7.7: Silver Nemesis

In which we watch Remembrance, again! But worse.

Broadcast: November-December 1988

Watched: February 2021

A thought about the opening titles. Does the winking silver Sylv do as much to suggest alien mystery as his performance? Anyway:

Silver Nemesis, Part One

“You mean the world’s gonna end and you’ve forgotten about it?” “I’ve been busy.”

Actually rather enjoyed that. More than I expected at least, because I remembered it being rubbish. The arrival of the Cybermen feels oddly like overkill though, we already have three factions in play.

I like the attempt at communicating scale. South America, two time zones, the fourth reich reference, the asteroid... hilarious that they show de Flores is a baddun by showing him about to shoot a parrot in cold blood. As if we didn’t already know he was a Nazi.

I did enjoy Peinforte and Richard time travelling into the little cafe which now occupies her house.

The bit where some living metal emerges from the ground and gases some policemen is cool. And Ace wears a FEZZ!

But Sylv looks unusually uncomfortable – is this because he’s under rehearsed? The Queen bit should be fun but he’s too broad and klutzy in his performance.

Who on the production team was obsessed with jazz, then?

Silver Nemesis, Part Two

The flaws are more evident here. The opening action sequence is quite dull. Oh who among this variety of faceless villains will win. Who cares? It isn’t visually interesting enough to make up for this problem and it goes on forever.

The spaceship effect is done way better in Remembrance, too. Also having the Doctor and Ace ambling about whistling or lying down listening to jazz mid episode doesn’t do a *great* job of making it feel like the world is in danger.

The stuff involving the graves, and the Cybermen moving to kill Peinforte in her own, is ridiculously under-exploited.

On the upside: the Doctor distracting the guards so that Ace can blow up the ship. The “Social workers!” joke is funny. Richard being terrified of alpacas is lovely.

The cliffhanger is rubbish though. Worst model work in years, the cyber fleet is a flat image with some lights on it ffs.

Silver Nemesis, Part Three

“I’m really, really scared, Doctor.” Bored I could have believed, but scared? Bit tell not show. Also since she manages to wipe out an entire army of Cybermen single handedly somehow, this all seems rather unfounded.

Anyway. The Cybermen are the least threatening they’ve ever been. Remembrance did the exact same plot better – and the show doesn’t make anything of this, even though you could have the Nemesis comment on it. (No hang on Ace says it at the end, that’s something.) Fenric will go on to do the chess metaphor better. After a promising episode one it’s just not really finished.

De Flores says the Doctor is no common adversary based on pretty much nothing, they’ve barely met. It feels like we’ve missed an episode.

Something that feels like it typifies the problem: the final confrontation happens when everyone descends on this... hanger? I think? But it’s not clear where it is or what it’s for. It’s just a big room. Also when you know they hadn’t rehearsed [the 1988 BBC asbestos crisis] you can see how badly blocked it is.

Another problem – Lady Peinforte threatens to reveal something about the Doctor and everyone else says “That sounds really boring mate, who cares”.  So why should we care?

I like the lizard at the beginning. That was a good bit. Also Peinforte having a mini freak out at the way Richard would risk his life for her.

But why does Lady P throw herself into the nemesis before it takes off? What the f-? The rocket effects suck, too.

The scenes with the American isn’t *that* bad but they come way too late in the story – it means that, as everything should be reaching a climax, instead we keep cutting away to a comedy subplot.

The creepy talking weapon statue isn’t as creepy as it should be given that combination of words.