Everybody has pet peeves that matter to them but seemingly to nobody else. For me, right near the top of the list is any title that uses the construction "Rise of the (fill in the blank)". It ranks right up there with the phrase "the one that started it all" and with song lyrics about tall mountains and wide rivers. I can't tell you precisely why those things annoy me. I mean, sure, they are all lazy and trite, but there are plenty of lazily trite phrases in the world that don't bother me at all. But give me a story that starts with "Rise of the..." and you have already lost me.

So you can imagine how I felt when, in order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first appearance of the Cybermen, Doctor Who went with Rise of the Cybermen for the story title. *shudder*  So let's talk about that.

Rise of the Cybermen

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

I totally understand the motivations for this story. Showrunner Russel T Davies wanted to bring back another iconic monster from the classic series, without having to deal with a convoluted history. For the Daleks he had simply wiped them all out in the Great Time War and then brought back a small force of them. No fuss, no muss, all of the weird and contradictory Dalek history made irrelevant. He couldn't exactly use that excuse again, so this time around he went with a parallel universe and the creation of a brand new race of Cybermen with no long backstory. It just seems disingenuous to celebrate the 40th anniversary of something in one hand while your other hand is furiously wiping out that entire history.

The plot basically has the Doctor being a dick towards Mickey, like he usually is, and Rose putting up with it like she usually does. Strangely, Mickey does not take it well. It's almost like he is an actual human person with feelings or something. The upshot of the Doctor's dickishness is that the TARDIS gets shunted off into an alternate reality where Pete Tyler didn't die, Rose was never born, and the skies are filled with zeppelins. Because, sure, whatever.

The TARDIS is out of commission for 24 hours until the magical Whatever Crystal can regenerate enough power to take them back to Earth Prime. Mickey runs off on his own, and ends up face to face with his own Doppelganger who in this world is named Ricky. See, that's a joke, because it's what the Doctor kept calling Mickey last season because (as previously mentioned) the Doctor us usually a dick towards Mickey for no discernable reason.

Meanwhile Rose runs off to see her ParallelDad, with the Doctor in tow. Also meanwhile, an evil billionaire inventor has invented Cybermen as a way to prevent his own death. Much hilarity ensues, some of it involving a cheerful rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight as a bunch of homeless men are turned into Cybermen. The big climax comes as squadrons of silver warriors crash Jackie Tyler's big 40th 39th birthday party bash.

I joke, but this is a perfectly decent story. I do like the updated Cybermen design, and I particularly like that the little teardrop notch was added back to the eyes, having been missing in the classic series since 1975's Revenge of the Cybermen. There's a fun bit where Rose discovers that, not only does she not exist on this world, but that instead her mother has a yappy little punt dog name Rose instead. It's a nice flip of Mickey's "I'm the tin dog" moment two stories ago. 

It was also nice to watch the complete and uncut version of this episode. This one runs slightly longer (by about a minute) than usual, and when it initially aired in the US on the SciFi channel they trimmed it down. Most notably, the happy musical conversion scene was cut out almost completely. I don't know that I have watched this episode since then, and it was fun to get the full thing.

One other random thing about today:  I managed 76 pushups! How amazing is that??

Tomorrow: the Cybermen finish rising and start aging.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Pete Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Ricky Smith
Episode(s): The Rise of the Cybermen
Steps Walked: 7,713 today, 2,680,825 total
Distance Walked: 4.40 miles today, 1,395.43 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 76 today, 681 total
Weight: 250.62 lbs (five day moving average), net change -56.68 lbs