Finally got around to finishing off my recap of Doctor Who: Rise of the Cybermen. I actually had it mostly finished by the end of the original broadcast, but needed to get the time to watch the episode again to catch everything, and give it all a polish.

All-in-all, a solid Part 1, that sets up an interesting situation, and a good solid character arc for Mickey, where previous plot threads come full circle at last. Noel Clarke in particular puts in a very good performance.

The episode gives us a fresh look at an old enemy, with the good production values we’re now getting used to. Slightly let down by an overacting villain, but that happens occasionally.

Full recap to follow, so obviously spoilers ahoy.

So we start with a mysterious Someone in a high-tech wheelchair who seems to want to make – or possibly re-make – Cybermen. Standard Doctor Who evilness. Muahahaha. His “Overacting” button appears to be stuck. Mr. Evil is John Lumic, according to the proto-Cyberman. His minion tries to tell Mr. Evil that the Geneva won’t approve, due to the “Bio Convention”. He should know better. Lumic orders the proto-Cyberman to kill Dr. Minion, and Dr. Minion perishes in a blaze of electricity. Lumic gives orders to set sail to Great Britain.

Now we’re with the Doc and the Tardis crew. A bit of Rose and the Doctor reminiscing over stuff, showing how much of an outsider Micky is. It turns out Mickey’s been holding a button about half an hour longer than he should have needed to, as the Doctor just forgot about him. Mean of the Doctor. And Rose, for that matter. I wonder if there’s hazing involved for the new boy.

Suddenly, there are sparks. Things have Gone Wrong. Explosions, shaky camera, thud. Oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. Heh. The Doctor attempts to make us believe that the Tardis is dead. Yeah, right. He does sell it well, but absolutely nobody watching believes him. I certainly don’t.

Supposedly the Tardis has fallen out of the Time Vortex, and landed “Nowhere”. But Micky, not trusting the Doctor’s opinion (which seems wiser than for previous incarnations) has spotted London outside. Only it’s not normal London, it’s got weirdness, including zepplins overhead. Micky again shows he’s not thick by declaring this a parallel universe. And according to a bus shelter poster it turns out Rose’s Dad Pete is alive in this world – and a success! Spooky.

The Doctor is very, very afraid of Rose’s reaction to seeing Alt-Pete’s likeness on the bus shelter. He says Rose can’t see him – not ever. This seems a little strong, but then, given that the last time she saw a Pete, she managed to nearly destroy all of time and space, perhaps it’s warrented.

Cut to: a swank mansion, a swank car. Licence plate: PETE 1. I can see where this is heading. Out of the swank car in the swank driveway of the swank car steps swank Alt-Pete in a swank suit with a yellow boquet of flowers. “It’s only me!”

He is met by… Oh, dear god, Alternative Jackie! Good gravy! She’s every bit as bad as you could imagine she’d do with money. She’s very very unhappy with Alt-Pete, as Alt-Pete has put up Happy Birthday banners that have Alt-Jackie’s true age. The Cad! To top things off, he hasn’t even bought her a zepplin for her birthday! She does, however, have nice earphone-things that Mr. Lumic sent round special. Now’s probably the time to mention that everyone appears to be wearing these things – small headphones stuck to each ear.

Alt-Jackie’s earpods can pick up signals from Venezuala, but Alt-Pete wonders why that would be a good thing.

We also have Alt-Rose! Otherwise known as a small dog.

Alt-Pete is phoned by Mr. Lumic, on the earpods. Alt-Pete thanks Mr. Lumic for the earpods – Mr. Lumic says they’re hand-made, so please take care. It appears Alt-Pete is in league with Mr. Lumic, or at least working for him. Mr. Lumic is flying in so that “The President of Great Britain” can make a decision. Alt-Pete’s not sure he can make it, but Mr. Lumic insists.

After a hit of oxygen, Mr. Lumic uses his control of Alt-Jackie’s Earpieces of Evil to take Jackie over. People unfamiliar with Cybermen might not recognise the ear-handle-with-light-on-top arrangement. He downloads all the security information for the birthday party. He then vidphones is head minion, Mr. Crane, telling him that he will need “extra staff”. Mr. Crane sets off in an ominous truck.

The Doctor berates Mickey for letting Rose wander off. Mickey calls the Doctor on worrying about Rose, and not him. The Doctor kicks the TARDIS, which apparently helped, and hurt.

Rose finds herself a park bench, and watches the Zepplins. Her mobile phone beeps for attention, and to her surprise it is now showing her the news. The News tells us that John Lumic, the creator of “High Content Metal” isn’t actually suffering from ill health.

The Doctor exposits that the TARDIS draws its power from the Universe – but this is the wrong Universe. Mickey says everyone’s hopping from alternate to alternate in the comics, but the Doctor explains the doors between alternative were closed when the Time Lords died. Suddenly, the Doctor spots one green light in the depths of the TARDIS. Well well, looks like the TARDIS isn’t dead after all. Colour me surprised.

The Lumic Minions take their Minionmobile to pick up homeless people, luring them with hot food. A strangely unstarved man exposits that people have been going missing, and please don’t go into the truck, Mr. Homeless man. But do they ever ilsten? Well, no. But the unstarved man has a camcorder! He records people going into the truck, and then the sudden screams from within.

El Doc finds the light, which turns out to be a tiny power cell, and breaths life into it, quite literally. Rose, on her bench, uses her phone and its new-found Internet connection to research her family. Meanwhile, the Doctor explains the power cell will recharge in 24 hours. We’re saved! Well, saved in 24 hours. So now the parallel world is less horribly dangerous than it was scant seconds ago, and wandering about is no problem. Handy.

Rose has found out she’s unique – there’s no Alt-Rose, according to the Internet, even though Alt-Pete and Alt-Jackey Alt-married. Apparently the Internet doesn’t mention little canine Rose. Rose says she’s going to meet them, and Mickey suddenly appears to have somewhere to go – which is a bit of a surprise to the Doctor. As Mickey says, we don’t know anything about him. They go their separate ways, leaving the Doctor to choose which one to follow. Micky makes the point that it’s always Rose, and the Doctor is forced to agree. Micky looks like he’s in danger of actually growing a pair, hinting he might not come back to the TARDIS if he gets a better offer.

The President of Great Britain and Pete meet up before going to see Mr. Evil. They chat a bit, enough for Alt-Pete to mention his company got bought up by Lumic’s Cybus Industries, and for the President to imply he thinks Mr. Lumic’s a nutter.

Micky goes… well, wherever he’s going. He has to go through an army checkpoint, but “curfew doesn’t start ’til 10″. Well well. Turns out the “Toffs” live in the zepplins.

Rose tells us and the Doctor about Micky’s sad past. Abandoned by both parents, raised by Gran, who died five years ago, falling down the stairs. Rose and the Doctor begin to realise how little they know Mickey. Rose wonders if Gran is still alive here, and the Doctor basically shrugs and repeats his “Gingerbread house” motif.

Then something beeps around them, and everyone nearby just freezes. Oooh. The earpods have little flickering blue lights, flickering in unison. Rose’s phone is also affected, and downloads various things. The Doctor exposits that everything’s connected together. Everyone gets the same information from Cybus Industries each day, downloaded straight into their heads. Not suspicious at all, this. And now it turns out Pete’s company is actually involved in it all, the Doctor reluctantly agrees to go see.

Micky goes to (presumably) his Grans. She’s blind. Interesting. She recognises his voice, but thinks he’s called Ricky. She thought he might have been dissapeared.

Gran has been worried that (R/M)ickey got himself dissapeared, like so many others. Mickey notices that Gran’s stair carpet is dangerously ragged, and says he should have fixed it. “I guess I’m just kind of useless.” Aw. This is obviously feeding into his experiences with the Doctor and Rose and everything else up to this point. Nice acting from Micky.

Gran tells (R/M)icky she’s unhappy with his new friends. Micky is confused, but conveniently the friends turn up in a blue van and kidnap him. Camcorder Boy tells (R/M)ickey that he now has evidence of people being snatched. The van driver, an older woman with a Welsh accent, traced the truck back to Cybus Industries. They take surprisingly long to work out Mickey’s not who he says he is, in that they don’t. (R/M)ickey’s apparently now the number one wanted person in London, thanks to the loss of “Thin Jimmy”.

Mr. Lumic tells the President and other luminaries he’s perfected the long awaited Brain-In-A-Jar project. The brain sits in a vat of “Copyrighted Chemicals”. Heh New advances allow the BIAJ to control a metal exo-skeleton. Lumic calls this the “Ultimate Upgrade”.

The President forbids further research on the brain jar, ‘cos it’s evil, and leaves. Mr. Evil is unhappy. Alt-Pete says they could always try New Germany, but Mr. Evil wants to do it in Britain, dammit.

Head Minion Mr. Crane shows off the latest batch of homeless people, all nicely under control, to Mr. Lumic. Mr. Crane is ordered to start the “upgrade”, despite the lack of permission. The men are marched off to a red room, whenre even under complete control, they scream. Can’t be good. We fade out on a rather unpleasant-looking surgery robot, to strains of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. We get an establishing shot of Battersey Power Station, which presumably is Cyber Central.

Action Micky and the Alt Squad (the driver is name-checked as “Mrs. Moore”) arrive at their base, and are alarmed that someone is already there. They charge in, and meet Alt-(M/R)icky, who is bemused by the new addition. Guns are drawn. Very few point Ricky’s way, much to Mickey’s chagrin.

Doc and Rose crash Alt-Jackie’s birthday bash. It’s all very swish. D&R disguise themselves as wait staff, much to Rose’s irritation. However, I’m sure everyone who isn’t interested in Billie Piper in a Maid’s uniform will be interested in David Tennent in a tuxedo.

The President of Great Britain is in attendance, it seems.

Alt-Pete gives a speech. Rose is affected by the sight of her not-quite-Dad. Alt-Jackie is introduced, to applause. She gives a speech about not giving a speech, and orders everyone to enjoy. Rose discovers the existence Alt-Rose (canine), which cracks the Doc up.

Head Minion Mr. Crane goes to inspect some marching boots, attatched to out of focus things that we aren’t supposed to realise are Cybermen. As his zepplin arrives at the power station, Mr. Lumic declares they are to be sent forth.

Micky is being scanned by the Alt Squad, and is declared clean. Ricky interrogates Micky. Some eyeline trouble on the effects, but the performance(s) are good. Ricky exposits that the Alt Squad are the remaining unplugged people in London. They’re after Mr. Evil. Mickey is a little dubious about how they’re going to get him from their kitchen. But he quickly says it’s a nice kitchen.

Just then, they get word from “Gemini” that Mr. Lumic is on the move. They’re following on.

The Minion Truck of Evil drives past, and the Altmobile follows. Micky is in the back of the Altmobile, as they arm up with AKs. Ricky drives.

The Doc wanders past a computer terminal, and curiosity gets the better of him.

While Alt-Jackie laughs with the President, Alt-Pete talks to Rose, who offers him champagne in her waitressly persona. She learns that Alt-Jackie kept putting of kids in order to keep her figure. Alt-Pete tells Rose that Alt-Pete and Alt-Jackie are splitting up on the quiet, and in fact he’s already moved out. Rose appears to have a face he can trust, strangely enough. He suddenly moves off to talk to “Stevey” about how things are going at “Torchwood”. Even Parallel universes are not immune to the power of spin offs.

The Alt Squad follow the Truck of Evil to Pete Tyler’s house, the apparent target. Mrs. Moore, who appears quite the hacker, seems to have a handle on the house’s security.

Boots come out of the Truck of Evil. Rickey and Camcorder Boy watch, worried.

Rose brings champagne to Alt-Jackie on the porch. They chat. Rose tries to bring Alt-Jackie and Alt-Pete back together, but gets an earful of snobbery instead. Exaunt Alt-Jackie, nose in the air. Rose gets the first full-on look at the Cybermen approaching the porch.

The Doctor, watching the “Brain-in-a-vat” video on on the computer, puts two and two together. He finds Rose, and tells her these are Cybermen. Alt-Cybermen, I suppose.

The Cybermen crash the party, quite literally. Mr. Lumic phones, and talks to the President, as the Doctor exposits that the Cybermen are living brains in metal bodies, with no emotions, “Because it hurts”. Mr. Lumic leaves the guests in the tender mercies of the Cybermen.

The Cybermen claim to be “Human point 2″. They will give everyone a free upgrade, and “delete” everyone who refuses. The Human == Computer analogy officially just got old. They “delete” (i.e. electricute) the President. Chaos and killing ensue. The Doctor grabs Rose and they run.

The Cybermen seem to be doing a heck of a lot more deleting than they are upgrading. Hm.

Alt-Jackie runs to the cellar, pursued by Cyberboots that only just fit on the stairs.

The Alt-Squad arrive, guns blazing uselessly. Rose hugs Rickey, to the amusement of all. Well, me, anyway.

They are surrounded by Cybermen, and the Doctor attempts to surrender, and volunteer for the Upgrade progam. The Cybermen don’t seem to care much. They declare the Doctor and company to be “rogue elements” to be deleted!

By the way, “Delete” is not anything remotely as good a catchphrase as “Exterminate”, and they are wrong to try.

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