5/5 Get your popcorn ready for this ABSOLUTE CLASSIC!!!
  by David W. Curry (Philadelphia,Pa)
This season opener from 1985 (season 22) has it all! Cybermen in the London underground, a new doctor, mercinaries, diamond robers, new aliens (the cryons), a working cameleon cirtut in the TARDIS, Haley's Comet, a return to the frozen Cyber tombs on Telos and even a return visit to the junk yard where Doctor Who all began in 1963... Whew!
The story grabs you from the first minute and never lets you go; Right up to the bloody, corpse filled final seconds. New doctor Colin Baker realy shines here. Everything we were hoping Colin Baker's doctor would be is evident here. He is brash and bold and taking on all comers including the Cyber Controller himself. The sixth doctor has no problem picking up a gun (or Cyber laser)and defending himself and the earth from who or what ever threatens. This is Colin Baker's best performance; I still find it regretable he was never really given a chance to grow into the role ( He was one of the scape goats for the 1986 hiatus).
You get excellent performances from the supporting cast as well which just adds to a gripping ending since none of them live to see the end of the episode. There are multiple reference to the show's past and a timely subplot envolving the Cyberman's plan to crash Haley's Comet into the Earth (Haley's Comet was in our "area" for real in 1985). I could go on and on about this episode but lets not spoil it for those who have not seen this episode yet. If you are one of them I say go for it and buy this one; Trust me! you will not be disapointed!
Ofcourse, every Doctor Who episode has it's nae sayers and this one is no exception. Some say the plot is too convoluted, the Cyber Controler is too "rotund", and the Cybermen in the frozen tombs on Telos do not look like the ones in the old Troughton episode "Tomb of the Cybermen". To these points I say keep in mind the BBC did not spend a ton of money on Doctor Who back in the day (1963 to1989). They would never spend money on two diferent styles of Cybermen. Infact they would never spent much money on the show at all...Isn't that what we loved about the show in the first place. For the short commings in this episode I say I would put this episode up against any in the show's history. Come July 7th I will be in front of my TV, popcorn in hand, and ejoying one of the most riviting yarns in Doctor Who history....Now where is my cat lapel pin????

3/5 A good story, but not the best Cybermen one.
  by Jero Briggs
This one isn't that bad. Better than the Sylvester McCoy Cyberman story "Silver Nemesis", but I think the Tom Baker story "Revenge of the Cybermen" and the William Hartnell story "The Tenth Planet" should have been released first for they are better stories with better Doctors.

First of all, Colin Baker was my least favorite Doctor. But fortunately, he is a lot better in this one than in many of his other stories and he is certainly better in this one than in his premiere story. In fact, he's brilliant! Too bad about his other stories. The plot is decent with the Cybermen trying to alter history and prevent the destruction of their home planet Mondas which was destroyed in their very first story "The Tenth Planet". You've got some nice action pieces in this one. The Cybermen are once again turning people into Cybermen - something that hasn't been done since the Patrick Trougton story "The Invasion". You get to see the Doctor return to both the junkyard from "An Unearthly Child" and the planet Telos from "The Tomb of the Cybermen". Part One's cliffhanger is excellent. You've got a few scary parts in this one as well as a little bit of comedy.

Unfortunately, the tombs on Telos look like crap and nothing like the ones in "The Tomb of the Cybermen". The Cyber Controller is a little bit too fat to be a Cyberman. The Cryons look ridiculous (blame that on the costume designers). And the Cybermen are too easy to kill in this one. I would still recommend this one, but I would have rather seen a better Cyberman story released on DVD first like "Revenge of the Cybermen" or "The Tenth Planet".

4/5 One of the better Colin Baker episodes
  by Matthew T. Scherer (Illinois USA)
As a huge fan of the Doctor for many years, this episode is a nice mix of history covering the Cybermen and other characters from the various Doctors travels. Colin Baker is not my favorite incarnation of the Doctor, but this is one of the better of his episodes. Another of my favorite Colin Baker episodes is "The Mark of the Rani".Doctor Who - The Mark of the Rani (Episode 140)

5/5 excellent dr who adventure
  by Michael P. Dobey (colorado springs)
One thing about being a fan of "doctor who" is that you have to suffer through the
idiocy that only the first four doctors in the classic series were great. Baloney,
the 1980's had alot of great stories and the three actors who played the doctor did a great job. Sure my favorite doctor remains the jon pertwee era, but each dcctor is a incarnation of the doctor and different. Colin Baker was my favorite of the three 1980's doctors and this is a great story. The show was attacked for being too violent when first broadcast and this remains a problem with some fans to this day. I personally never thought this was the case as "Doctor who" has always been a show in which people died in. Colin Bakers doctor is very athletic and solid and the only bad thing perhaps was the terrible outfit he wore. And by any standard it is terrible it's a multicolored ragtype thing. But that's a small complaint when enjoying Colin Bakers' great work as the sixth doctor. The cybermen are chilling killers in this story and there is even a great sense of pathos to the whole show.
This story only had two episodes but that's because the series went to 45 minutes per episode at that time. I believe that these episodes can now be seen as good sci fi 24 years after they were first shown and all the 1980's bickering should be left behind. It wasn't the 1980's doctors who killed the show it was the new (at that time) masters of the BBC who were determined to kill it off because they hated sci fi and wanted to save money. Colin Baker did a great job in his run as doctor and that is truly evident in this story. This shows special effects,( circa 1984)is pre-computer generated images (cgi) and should be viewed accordingly aware of this.

4/5 A good story from the Colin Baker Years
  by Jeffrey J. Lyons (Pembroke, NH United States)
The thing I always liked about thist story were the Cryons. I liked them better than the Cybermen, who are my favorite recurring enemies on Doctor Who. I have always liked the Cybermen much better than the Daleks. Except for the inane activities of the two prisoners on the Cybermen's planet of Telos, this is a nicely crafted story. There is a bit of double-double crossing going on with the Lytton character. The effects and sets are a bit better than many earlier classic Doctor Who stories. In the new series we often see how the Doctor is not perfect and things can go awry. The final scene with Lytton is a great example of an early move toward that direction.

One of the ongoing gags is the Doctor's attempt to fix the Chamelion circuit so that the TARDIS-police box would blend with its surrounding. I loved this and I always wished they continued on this path because it opened up many site gags. The police box was never that big a deal to me but purists were appalled when that police box prop was somehow threatened.

EXTRAS: The behind the scenes documentary is quite interesting and there are a good mixture of actors doing the DVD audio commentary. The documentary about the history of the Cybermen was fascinating and included rarely seen footage from "The Tenth Planet." That is one of the incomplete stories in the BBC archives. The history briefly touches on the Tennant Years. The documentary on 21st Century cyber technology, while fascinating, could have been left off the DVD.