The Silver Turk (2011) Review

The Silver Turk is a chilling, gothic take on the Cybermen, possibly their best outing to date.

WRITTEN BY

Marc Platt, writer of the iconic Cyberman origin story Spare Parts(so we're in good hands) and the televised Seventh Doctor story Ghost Light.

PLOT

The Doctor tempts fate by taking iconic writer Mary Shelley on a spin in the TARDIS, landing 57 years into the future where she's forced to confront her future in more ways than one...

ANALYSIS

The use of Cybermen in this story is extraordinary. Usually, their lost humanity is explored(if at all) through their lack of empathy for us. But by putting them in a pitiable position, we're invited to feel empathy for them. We give them humanity as we do with say, ships or swords and for a while, we're lead to believe the Cybermen could change.

But then that dream is cruelly snatched away as the Cybermen slowly reassert their sole interest in survival - at all costs. Marking it the second of only two stories(the first being their 1966 debut) to really show the Cybermen as having a psychology of their own. They're not just automatons, they are ACTUALLY reasonable people who see things in their own, macabre way.

I also really enjoyed the choice of Mary Shelley as the Eighth Doctor's companion, given the Frankenstein homage in The TV Movie, and subtly seeing how this story planted the seeds of it in her mind.

On a more negative side, however, the pacing was extremely languid. I was dead certain that each episode was an hour long when in reality, it was essentially a classic four-parter(25 min x 4). The historical setting is scarcely used outside of establishing the Turk so the time we spent on actually getting to it feels a bit wasted.
And then there's the whole melodrama surrounding Cyber-puppets and brainwashed scientists that could have and should have been simplified a great deal to make room for the integral story of the Cybermen and Mary Shelley. It felt like the story went off track more times than one.

CHARACTERS

Another major problem is that outside of a cliched "lovably cabby driver" named Bratfisch(played with salt of the earth charm by David Schneider), the Doctor and Mary don't really run into a likable character. And heck, even he ultimately ditches them in favor bed and breakfast.

Christian Brassington's Alfred Stahlbaum teeters on the edge between good and evil, but is far too self-centered to ever consider giving up the Turk, going all Gollum about it in the story's second half. The fact that he apparently ended up marrying Midzi is just ridiculous(he should've just ended up in a nuthouse given his mental breakdown).

Gareth Armstrong's(that guy from The Masque Of Mandragora who looked exactly like David Tennant) Drossel is the most irritating kind of villain. You know the type: constantly has a smug, condescending smile on his lips and laughs on cue at literally everything you do. He adds nothing to the story and should've been cut in favor of adding more character to Alfred(who at least is painted in shades of grey).

Gwilym Lee is Count Rolf Wittenmeier, and again he is too upset at his own failure to consider anybody else's feelings(most notably his clearly distressed wife's) and as such, the sympathy is lost. I get the idea is to have us emotionally attach to the Cybermen, but their appereances are brief in comparison to the establishment of these people, and then the Doctor's neverending interrogations of them, so the balance is lost.

Claire Wyatt's Countess Mitzi Wittenmeier is one of the more helpful characters, but is still fairly submissive, letting a clearly deranged Alfred loose with the dangerous Turk simply due to their past friendship.

Fortunately on the flip side, the heroes and real villains of the story are magnificient. Paul McGann... I don't know what he does, but he does it well. The Eighth Doctor is straightforward, a gentleman with the ability to effortlessly command attention. Julie Cox(love her work in the underrated sci-fi franchise Dune as Princess Irulan Corrino) is wide-eyed, yet reasonably cautious about entering a new world of gods and monsters. She comes off as an intelligent person enamored by the future, yet also frightened by what she doesn't understand. And she's terrific.

NOTES

*The scene in which the Cybermen power themselves up with "heaven's fire" on a churchtop amidst a storm is my new favourite scene with the Cybermen as a whole.

*I love how indifferent the Doctor is to the destruction of his sonic screwdriver. Of course he has another one in the cupboard, yet every single time he so much as cracks his sonic on the show, the fans immediately assume it's gone forever(see: shades, sonic). And yes, I do know that actually happened in The Visitation, but considering we're still talking about the sonic screwdriver today, I'd say that didn't work out so well.

*There's something amazing about Mary offering to travel with the Cyberman in the future, and him actually accepting. How did he envision it? Probably with her being converted, no doubt...

*The theme tune here is a lame rip-off of Murray Gold's 2000s theme.

*What's up with the long intermission where they play the whole "Something's cooking tonight" song?

*Speaking of that song, apparently these ARE the original lyrics to "Silent Night, Holy Night." Well, the more you know...

*I feel that Briggs overdid the distortion on the damaged Cyberman's voice. It was like trying to listen to a Mechanoid.

*I really have to start taking notes when I'm listening to Big Finish. I usually do them on my phone, but for the sake of convenience, that is also where I download the audios. And have you any idea how hard it is to find a scene with only audio? It's hard.

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) The Doctor reveals to Mary that he was present at the creation of the Mondasian Cybermen, which occurred in Spare Parts. A fairly understandable callback, given the story and writer.

BEST QUOTE

"Go to hell, sir." - Best Cyberman line ever?

CONCLUSION

One of the absolute best Cybermen stories, if you can get past the dull characters around them.