Review of Nightmare in Silver
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I’ve read (OK, skimmed) a fair number negative reviews for this episode, but I have to say I just can’t relate at all.
This series more than any other, I’ve observed a vast array of opinions among fans. For any given episode, there seems to be a “best thing since sliced bread” camp and a “disastrous blight besmirching the face of Our Show” camp. Occasionally, there’s a “Weeeeell… It wasn’t awful, but it sure could’ve been better” contingent, too. As best I can tell, the residents of these camps don’t all stay together as they switch campgrounds, either. I’m not sure if it’s really this series, or that I’m a little more connected these days than I used to be that’s responsible for my observation of the effect, but nearly every episode has been divisive to some degree.
I’m all for every fan having (and voicing) their own opinion, and I know no one’s line up exactly with anyone else’s – heck, things would be boring if they did. I like to believe that most times I can wrap my brain around the differences enough to say, “I don’t agree with you, but I can understand why you feel that way.” But this time I just don’t get it.
It must come down to a visceral reaction. I don’t know whether or not I’m part of the “target audience” that’s supposed to be left cold by this reportedly awful episode, but I thought it was spectacular. It entertained me the whole way through both times I’ve seen it so far. Yes, there were bits that irritated me, but those were the parts I thought I were meant to irritate me (~cough~Angie~cough~). For the most part, I thought it did a brilliant job of its number one task: make the Cybermen scary again.
Our first hint at them, other than the animated shell, is the Cybermites (or, as I prefer to think of them, the Silverfish). Many people have a natural dislike, if not phobia, of creepy crawlies, so the idea of ones that can begin a cyber-conversion on you seems like a great way to give those viewers both heebies and jeebies.
When we finally meet our first fully functional, upgraded Cyberman, it’s immediately obvious how woefully outclassed our little “punishment platoon” is. “Holy crap!” I heard myself exclaim. “That thing has Celerity!” added the White-Wolf-RPG-playing part of my brain. Combined with the idea that they can learn how to counter attacks against them on the fly, the slow, clunky adversary of old is crap no more. Taking it all over the top is the idea that the Doctor is no longer exempt from conversion himself.
And, of course, that’s where Matt Smith shines. Nightmare is, in its way, Smith’s Human Nature. That is, it’s his chance to play someone besides the title character. The format of course plays to Smith’s strengths, allowing him to make copious use of his frenetic energy as two entities battle for control. For me, that entire subplot was full of win (not least the bit with the gold).
His Companion, on the other hand, continues to be the embodiment of everything he ever thought he wanted. She watches adoringly as he figures out how Webley’s chess-playing Cyberman really works. (Speaking of Webley, I never trusted him, but it took me till the second viewing to realize it was because I was used to thinking of him as Herrick in Being Human.) She keeps the rabble in check. And then there’s the hints of River Song-ness in her:
“The only reason I’m still alive is because I do what the Doctor says. … I trust the Doctor.”
“You think he knows what he’s doing?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
Combine all that with the way she stayed put without arguing in Cold War, and I’m starting to think the theories about her being a construct (maybe even Scaroth-like, scattered through time) to entrap the Doctor might not be so far off. She does a lot more standing back and watching him be brilliant than most of the more recent Companions have done. I could see that fitting.
On the other hand, she makes a rookie mistake in telling the Cyber Planner about their weapons strength long before stopping to wonder which entity is operating the Doctor’s mouth. At least she didn’t fall for the attempt at emotional manipulation, but he eventually got the better of her, and had some great lines, too. I loved that he pulled out not only the blatantly obvious “Allons-y!” but also the more subtle “Fantastic!” before losing control back to the Doctor, who simply told Clara, “I’ll explain later.” Brilliant.
I also loved the Doctor/Planner interface “set” design: one half all warm, yellowy and full of curves like circular Gallifreyan; the other cool, blue, and angular logical paths. As someone who writes lots of internal dialogue in her fiction, I found that a beautiful way to translate such a conversation to the screen.
Another element that I can’t help but admire as a writer is how skillfully the hints of Porridge’s real identity were sprinkled throughout the episode. Moments like having him confirm with the Captain that she’d recognized him, or her accuse him with, “You ran away!” seem innocuous in context the first time around, but in retrospect are so blatant one wonders how they passed unnoticed.
Somehow, though, young Angie is the cleverest one in the room in that respect. Frankly, all I can think of is that it must’ve been one helluva likeness on the coin, because even knowing the story on subsequent viewing, there was no way I’d ever have connected his face to that of the statue.
And now that I’m started, let me talk about how much I dislike Angie. She’s a total brat. “Hello. I’m bored?” she intones, as if she has every right in the universe to ask a platoon of soldiers to entertain her. Therein lies the truth of the character. She’s an early teen (tween?) rebelling against her guardian, and exudes the ‘tude perfectly. As my notes put it, “hate her, but accurate for her age.”
Speaking of accuracy, the one scientific nitpick I feel compelled to mention was the planet’s demise. I’m sorry, but that was very clearly an EXplosion, when what was advertised was an IMplosion. ~sigh~ I took comfort in the fact that the Emperor’s ship and everyone on it suffered from the effects of the resulting shock wave, though. That made me happy.
In fact, pretty much the whole episode made me happy. From the “plucky band of misfits” trying to defend the Empire from an unexpected Cyber-attack (“Can I hide? Is it OK if I hide?”) to the fantabulous Matt Smith/Matt Smith double act (“You’ve been eliminating yourself from history. You know, you could be reconstructed by the hole you’ve left.” “Good point. I’ll do something about that.”) to the cute-yet-creepy Silverfish (of course there had to be one left!), I thought the episode hung together vastly better than some of the others this series. As a result, this is one Nightmare from which I don’t really want to wake.
Telephone sanitisers
Put me in the “I enjoyed this” camp. Gaiman has delivered, for me, two fantastic scripts so far.
The nitpicker in me also thought “Doh, implosion not explosion” but uncharitably, when I saw the Punishment Platoon I immediately thought of the useless third of the population from Golgafrincham in Hitch Hikers Guide. This may have been a bit harsh
However accurate Angie may have been portrayed as “kevin the teenager”, I found myself hoping she would be converted which I don’t think is the intention the writer was aiming for….
Oh well, next week trundles towards us ominously
Implosion
One of my astrophysics colleagues suggests it began as an implosion, like a supernova, and the explosion was the “bounce.” While I’d already considered and discarded that explanation (I don’t think it fits the visuals), it is a decent retcon. 😉
I loved this episode but I’m still not sure about Gaiman
The Doctor’s Wife was a wonderful episode but the villains were two dimensional at best. Granted this may have been as a result of the copious rewrites or short running time but it left me wondering is Gaiman genuinely a good writer, or just good at fan wank.
Nightmare In Silver seemed upon watching to be proof that Gaiman is indeed a good writer as I couldn’t spot any flaws. It’s all wonderful, Matt Smith getting to play both hero and villain, playing off the duality of the god above and the beast below. More than that the cybermen finally have a mirror to the Doctor. I loved the idea of upgrades and how the cybermen are in effect a network of cloud computers, meaning they are tremendously intelligent but possible to trap and immobalise as a result. I loved the chess motif and how the cybermen are ultimately dealt with. Apart from the kids I thought everyone was a tremendous actor.
The problem is though, apart from the acting, everything plays to what I love and so it is perhaps still Fanwank as a good deal of people didn’t.
I loved this episode and I now know that I love Gaiman’s writing but I still don’t know if he’s actually a good Doctor Who writer.
Gaiman as edited
I’m betting that if everything in Gaiman’s script had made it to screen, it would’ve been more cohesive.
As for the episode, as you say, it hit all the right notes for me. Clearly a large number of fans have wildly different opinions from mine, as I’ve noticed in pretty much every episode this series. At least (almost) everyone has found something to like along the way…
Didn’t Like It
I didn’t care for it. Maybe you’re right about visceral reaction – my first thought was “I’m not finding this as entertaining as previous episodes of season 7.5.” I felt that a lot was left out (which Neil Gaiman confirmed on Twitter) and I absolutely hated the kids, particularly the girl. The story, itself, too, felt pointless when we learn at the end how simple it was for the emperor to stop the Cybermen and save everyone. I felt cheated, at that point. It wasn’t a horrible episode, and I loved Evil Doctor vs. Good Doctor (Matt Smith is brilliant), but it is certainly not a favorite of mine.
You may be in the majority
Given all the negative reviews, you may well be in the majority here. I would personally rank it pretty high in Series 7B, but as I mentioned in the review, the whole series seems to have split the fanbase at every turn.
I can totally see how the Emperor would (a) not want to be the one to pull the trigger, so to speak, or (b) give up his anonymity if there was even the chance that someone else could counter the threat without “drastic measures.” And yes – hated Angie, but thought I was supposed to. ~shrug~
At least we can all agree that Matt was brilliant. 😉
Cybermen not Cybermen
I did love this episode. It seems as though the Cybermen are changed forever, though. Even though the episode was about Cybermen, it also seemed not to be about traditional Cybermen. New Cybermen, that were far more insidious and creepy.
Warwick Davis is such a good actor, though. I have watched his other series, “Life’s Too Short,” and this “Doctor Who” was proof that he is as good a dramatic actor as he is a comedic actor. I just love Jason Watkins, too, although I loved him on “Being Human,” and many other things. He is an astounding actor. He was recently on “Call the Midwife” as a pastor who simply talked too much, proving he also has great comedic timing.
Matt Smith was just brilliant in this. At first, it was a bit strange, but he just got better as the episode progressed.
I just didn’t buy the girl who played Angie – too over the top as a teen, or that she was the only one who recognized Porridge as the Emperor. The other part that really didn’t make sense, and you mentioned this in your original post: at times, Clara is SO clever, and at other times, not so clever. Not only did she tell the “Cyber Doctor” about the means to destroy the planet, she leaned in so close to him that she allowed him to grab her arm and destroy the trigger that would do so!! Lesson 1 with anyone who has been compromised by an evil entity: DO NOT stand so close to him when his hands are free!! After all, the Doctor told everyone to tie him up!! What the….
Interesting and entirely plausible theory about Clara being like Scaroth. Best one I have heard so far. The only other thing I can think of is similar… she is being used by someone, somewhere in that capacity, but as a Ganger. Would account for the multiple versions of her and the memory loss.
All in all, the best episode in Series 7B, as it is being called. Gaiman did make the Cybermen scary again, especially the one could move so fast! I think Clara needs to leave the nanny job, though… she’s not that good at it.
Rule #47
That’s gotta be in the Doctor’s rulebook somewhere: Don’t say or do anything in front of a possibly possessed Doctor that you wouldn’t want the enemy to use.
Wish I could claim responsibility for that Clara theory, but it was one I saw floating around.
Again – I agree with you that the Cybermen are scary again. I did finally see an explanation of someone’s negative reaction that made sense, though. She felt the body horror had been lost, because we weren’t shown explicitly that they used to be people (no buzz saws, etc.) Frankly, I thought it was more terrifying that all they needed was a couple Silverfish/Cybermites and you were done for, and the fact that they’d been hacking up children for years… But from a distinct, on-screen perspective, I suppose I can at least see how that would make them feel less horrific to some.