourners of the Doctor's passing and, later, as villians who want to use the TARDIS to end all death in the universe. The appearance of the Shansheeth in "Nightmare in Sliver" is notable in 2 respects: 1) potentially, foreshadowing the Eleventh Doctor's actual death; 2) recalling the Doctor's answer to Clyde's question about how many times the Timelord can regenerate: "507"—a number which, conveniently, adds up to 12 (i.e. 5 + 0 + 7 = 12).
A real Alice Feiring shares membership in the Pen American Center with Neil Gaiman.