Look, I'm not fat shaming, I agree with Peter from Average Joes I think you are awesome just the way you are. What I am saying, though, is that if you are a Mondasian who has decided to bit-by-bit replace his entire body with cybernetic parts, and rise the through the ranks of Cybermen to become the CyberController, wouldn't you pick... slimmer parts?

He's not fat, he's big boned

Let's talk about that.

Attack of the Cybermen - Part 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

I am chagrined to say that the second half of the story is every bit as good as the first. The plot threads all come together, there are plenty of plot points that honor the history of the Cybermen, there is the surprising introduction of another alien race, and an even more surprising plot twist regarding Lytton. This is genuinely good stuff!

Ultimately the whole thing hinges on the notion that, after their homeworld of Mondas was destroyed (you remember The Tenth Planet, right?), and after the Cybermen made Telos their new home (you remember The Tomb of the Cybermen, right?), there was an indigenous Telosian species called the Cryons who were displaced and very nearly wiped out. Now the Cybermen have gotten their hands on a time machine, and have decided to secretly invade and destroy the Earth in 1985 so that it will no longer be there to destroy Mondas in 1986. The Cryons, it turns out, have managed to contact and hire Lytton to help them prevent this disaster, and the Doctor and Peri have blundered right into the middle of the whole thing.

The turn of character with Lytton was handled very nicely. It's not so much that he was a good guy, he is still totally a mercenary, but had the Doctor not completely dismissed him as a villain and a collaborator then things might have ended differently. Ultimately the Cybermen are of course defeated and the Earth is saved, but at the expense of Lytton's life as well as the lives of several Cryons and several other human slaves. The last scene has the Doctor completely humbled, and continuing to struggle with exactly the things that Tegan called him on when she left a few stories earlier.

The most interesting and notable thing about the writing of this story is that there are multiple people who claim authorship, with varying degrees of believability. Certainly script editor Eric Saward wrote the entirety of the final shooting script, using a pen derived from his neighbor who provided at least some degree of contributions to the story. Unofficial continuity consultant Ian Levine claims to have written the entire outline of the story, which Saward flatly denies. There is no question that a lot of the details and references to previous Cybermen stories came from Levine. There is just no concrete evidence as to how much he contributed in terms of actual plot and character, and how much was just feeding the correct details in the right places. 

In any case, I am very pleasantly surprised at how quickly the show turned around after the travesty of The Twin Dilemma. Prior to this project, the only complete Sixth Doctor story I have ever watched is Revelation of the Daleks, and I'm here to tell you that one ain't great. So now I am fervently hoping that the majority of Colin Baker's run will be more on the Cybermen end of the spectrum and very much less on the Daleks end. Fingers crossed!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Sixth
Companion(s): Peri
Episode(s): Attack of the Cybermen - Part 1
Steps Walked: 7,542 today, 2,233,784 total
Distance Walked: 4.27 miles today, 1,149.71 miles total
Weight: 247.32 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.98 lbs