Extinction

"The Cybermen will not tolerate weakness."

Writer: James Swallow

Format: Audio

Released: December 2009

Series: Cyberman 2.04

Featuring: Samantha, Barnaby

Synopsis 

In the war for the future,

Fear is the only weapon.

The Cybermen are triumphant; nothing can stand in their way. First they will absorb mankind, and obliterate their android spawn; then they will stride the stars once more, to transform the galaxy into an empire of icy, flawless logic. The battle must end; only one race will emerge victorious.

Verdict 

Extinction was a fantastic audio adventure to sadly bring a close to the second, and thus far final, series of the Cyberman spinoff series. I've now quickly matched my listening of Dalek Empire and whilst both spinoff series are extremely different, I think they're both actually of similar quality and I do think it's a great shame that there has yet to be a third Cyberman series. Dalek Empire went on a four series run but I must admit that whilst I'm saddened that this series only did two series, I can see why there hasn't been a third as everything concerning the Cybermen was mopped up nicely. I'll get to the ending later on though as there was a lot that led up to it. My favourite part of the audio had to be the reunion of Samantha and Barnaby after they were separated at the end of Outsiders at the start of this series. It hasn't been quite the same in the last two stories having them apart so it was wonderful to hear them reunited during this audio. It was a great shame how things panned out for them at the end but I did like how we heard Samantha reveal her true feelings about Liam. She loved him. We already knew he loved her so it was brilliant to see an android and a human in love during the midst of the Orion War. They had united against a common enemy and even Samantha's android identity would soon be known to more than just Hazel after she found out at the close of Machines. Yan and Dane were very good in this story and I also enjoyed the idea of a rebel rising against the Cybermen. I mentioned in yesterday's blog that I thought the small numbers of Cybermen would prove to be a weakness and that was ultimately the case here. Paul Hunt was as sinister as ever with his story about Barnaby being a war criminal and I liked how disgusted Janice sounded with the orders she was given. Hunt would be given a justified end though as the Cybermen's use for him had ran out so they fully converted him from Cybrid to Cyberman. Hunt wasn't happy with that at all, as so many people working for the Cybermen are not, but he didn't have much choice against the might of his superiors. Chessman was pretty cunning in this story too and I liked Samantha's reaction to seeing that he was the traitor. Her willingness to sacrifice herself to see the Cybermen defeated was admirable and it just showed how terrible the Cybermen really were in the grand scheme of the Orion War. An android was willing to die to save Earth and the human race. This spinoff really has come full circle! This story will be remembered for an emotional ending with the death of Samantha. She sacrificed herself to defeat the Cybermen and more directly the Cyber Planner and I loved her emotional speech about their position on the planet. So, using the cold logic that the Cybermen are best known for, they simply packed up and left. That seemed to be that but then the departing Cybermenv were greeted by an angry Android fleet who gave them quite a chilling ultimatum. I also loved how the story, and with it the spinoff series, ended with the line of "there is nothing to fear." That's been the cornerstone of the entire series really so it was quite a fitting way to end things. It's been a tremendous little spinoff and completing both series back to back over the last eight days has been fantastic. It's been a great run but I do now look forward to a return to a story featuring the Doctor! Overall though, a solid and consistent second series and the second series ended very well.

Rating: 8/10