Scorpius

"The only trouble is they keep killing us."

Writer: Nicholas Briggs 

Format: Audio

Released: September 2005

Series: Cyberman 1.01

Featuring: Brett, Barnaby, Paul 

Synopsis 

The human race is about to become extinct.

Mankind is fighting a long and costly war with its android creations in the Orion System. The deadlock must be broken at all costs. The President of Earth must think the unthinkable...

THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.

Verdict 

Scorpius was an interesting listen to kick off my listening of the first series of Cyberman spinoff audio adventures. After listening to a successful first two series of Dalek Empire, albeit not for a while now, I thought I'd venture into another spinoff series featuring one of the Doctor's greatest adversaries. There's a lot of potential with the Cybermen but I must admit it does seem strange to be doing a collection of stories featuring them without the Doctor or any recognisable characters. However, I originally thought the same about the Daleks but after eight terrific audios, my thoughts on that soon changed so I do hope that occurs here with the Cybermen as well. In saying that though, Dalek Empire started off better than the Cyberman stories did here but I'm more than willing to give the next three stories a listen and I'll base my opinion on the spinoff after I get to the end of the first series. Things have been set in motion which is good and I like how the spinoff seems to have stemmed from Sword of Orion which was an excellent Eighth Doctor audio story featuring the Cybermen. Judging by the audio cover, the Cybermen present are reminiscent of those that appeared in The Invasion which would suggest a point in time rather early in Cyber history which, with a 26th century setting, is an interesting move to go with. I liked the mentioning of the battle on Orius Beta VIII and it certainly sounded like quite the battle. Just like Suz in the Dalek Empire audio series, I think I'm really going to like Karen Brett in this spinoff if first impressions are anything to go by. I do like female lead characters in a series of stories that doesn't feature the Doctor and when I write that, I'm still quite surprised that the only Bernice Summerfield story I've blogged is Silver Lining. Ironically, that also featured the Cybermen. Paul Hunt looks like he's going to be a decent enough main character but I'm still hoping to get something more from him as my listening continues over the next three years. Liam Barnaby though was a character I enjoyed more and I think his relationship with Brett will be very good as things move forward. Before Brett became President of Earth, something I'm sure the Twelfth Doctor might dispute, President Levinson was a good president before her and I liked how he thought she was dangerous whilst recognising her popularity with the people. Something I wasn't expecting the Cyberman audios to start off with was a war between humans and androids. There was quite a history to it which I found intriguing and I'm still not sure about the role of the Cybermen in that war. Their wanting of Brett to be President of Earth was excellent and I can't wait to hear what happens with that. The Cybermen will have some sort of plan in mind and with them being devoid of emotion and full of logic, I look forward to that being revealed. I was actually quite surprised with how little the Cyberman featured considering it's their own spinoff series but I'm sure they'll now be more prominent in the three stories that complete the series with their plans starting to be put into fruition. The Cybermen are known for devious plans and I do hope that once it's revealed it isn't a let down. The plot for the overall series was laid down but I thought things were a little slow to get going with the pace a little bit of a problem. Overall though, not a bad start at all but it could have been better.

Rating: 7/10