Spare Parts - a review

In my local libraries, there's been some old Big Finishes popping up for once - some of the earlier releases by the looks of it. And when I saw Spare Parts, I had to get it. It's my first 'main range' one I've listened to, I think.

The story of Mondas in The Tenth Planet was always a little bit farfetched. The idea is good, but Earth having a twin planet? And one that's just like ours - presented here as having buildings and most of the technology just like London in the 1950s - what are the chances? You can tell why, in the new series when riffing off this story in Rise of the Cybermen, they decided to go down the parallel world route instead.

But aside from that, it tries to create a very realistic world, in a small scale and quiet production too. There's an air of the Sylvester McCoy years in its real world analogies - a secret police, call up papers, and in a setting of post-war Britain.



It's all about the Cybermen though - and it's the ultimate Cybermen story, because it explains properly just what they stand for, how they came about, why they changed themselves. It's grounded in the everyday (Nyssa meets a typical family - something quite new seriesy and human, which you wouldn't have seen in previous years) The original Cybermen also had very distinctive voices, which makes this story even creepier to listen to, and you're able to conjure up images of those cloth faced, skeleton-like soldiers. (Even if it sounds recognisably like Nick Briggs)

The story's job is to explain some of the reasoning behind why the Cybermen were created in the first place. There's no Davros figure in Spare Parts - though there is their apparent designer, Doctorman Allen, who is suitably realistic and morally grey. Instead, it's a story of a decline of the planet, where its computers and thinktanks have decided to cannabilise themselves to save them from natural disaster. As it was in the original backstory - but here we see it played out. It's plausible how it started - here presented as a gradual process, with plastic surgery and transplants and electronics leading to a full conversion to the 'soldiers' that we see in the show - not fighting a war, but to explore the surface of their ruined planet (bringing to mind the sight of the Cybermen in the Antarctic and on the moon!). The lack of emotions is hazier - to stop them going mad, but then the new series never worked that out completely either.

And of course, when the time comes for everyone to be 'converted', the people aren't willing. Hey, it's a better story that way.

Elsewhere, the story feels very 80s, as the TARDIS comes under attack. Being stuck in the console room midway through the story is something which happened to Nyssa more than most! And it's a superb good choice of Doctor (and era) - as well as a few inspired, wonderful references to Earthshock, there's the Genesis of the Daleks style dilemma of stopping the Cybermen's creation. Here, it's a bit loosely sketched, even if the approach is similar - one minute he can't intervene and is just exploring, the next he wants to wipe them out, and in the end the Cybermen are only half defeated. The bottom line is, it doesn’t help the adventure if he can’t interfere. But then, his wavering inaction is authentic for the Fifth Doctor.

Not everything about this story works - there's a few woolly bits in the middle, as ever- but it's great to listen to. In particular, the brilliant world-building and handling of the Cybermen is compelling and memorable - no wonder that approach was used years later by Russell T Davies. Back in 2002, this must have been the Cybermen adventure people had always wanted to see.