Review of Ascension of the Cybermen
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
The Cybermen (well, one, anyway) crashed unexpectedly onto our screens last week, beating the series finale to the punch. Even so, Ascension had some quality Cybermen content, making them legitimately chilling again.
Perhaps tellingly, though, what I found most alarming about this version of a Cyber-invasion was how Dalek-y they were. Viewing that pre-credit voiceover through the lens of current events and the rise of neo-Nazism set an alarming tone for me, making the Lone Cyberman’s final declaration of war on all life particularly unnerving.
As far as advancing the series-long story arc, though, it was difficult to get any purchase on events before the final scene (on which, more in a moment). Until then, the plot, though filled with tension for the safety of the fam, didn’t move beyond a typical Cybermen story. Yes, the Doctor’s enemies were (still) out to take over the entirety of the human race. Yes, there’s shitload of them (roughly a thousand per bay, ten bays per level, a few hundred levels works out to a few million Cyber-soldiers on this ship alone). Yes, there’s one particularly off-his-rocker Cyberman who “makes other Cybermen scream.” But it’s still just a story about the Cyberman threat.
Then those final moments arrive, and something plot-y starts to coalesce. There’s Gallifrey on the other side of the Boundary, and suddenly it’s not all about the Cybermen anymore.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about the final twist. While I wasn’t actively expecting it, neither did I find it surprising. In the back of my mind, I’ve been expecting the Master to reappear since the end of Spyfall, so his “good entrance” came across to me as more “meh.” Besides, with a title like The Timeless Children (note the plural), I can hardly believe the final episode would involve only a single Gallifreyan. (In fact, I’m just waiting for Ruth!Doctor to show up again, too.)
So despite their prominence in the episode, I actually felt the Cybermen came across as more of a macguffin than anything. They are merely a means to an end, a way to get the Doctor and her fam to Ko Sharmus and the Boundary in order to make their way to Gallifrey and whatever new weirdness awaits them. (On the up side, given the other big surprises this series, I’m actually willing to give Chibnall the benefit of the doubt this time when he has the Master tell the Doctor that “everything is about to change… forever.”)
On the up side, we got to see the Doctor be more authoritative with her friends again, reminding us all that she’s actually the one in charge. “This isn’t a discussion,” she informs them. “No questions. Get out. I’ve been so reckless with you…” It’s a great juxtaposition of authority and emotional attachment, something we don’t often get to see in either male-presenting or female-presenting characters (the former usually having authority without so much emotion, while the latter gets emotion without authority).
We also got to see Yaz, and to a certain extent Graham, step up to the plate again. Yaz really seems to be coming into her own, taking on more and more authority and being a really effective Companion. While I love watching that transformation, it makes me nervous for the future of the character. How much of the fam will make it into the next series?
On the down side, I couldn’t help but notice that although there were a mere seven humans left, only five of them ever got named on screen, and both of the unnamed humans were female-presenting. One of them died early, effectively unmourned (and uncredited), and the other—despite having several lines—was never addressed by name, even though she herself used another character’s name more than once. (For the record, the end credits list her as “Bescot.”) I realize that people who know each other well don’t necessarily use each others’ names in daily conversation, but that’s no excuse to omit the name of a speaking character from a script.
Instead, we had a completely unexplained side story woven in. Clearly Brendan the Irish foundling has something to do with either the Cybermen or Gallifrey, but we’ve been given few clues as to what. Aside from his miraculous recovery after his own fall off the Broadchurch cliff, à la Jack Harkness, our only clue to Brendan’s connection comes after his retirement ceremony. He’s confronted by his father and the police sergeant, who apparently have not aged since his childhood. Brendan doesn’t react with any sort of surprise, not even struggling when they cuff him to a chair.
Though the exact method of his torture is as opaque as the reason behind it, his mistreatment here allows one to begin to draw parallels to another part of the story. When the Lone Cyberman declares that “the ascension shall begin” and apparently drills into the chest casing on one of the Cyber-soldiers, the screams sound similar enough to Brendan’s to make me wonder if those soldiers have been dreaming of another life. At any rate, I found the entire Brendan thread to be dissonant enough that I’m really hoping for a satisfactory resolution next week.
That is, in fact, a good way to summarize my reaction to the entire episode. I found most of it engaging, some of it baffling, and bits of it delightful, but mostly I am left feeling like I’m about to step off my own cliff. Is it the beginning of a thrill ride, or a prelude to pain? I just hope that in retrospect, this episode becomes more than the sum of its cryptic parts.