Season 4, Episode 2 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 8–29 October 1966 | Writer: Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis | Director: Derek Martinus
Cast
- William Hartnell as the Doctor
- Anneke Wills as Polly
- Michael Craze as Ben Jackson
- Robert Beatty as General Cutler
Summary
The TARDIS crew arrive at a South Pole tracking base in the year 1986, just as a mysterious tenth planet, Mondas, appears in Earth’s solar system, identical to Earth but drained and dying. Its inhabitants, the Cybermen, have replaced their failing organic bodies with mechanical parts to survive, and now arrive at the base intending to convert every human being into one of their own, even as the Doctor’s own aged body begins to fail him.
Interesting Facts
- This serial introduces the Cybermen, who would go on to become one of Doctor Who’s most enduring recurring adversaries alongside the Daleks.
- It marks William Hartnell’s final regular appearance as the Doctor: weakened and collapsing at the climax, he transforms into a younger man in the story’s closing moments, in the first ever regeneration, then unnamed and simply called a “renewal.”
- The serial’s fourth and final episode remains missing from the BBC archive and has been recreated with animation for home media release.
- Writer Kit Pedler, a science advisor to the series, conceived the Cybermen out of his own unease about the growing use of medical prosthetics and organ transplants.
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