If they pulled this sort of thing with the Daleks, I would have complained. Dalek stories are always first and foremost about the Daleks. It's never a case of "it's an X story with Daleks in." I just can't imagine a parallel universe story with Daleks in. But it works with the Cybermen, because I don't like the Cybermen, so keeping them in the background for the first half works really nicely.
"But the new series Cybermen are so much more impressive than the old tinfoil suits! What's not to like?"
How about the fact that in between Silver Nemesis and this, we were treated to something called the Borg Collective? Which were everything the Cybermen should have been? The Borg - which, mind you, were created in the dying days of Classic Who - look more impressive than the new Cybermen, which were made nearly 20 years later!
I really don't want to get into a Doctor Who vs Star Trek debate, but the point stands that by the time Who returned in 2005, we'd already seen everything thanks to Captains Picard and Sisko, and we'd already seen some of that twice thanks to Captains Janeway and Archer. Parallel realities? Check. Cyborg monsters? Check. I don't think Star Trek ever did an episode quite like "Father's Day," unless it was "City on the Edge of Forever," but that was way back when Patrick Troughton was the Doctor and therefore it doesn't count.
But "Father's Day" was a great episode (there's a point to all this, trust me on this). When Pete Tyler suddenly came back from the dead in "The Rise of the Cybermen," I felt betrayed. They were cheapening one of the most emotional moments of Season 27/Series 1. (They'd go on to do it again when they brought Rose back after "Doomsday;" it'd be like coming back to the characters we just saw in "A Christmas Carol" and suddenly learning that Abigail can now be cured.)
Still. Parallel worlds haven't been done in Doctor Who since Inferno, so I wouldn't have minded... if they hadn't cropped up again at the end of the season. Getting ahead of myself, sorry.
Rather than show us how different this world is, we get Zeppelins, a pet dog named Rose, and a name change for Mickey. That's it (oh and his Gran is still alive). It's still a world that is implausibly recognizably ours - none of that "for want of a nail" nonsense, thank you very much.
And then they chuck the Cybermen into it. In Lumic there was a chance to make a really sympathetic villain - he's dying, all he wants to do is go on, once he sees what his creation has unleashed, he recants and dies heroically - but instead they made him Davros Lite. Why? Because Rusty likes his cookie-cutter morality. Villains are evil; they never repent.
And then there's the completely unsurprising death of Rickey. Again, something they'd do better in 2 seasons; see "Turn Left."
This story tries so hard to be an EPIC TWO PARTER and it just falls flat on its face. The Cybermen have made their triumphant return, but now they've got a stupid catchphrase. Pete Tyler's back, but it takes nearly 90 minutes for him to have any sort of emotional moment with his not-quite daughter, when he managed it in 30 last time. The Doctor has to deal with another threat from his past, one that doesn't carry with it nearly the emotional weight of the Daleks.
4 out of 10
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