User:Revenge of the Cybermen/Silver Nemesis

This text is taken from Silver_Nemesis

Silver Nemesis was the 25th anniversary serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast in the UK in three weekly parts from 23 November 1988 (the 25th anniversary) to 7 December 1988. Featuring Sylvester McCoy as Seventh incarnation of the Doctor, Silver Nemesis reflected a darker turn in Doctor Who storylines, with the intention being to reveal the secrets of the Doctor. It is the 150th story of the series.

Plot
The Doctor and Ace visit England in 1988, where three rival factions - the Cybermen, a group of Nazis and a 17th century sorceress named Lady Peinforte - are attempting to gain control of a statue made of a living metal, validium, that was created by Rassilon as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey.

Continuity
The story is similar in many respects to Remembrance of the Daleks, as Ace mentions at the end of this serial.

The Doctor
In this story, Lady Peinforte claims to be the only one to know the Doctor's true identity. When Ace says she knows the Doctor is a Time Lord, Peinforte shakes her head conspiratorially. Neither this nor any further televised story elaborates, although in a deleted scene from Remembrance of the Daleks, the Doctor claims to be "far more than just another Time Lord"; further omissions from Survival would have featured the Master challenging the Doctor's identification as a Time Lord. These elements are all part of what fans have dubbed the Cartmel Masterplan, a long-term scheme by the show's script editor to return some mystery to the show by way of questioning certain aspects of continuity — in particular the Doctor's character. Although the series was cancelled before the plan could run its course, its spirit was continued in the subsequent New Adventures novel line. (See The Other.)

Cybermen
This is the last appearance of the Cybermen in the Classic series.

Recurring Themes
The Doctor comments, with apparent seriousness, that Lady Peinforte can use black magic, the first time the series refers to magic as anything more than trickery. The Curse of Fenric later implies that Fenric himself had to some degree manipulated these events, leaving open the question as to whether Peinforte used magic or merely believed she was doing so.

Production

 * Working titles for this story included The Harbinger and Nemesis.
 * Permission was refused for filming at Windsor Castle. Scenes set there were instead shot at Arundel Castle.
 * The production team tried to get Prince Edward involved in the show, but his office politely declined. The programme eventually went out with an Elizabeth II lookalike standing in for the prince instead.
 * Writer Kevin Clarke had seen very little of Doctor Who and he met the production team without any idea of what his proposed story would be about. He made up a story on the spot in front of producer John Nathan-Turner that the Doctor is literally God, though this was not realised on-screen as Nathan-Turner forced Clarke to tone this down. Clarke also appears twice in the serial itself, playing a tourist at Windsor. The Cybermen were added later at the request of Nathan-Turner, to tie in with the programme's silver anniversary.

Locations

 * The scenes at the Gas Works where The Doctor and Ace meet and combat the Cybermen were filmed on the site that later became The O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome)
 * Several scenes were shot in woodland areas around Arundel Castle, notably the climax of Part Two, when the Doctor and Ace discuss the Cyber-threat while sitting near a fallen tree. The damaged and fallen trees which can often be seen in these shots were a result of the recent 1987 storm that had caused widespread damage throughout southern England.

Casting

 * Fiona Walker had appeared in The Keys of Marinus in 1964 as Kala.
 * The first episode of this serial features a brief guest appearance by the British jazz musician Courtney Pine as himself.
 * Leslie French, who plays the Mathematician, had turned down the role of "The Doctor" in 1963. Thus his casting was another nod to the series beginnings in this Silver Anniversary story.
 * Anton Diffring took the role so that he could travel from his home in France to watch the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Silver Nemesis was his last work as an actor before his death in 1989.

Broadcast and reception
Episodes two and three were the second and third respectively of the series ever to be premiered outside of the United Kingdom (the first being The Five Doctors), being shown as part of a compilation broadcast of the story on New Zealand's TVNZ, after part one had shown in the UK but prior to the other two being transmitted there.

Commercial releases

 * On 3 May 1993 an extended version of this three-part serial was released on VHS. Apart from featuring footage not shown in the original broadcast, the video included a documentary looking back at the production of the adventure. This documentary is not included on the 2010 DVD release.
 * The broadcast version of this serial was released on DVD as part of a Box Set with Revenge of the Cybermen on 9th August 2010.
 * Although the DVD includes bonus and extended scenes, there are scenes and dialogue omitted which were in the VHS release

In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Kevin Clarke, was published by Target Books in November 1989.