Rate and Discuss: Dark Water

[Antony Cox]

I really enjoyed this episode, and I’m impressed by the sheer inventiveness of this series. PC continues to be a joy to watch though I’m still not totally comfortable with his spiky nature.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

I really enjoyed this episode, and I’m impressed by the sheer inventiveness of this series. PC continues to be a joy to watch though I’m still not totally comfortable with his spiky nature.

I agree about PC's spiky nature; although I have to say that Dark Water is the first story of the run where I think PC's 'spikyness' was balanced just right in the context of what he was facing/dealing with.
I think PC excelled himself in this episode - particularly at the volcano and in the TARDIS immediately afterwards.
As a huge fan of The Master I'm not yet sure I like this current idea (as much as I like Missy as a character; I'm not sure I want her to be that character)!
I will have to see how this plays out.
So far Dark Water and the Orient Express episodes have been my favourites.

[Mike Saville]

Can't stand Missy. I don't have a problem with the sex/gender swap, and I shall wait to see what if any rational explanation there is, but I am confident that the Master wouldn't let a gender identity crisis get in the way of his nefarious plans. I find it bemusing that Who fans the net over are wringing their hands in ire over this, but have been happy to accept any old shit science that has been served up this season. It's something that actually CAN and MAY be explained within the existing narrative.

Can't stand Missy though. It's a bad, exaggerated stereotype, of the kind that exists mainly in the minds of a certain demographic. Though, ironically, after the reveal, it is not too difficult to see the transition from the OTT Simm.

The TARDIS key anomaly let down a little what was some superb acting, the grieving Clara's 'I'll do whatever it takes' was wonderfully counterpointed by the Doctor, culminating in the brilliant line "Why? Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?". For the first time all season, I am seeing the Doctor and not Capaldi trying to be the Doctor. Finally.

Loved the subtle Cyber iconography, like the door windows. As others said, shame about the spoilers previously, because that would have had me meeping like one of dem der fanboys.

The don't cremate me bit? Doesn't bother me because I don't believe the people there are dead. I think they're there because they were lifted at the point a split second before death. The don't cremate me is because ash is of no use to Cybermen, they probably need the living human matter. They upgrade, not resurrect. And that will be explained next time. Well, it might. Can't tell with Moffat this season.

I'll give it a vote after next week's, but very promising.

[Perry Vale]

I'm feeling nostalgic for a, you know, just normal kind of Cybermen story. We've had wooden ones, wild monkey ones that climb up buildings, and now ones that have human skeletons.

Without spoilers, can anyone explain to me what their plan is this time? Are they going to dig up all the dead bodies on Earth? If so, what are the ones doing the digging? Where did they come from? And why the need to hide sitting on chairs in dark water?

I really don't understand.

[Mike Saville]

My spoilertags are a hypothesis, tagged only in case it is a correct guess not actual spoilers, so up to you if you look.

[dalekkiller]

Using the dead to create new Cybermen fits in with the Cybermen's mentality and approach c.f Revelation of the Daleks

[Rob McCow]

I'm feeling nostalgic for a, you know, just normal kind of Cybermen story.

Ah yes, what about the normal story where they poison all the sugar in the moonbase? Or the normal one where they team up with Nazis to steal a statue? Or a normal one where they try to fragmatise a planet made of gold?

Cybermen - Bat's Arse plans since 1966!

[dalekkiller]

Or going back in time to divert Halley's Comet to collide with Earth the year before the destruction of Mondas

[SiHart]

You wait, Seb is going to be the key.

[dalekkiller]

I don't get why people are objecting 'Don't cremate me' line. It rams home the sheer horror of being dead and fully conscious at the same time. Showing the evil that the Master and the Cybermen are capable of.

[MacNimon]

It's been a while since a single line has got so much attention. It's certainly up there with the best, just as memorable and effective as "Are you my mummy?" and "Don't blink"

[Perry Vale]

Cybermen - Bat's Arse plans since 1966!

Oh yes, I'm not saying that, it's the (type of) Cybermen themselves I meant.

I'd like an explanation as to why they need to hide sitting on chairs in dark water. Is there a (logical) reason for it, or is it simply like the Zygons who came through 3D paintings from the past just to destroy a lot of statues and hide under tarpaulins....

[Si Hunt]

I still don't understand the plan. So when people die, their minds are uploaded to the Nethersphere and their bodies, what are used for Cybermen? What happens to the minds then and why are they saved?

Si.

[SiHart]

I sort of get it- upload minds with permission, so that there's no resistance to being converted into a Cyberman. hence the Delete emotions bit... from the outside world perspective, this gives it a kind of good thing status to the living- that you're not really dying, you're being saved and your relatives will live on.

I think they show you something you're not proud of from your life, like Danny and the boy he shot, to make it more likely that you'll press yes to delete your emotions, and thus get your consent, rather than live on with the pain and upset it brings.

Quite what happens to the minds that are uploaded remains to be seen. I'm sure Missy and the the Cybermen will have some nefarious use for them all next weekend.

[Rob McCow]

I think the point of putting the bodies in the Mausoleum was in case anyone came to visit, like the Doctor, or a mystery shopper, or .

Or because the Cyber-planner thought it would look so damn cool and sexy when the water drained out of the tank revealing the Cybermen! He could even have said "My army awakes, Doc-TOOORRRRR!!!!"

If Cybermen had emotions and smartphones, they'd all have taken Cyber-selfies as they were coming out of those vats.

[Si Hunt]

When this episode finished, I rushed to Wiki to see if it could shed some light on the plot. It said:

"it is revealed to be a Gallifreyan Matrix Data Slice in which the consciousness of the deceased are held and prepared to be inserted into new Cybermen soldiers after having their emotions deleted."

So the bodies are used to make Cybermen, and then the dead minds are uploaded to the Nethersphere, have emotions removed (by a weird process of getting someone to chat to everyone, make them feel guilty, then trick them into volunteering) and then the minds are put back into the Cybermen?

So these Cybermen are human dead bodies put into suits with human minds added back in afterwards? How do they rescue the minds from the bodies at the point of death anyway? And if they can do that why not just rescue the whole person and turn them into Cybermen by popping them into the suit? Why do the Cybermen need human bones anyway? No previous ones ever did.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

No previous ones ever did.

This was my earlier point, I'd like a Cybermen story that features....Cybermen.

I'm still confused. Were the ones hiding in dark water made from bodies they'd dug up already? If so, Moffat should have 'seeded' this info perhaps in other (earlier) stories, mentioning a spate of unknown graverobbing.

And if they were hiding in case the Doctor happened to pop by and visit, they were taking a leap of faith that he wouldn't wave his sonic screwdriver at them...

[dalekkiller]

The bodies are used in the same that Davros used the dead bodies at Tranquil Repose to create the Imperial Daleks.

[SiHart]

I'm just watching the episode again and noticed that at the end of the first Missy scene there's a small hint of Murray Gold's Master theme From Last of the Time Lords. Nice!

[Nyder]

I'll be watching the episode again tonight too, so will look out for that!


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[Nyder]

Love the way Missy says "I'm in charge". I think my intimacy settings need a tweak too


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[Zbigniev Hamson]

I'm just sick of every single episode being almost entirely turquoise and orangey-pink. It's got the point where I can barely even watch it as drama anymore. I don't see how colour grading the sh*t out of everything is now seen as the thing to do, especially when it's the same colour all the time across almost all drama these days.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Why do the Cybermen need human bones anyway? No previous ones ever did.

Well the Tenth Planet ones had human hands and were presumably still largely organic underneath all the clunky apendages. Later versions may have looked more traditionally robotic, but the core concept of them has always been that they are cyborgs. They spent a lot of time vomiting in the 80s, and the subjects that have been shown mid-conversion have always still retained a lot of their organic-ness (Toberman, Lytton). I can only think of that one shot in Attack of the Cybermen, showing the inside of a Cyberman's head as being entirely robotic, that really contradicts this.

Until the New Series versions anyway, which seemingly only used the brain for some reason, but even that was that alternate universe versions.

[Dirk Gently]

Until the New Series versions anyway, which seemingly only used the brain for some reason, but even that was that alternate universe versions.

Except in Closing Time when the Cybermen tried to convert Craig (James Corden) entirely.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

To be honest I never even got how the alternate universe versions suddenly became the "proper" versions in New Who. I suppose it could just be a massive coincidence that the proper versions chose a new design that just happened to look exactly like those ones. But it's not like there was ever any dialogue or anything differentiating the two groups. To anyone whose only experience of Doctor Who is the new series, then it must just look like one group of Cybermen who suddenly acquired loads of spaceships and turned into an alien race.

Anyway, despite the odd conflicting scene (I can't even remember what happened with the James Corden version now), I have no problem with the Cybermen being portrayed as organic and possessing skeletons, since that's kind of what they're supposed to be as a concept.