The Doctor Who Anniversary Nobody Asked For



Not all Doctor Who anniversary specials are created equally, and 1988’s Silver Nemesis is a prime example of an anniversary that …

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39 thoughts on “The Doctor Who Anniversary Nobody Asked For”

  1. The 7th Doctor's Tenure is a real puzzle. Some stories are unbearably silly and other stories are overstuffed with ideas. Silver Nemesis is one of the latter. it really only needed one villain, the Cybermenm and would have been much improved if Lady Peinforte and the Nazis had been left out.

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  2. I did not know of Anton D’ personal life.

    This story, if they will do a full re-edit,…well, more details and story elements,…yet it’s still “waffle”
    The plot, and competing villains, and the “mystery” do not matter.
    Jazz, by Courtney Pine 😎

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  3. Solid video man. A few things I would just quickly add —
    – Interestingly, the VHS copy has the extended cut, including the betrayal and the lack of success of killing the Cyber Leader with gold-dust, as well as a cute bit where we see 7 leading a duck out of the TARDIS, and a moment where Peinforte prepares for battle, which actually has one of my favorite bits of Keff McCulloch's entire musical library for the series (him being, in my opinion, an underrated composer)
    – I wouldn't call Richard at all an incompetent character, as for the most part his bumbling was due to being out of time; in combat and in the 1638, he is shown to be fully competent overall. As for his simping for Lady Peinforte, they mention that she saved Richard from execution, so his simping was, more or less, out of a life debt.
    – The scene of Ace and 7 bringing the bow to Nemesis was very clumsy, but the scene of Nemesis arising, everything from the glow and explosions to the loud angry scream and surreal-but-overpowering music really making it a genuine stand-out moment.
    – The bit of the Punks in Part 2 was actually in direct response to a recent rise in violent crimes in England, mostly performed by punks like the ones in the episode. This was more or less an inside societal joke of the time, like if David Tennant had to deal with a couple of impossibly difficult hipsters (this confused me for years as well)
    – I thought Ace was particularly awesome in this episode, and I did like the idea of how she was scared more than ever before, however I felt this was entirely wasted – it literally just comes down to her saying so, 7 offering her the option to return to the TARDIS, and her rejecting this notion.. It's then never brought up again (even in deleted moments)
    – One really neat moment is not only how Peinforte reveals that she knows who The Doctor really is, but when she reveals that she knew, The Doctor immediately gives into her demands. Now, it seems that her plan was ultimately going to carry out almost identical to his own, so it's possible that he just did this as a momentary in-case response, but the idea that he would capitulate to a villain because they knew who he was is quite an intriguing one. Sadly the moment is over in about 20 seconds anyway.
    – The Jazz musician at the opening was actually an up-and-coming talent that agreed to appear in the episode, more or less playing himself, liking the idea that The Doctor would like his music.
    – The "Living Metal" element was re-explored in Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS — I really dug this, but it's never made clear if this is at all connected to the same Living Metal from which Nemesis was made.
    – As you sort of allude to, "Silver Anniversary" is usually synonymous with "25th Anniversary", so that is why Silver had to feature in some way (I think it was JNT's wish to have silver involved, although beyond the title I'm not sure what Silver is in reference to, as it could be either the extra-silver colored Cybermen, or the kinda-sorta silver color of the statue — I'm guessing the latter)

    Personally, I liked the episode, but I would give it a 3 out of 5 at best (maybe a 2.5 out of 5 at worst). It's just so painfully average, and it doesn't help that the concepts and outline of the story is practically identical to those of Rememberance, making these two even more directly comparable (and Remembrance just being much better in almost every way)

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  4. I had this on VHS. It was the only Doctor Who video I had and from 1993 to 1996 was pretty much the only Doctor Who content I had access to. I watched it so much and have such fond memories that I can't be unbiased about it. I accpet that it is basically the same storyline as Remembrance and the 3 different evil sides don't really get enough individual time but the intrigue it added to the Doctor and the performances from McCoy and Aldred were great.

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  5. Truth of the universe: The the bacteria. The bacteria. Universe is neuron microorganism the the bacteria. I am infertile from eating scented candles. The

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  6. I did quite like the extended version on the vhs. Because all the chess references and the hints he's playing a game on a bigger scale. Which we learned in due course was against fenric. Those make it work much better. But who asked for it? Fandom. Back in the day we wanted continuity and references, and this was such.

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  7. The 15th anniversary was nearly celebrated in The Stones of Blood with a scene that was scripted with Romana giving the Doctor a 751st birthday cake but it got cut before recording as too self-indulgent. The story also contained the 100th episode. Not much else to say about it really.

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  8. 😂😂 the very fact that gay Jewish man makes his money by playing Nazis in films is more funny to me than the gay Nazi in the British TV comedy allo allo 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 now I will get back to watching the rest of review

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  9. Great review. I've tried to like this story over the years, but it's just so strange that there's so much potential for plot development and so much useless and cringy padding. Dr Who padding can be fun, but this was just an underdeveloped mess.

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  10. "You don't have to be a historian to think it's strange for the Cybermen who represent communism to align themselves with Nazis"

    Hitler and Stalin starting the WWII together: 👁👄👁

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  11. y'know, whilst I would agree that having more time for more important things would be the more pragmatic choice, the little moments and quieter scenes that give character really add to the story, imo. too often we see in modern editing styles a loss of those sorts of moments, so it's nice to have them in this. also weren't the cybermen more based off of kit pedler being a bit freaked out about things like pacemakers, cybernetic prosthetics and things like artificial heart machines and the fear of humans going too far with these sorts of surgeries and losing who they are, than communism?

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  12. Talking about anniversaries. The 60th. I wonder if Gallifrey will get a mention.
    Nevermind the Timeless Child thing.
    Personally I like the Full Fat Videos suggestion that TTC is not the Doctor and she/he now resolves to go and find the true one and try and make amends and stuff. Whilst the Master, well er, he's dead isn't he?

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  13. It’s disliked because it’s not really any sort of anniversary ok yes it falls on the anniversary but it was not designed to celebrate the show in anyway it’s just a basic episode of doctor who on its own it’s a decent story but as an anniversary people expected more

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  14. There’s no body horror aspect to the Cybermen, which for all its flaws Attack of the Cybermen embraced perhaps to a fault. Aside from the gold weakness you could slot in any generic monster and it’d work. The gold weakness too isn’t the most consistent, with Earthshock having shown it was gold clogging up the breathing units rather than simply contact with gold that did them in. As sillily named as the glitter gun is it also uses the clogging line of reasoning.

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  15. For a period of the novelisations that would expand on the story, especially when it came to the mystery angle of the Doctor as a character, it’s a shame this story was more like the middle period novelisation. Not quite script to page like Terrance Dicks was churning out but nowhere near Remembrance of the Daleks or Curse of Fenric.

    The story also creates a continuity issue by being broadcast for the anniversary. Ace can be seen wearing as a badge an earring she obtains in the next story broadcast.

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  16. Everyone always criticises the Timeless Child twist as "making the Doctor some kind of important Chosen One figure", but I disagree. The Doctor is still the same person as always. They're just a lot older than they realised, and the role they played in founding the Time Lord society was as an exploited victim.

    Everyone's complaints about it feel much more relevant to the Cartmel Master Plan.

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