Rate & Discuss: Nightmare in Silver
Hedgewick’s World of Wonders was once the galaxy’s greatest theme park but it is now the dilapidated home to a shabby showman, a chess-playing dwarf and a dysfunctional army platoon.
Stomp stomp the Cybermen have arrived, and this time they were deadlier than before!
That’s right, tonight marked the return of one of the Doctor’s most infamous enemies as Neil Gaiman stepped back up to the writing duties in order to give the fans a Nightmare in Silver. After the success of his TARDIS debut with The Doctor’s Wife, he could’ve taken a breather with his second attempt at the bat, but instead he was mounded with the big task of restoring the metal monsters to their former glory. So how did he get on?
The story started at Hedgewick’s World of Wonders which once stood tall as the greatest theme park in the galaxy. When the Doctor, Clara, Artie and Angie arrived, they found it now served as the dilapidated home to a shabby showman and an army platoon. And so the scene was set for a classic Cyberman confrontation, as the ultimate upgrade began…
Neil tried to make them “a little creepier”, but did he achieve it? Will the penultimate episode of Series 7 go down in history or should it be deleted? Rate & Discuss it below…
Series 7 reaches its “epic and huge” climax next week in The Name of the Doctor…
Mario, here’s what I wrote above, edited:
“And just one more thing: CHESS? Again?! Enough with the Doctor playing chess. It’s a bit tired and a whole lot cliché. If the Doctor’s going to play chess, then have him play against Fenric. Now THERE was an opponent! (Still wonder why the Viking in “Wedding of River Song” wasn’t a form of Fenric. It would have made – some – sense.) Still, the chess game did help in the making of another great Matt Smith performance.”
I certainly didn’t write anything insulting about chess itself. It’s great fun and all that. The significance of what I wrote is that chess has now appeared a number of times in DW (more than what I included in the above paragraph) and it’s use has become clichéd. If not just in DW, then in many, many TV programs and movies. I can’t help but wonder if Gaiman knew of the use of Chess in “Wedding” and “Fenric”. He’s so busy, he may not have known of the use of chess in those stories. However, I would think the Moff would have enlightened him.
What game would I have used instead? I think it would have been quite a riot had the Doctor challenged the CyberDoc to a game of “Hungry, Hungry Hippos”!
Profzed, thanks for an explanation!
I haven’t felt your comment as insulting in any way. Just wanted to show that popularity of chess’s appearances in various cultural pieces was not necessarily an argument of writer’s lack of cool ideas, but his/her trying to make story accessible to all of audience.
‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’ — yes, that would be cool, indeed! Though to understand it, I’ve had to seek it in Wikipedia.
Profzed — three uses of chess in a span of a quarter century does not seem excessive to me. ;-)
@John Black
i agree with ur comments about this eipisode fully
@Calli Arcale
ur right chess is one way for the doctor to get rid of the cyberman thing on his face