Silver Nemesis

Professor? Doctor? Who are you?

Having just reviewed the best anniversary special, why not follow it up with the worst that is an actual episode (Dimensions in Time must be treated as it's own beast)? Silver Nemesis wasn't the worst story I've ever seen but it wasn't good either.

Plot Summary

The story begins with a group of renegade Nazis in Argentina calculating the arrival of something in Windsor, England on November 23, 1988. The Nazis then gather a band of commandos to travel to England. Similarly, a woman in 1638 named Lady Peinforte has hired a learned man to calculate the arrival of a comet named Nemesis. He also calculates it's arrival in Windsor on November 23, 1988. Lady Peinforte and her companion Richard brew a potion that transports them forward in time 350 years.

The Doctor and Ace are at a jazz session when a reminder timer goes off. The Doctor can't remember why he set it and he and Ace head back to the TARDIS to figure out what it is for. On their way, they are attacked by two men with machine guns and are forced to dive into the river to escape. They arrive back at the TARDIS and the Doctor determines that the Earth is in danger. His memory triggered, the Doctor and Ace travel to the Windsor Castle armory to retrieve a silver bow. But the bow is in the hands of the Nazis. They then travel to Lady Peinforte's house in 1638 to look for a silver arrow, but find it missing along with Lady Peinforte.

The Doctor informs Ace that a comet is about to crash in Windsor containing a statue made of a living metal called Validium, developed by Rassilon and Omega for the defense of Gallifrey. Lady Peinforte found the metal and had it crafted into a statue of her with a bow and arrow. With the bow and arrow missing, the metal lacks the critical mass required to be sentient. If reunited, it will revive and serve whomever revives it to their purpose.

The Doctor and Ace travel back to Windsor to get help but are chased out of Windsor Castle after nearly meeting the Queen. The comet crashes in a field nearby and after the comet itself dispatches the police investigating it, the three searching parties approach it. The Nazis move in to kill Ace and the Doctor but are interrupted by the arrival of a Cyberman scout ship. The Cybermen also move to take possession of the statue and begin fighting the Nazis.

Lady Peinforte and Richard fire arrows with poison tipped gold heads at the Cybermen and the gold destroys a couple Cybermen while the Nazi bullets do nothing. The Cybermen destroy most of the Nazi commandos and the survivors are forced to retreat. In the confusion, the Doctor and Ace run off with the silver bow. The Cybermen take possession of the statue and move to a small castle Lady Peinforte had built as a tomb. She and Richard follow them while the Doctor and Ace set up an interference signal, jamming the communications between the Cybermen and the rest of their fleet. The Doctor then has Ace destroy the Cybermen's ship.

Knowing that she is coming with the silver arrow, the Cybermen leave the tomb castle and allow Lady Peinforte easy access. She reunites the arrow with the statue and they hold off the Cybermen temporarily with more gold tipped arrows. The Cybermen accept a proposal of alliance with the Nazis who storm the tomb, causing Richard to drag Lady Peinforte out a secret passage to escape. The Nazis, believing they still have the silver bow, prepare to betray the Cybermen but are in turn double crossed. They are shunted to the background to be converted while the Cybermen wait for the Doctor.

The Doctor and Ace arrive. They put the bow in the statue's hands before the Cybermen can take it, reviving the statue. The Doctor then takes the bow back and he and Ace flee back to the TARDIS. The statue follows of its own accord, seeking to be reunited with the bow. The Cybermen also pursue. After a quick stop at Lady Peinforte's house to clean up, the Doctor and Ace arrive back at the comet ship in Windsor. The statue arrives and acquiesces to the Doctor's wishes to return to the ship and destroy the Cybermen warships.

The Doctor works out the ship calculations while Ace holds off the Cybermen, slingshoting gold coins against them. She disables all of them, although the Cyberleader revives. The Nazis arrive to take the bow but they are shot down by the Cyberleader. Lady Peinforte and Richard arrive then as well with Lady Peinforte demanding the bow or she will reveal the secret of the Doctor's past. The Doctor ignores her and gives the bow to the Cyberleader. He places the bow in the statue's hand and prepares to launch it back to the Cyberfleet. Lady Peinforte, having descended into madness, throws herself into ship and is absorbed by the statue just before it launches.

The ship takes off and detonates in the midst of the fleet, destroying it per the Doctor's instructions. The Cyberleader moves to kill the Doctor but Richard kills him by stabbing him with a gold tipped arrow that had been lodged in the wall of the TARDIS. The Doctor and Ace then take Richard back to 1638 where they enjoy a lute session between him and a new lady friend.

Analysis

I've now watched three stories from the Seventh Doctor era and in each one, there is clear evidence that more information was filmed than was actually included in the as-aired story. I'm not including allusion to a larger story which I rather like, but instead to scenes that make reference to something that we should have seen before to understand the context. It is indicative of sloppy editing and poor story planning and it seems to be a recurring theme in the Seventh Doctor era.

That point aside, this is not a very good story. One of the few good things it has going for it is that all the actors do well. The Doctor and Ace are enjoyable and the Cyberleader especially is an enjoyable adversary. I've heard some fans dislike Lady Peinforte but I found nothing wrong with her portrayal and any problems that lay with her character for me were strictly with the writing.

So lets get to the writing. As an action story to appeal to seven to ten year old boys, this story would do alright. But there are number of things that are dreadful about this story. None of the characters are well fleshed out and much of their dialogue is somewhat crudely written. It's a credit to the actors that with a few exceptions here and there, the characters don't descend into complete over-the-top camp for most of the story.

Two particular bits of silliness that stood out were the use of Lady Peinforte's potion to travel through time and the Cybermen weakness against gold. Potions have been used on the show before in the form of the Elixir of Life, but those strictly affected body chemistry, for which a potion is aptly suited. How does the ingestion of a potion enable one to breach the time barrier and jump forward 350 years? Likewise, gold was introduced as a Cyberman weakness in Revenge of the Cybermen, but there it was in the form of gold dust which would clog the Cybermen's mechanisms. This is a reasonable weakness given the known properties of gold. To change that so that a small amount of gold will destroy a Cyberman if it pierces the chest plate makes absolutely no sense. It's a cheap and easy "magic bullet" that can take down an otherwise invincible enemy.

The actions of the characters started somewhat reasonable but they devolved into a Benny Hill style of silliness. Of particular note was the Doctor's putting the bow in the statue's hands at the beginning of Episode Three. He and Ace play an elaborate game of keep away with the Cybermen until the Doctor places it in the statue's hands. It makes the Cybermen look utterly incompetent and should have simply shot the Doctor down several times over. Similarly, Lady Peinforte's descent into madness is odd in both it's development and manifestation. There is no good reason for it to happen as there is no driving point where she is shown something that will tip her over the edge. Instead it is just madness for the sake of convenience. Her ride back to Windsor with the rich American woman is also something very strange. It serves no purpose except to give this other woman a few scenes to play around in. It's an odd bit of filler.

If you turn your brain back into what excited you as an eight-year old, Silver Nemesis has a certain level of enjoyment, although you wouldn't understand the plot in the least. From an adult perspective though, it's pretty bad and gets worse as the story goes forward. I will give it a little bit of slack in that I was never bored by it, nor did I ever groan at the acting, which are my two biggest peeves when watching television. For that, I'll rank it slightly higher than many others probably would. But it's still not something I'm going to pull off the shelf to watch again.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5