DW: Episode 7.2.7

Before we get into it... I like the new Cybermen design. Looks more sleek and stylish, and... yeah, not as clunky as the old design. But never more have we had a Borg look-a-like conversion...

The setting of the theme park... was rather disappointing. It was either an obvious and bad set, or CGI work. And there was a lot of CGI work. And it didn't add anything to the Cybermen battle other than providing a fake looking castle (sets are: open yard, bridge, and bulwark). And was it a Cyber tomb before or after the planet got converted? (If before, how does it all connect up? If after, it was deliberate?? Either way, I have no idea where the tomb was because that wasn't well explained... at all.)

Jenna gets to play Clara on rather generic 'oh, I'm a good (as in capable) girl with no particularly exciting character characteristics to distinguish me from any other generic capable girl'. But then Clara has had this problem in every script. Matt, on the other hand... gets to put on a rather bizarre dual performance. I would have liked to see a bigger difference between the two characters (I know one point is that they aren't easy to tell apart, but...). Can Matt only provide one bizarre character and Neil wrote a script to allow for that? (Not to mention his rather odd performance of his previous incumbents.)

But best performance is obviously Warwick Davis. He's the only one that can actually deliver a serious and believable character.

I haven't felt the Cybermen are a threat for many a time now. And this... doesn't really change that. They are at their best when there are only a few of them taking on many and beating them. Having lots of them is always going to suggest a big wipe out is coming, but a small group leads to a more personal and intense battle when they can be more in your face about their unbeatability.

Moments of this script were good, but there is a lot in this episode I would cut out.

Next time: The biggest arc ever... looks to severely disappoint.

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