Legend of the Cybermen

"This place brings creatures from your imagination to life."

Writer: Mike Maddox

Format: Audio

Released: June 2010

Series: Monthly Adventures 135

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Jamie, Zoe

Synopsis

The Cybermen are on the march through the Hundred Realms, killing and converting as they go. Resistance is useless.

Trapped on the outermost fringes of the battle, the Doctor and Jamie are astonished to encounter an old friend: astrophysicist Zoe Heriot. It's the happiest of reunions.

But what hope is there of a happy ending against the unstoppable Cybermen?

Verdict

Legend of the Cybermen was an excellent audio adventure to continue the Monthly Adventures journey and to finish the set of stories featuring the Sixth Doctor and Jamie! This time the unique pairing were joined by Zoe which was magnificent, and it actually turns out that Jamie wasn't Jamie at all which worked well as far as the stories within this mini-season of adventures are concerned. I liked how everything came full circle going to back City of Spires and The Wreck of the Titan and I loved how the ink concurrent theme came into full fruition as it was quite literally what was used to represent being turned into fiction. That's such a fun idea and it was subtly included in the previous adventures. I liked that a lot. The moment where Zoe and Jamie are reunited is a lot of fun because Jamie has no memories of her. Zoe has the abilities to return Jamie's memories to him though which was brilliant, although I was expecting some sort of revelation or motive from Jamie that revealed he wasn't who he said he was. In this instance, he didn't know he wasn't who he was supposed to be! I thought it was obvious that Zoe was going to be revealed as the Mistress of the Land of Fiction, but the twist that there were two versions of her made it a good moment and element in the story. The return to the Land of Fiction itself was a brilliant idea and I adore the concept of placing the Cybermen there! For a species so concerned with logic, having them tackle imagination in the form of fiction is such a good idea. I thought the choice of Cybermen was good because they resembled the White Robots and could easily be indistinguishable with the guards of the Void around the Land of Fiction, but their voices could have been a bit more booming. Their desire to be rid of fiction and replace it with fact was outstanding, and I just love the idea of them trying to eliminate imagination. That's a wonderful motive for the Cybermen. Some of the narrative storytelling was good, but I do think there could have been something better than just shifting from one voice to the other when it came to the scenes where fiction was being created. I appreciate that's difficult in the audio format though. Jamie realising that his blood was black ink was a superb moment and I was quite impressed with how he embraced this life changing development. He wasn't who he thought he was but he dealt with it well and in a calm manner. The story of Zoe following the events of The Wheel in Space and her return to those moments following The War Games was very powerful and the Doctor's reaction to hearing what she had gone through to end up in the Land of Fiction was fantastic. Colin Baker gelled well with Wendy Padbury and it was great to have Zoe back with the Doctor after so long. It was tough to hear how the Doctor lost her, well her memories, once again as the story concluded but that only added to the emotion. It was a lot of fun to have the Karkus back again, and the way the Cybermen were ultimately defeated was very good even if it was a bit predictable. It's so much fun to eliminate by fictionalising. Overall, a really great listen!

Rating: 9/10