The Tyrants of Logic

Third Doctor Adventures #4.2

Released: 21 March 2018

Listened: 6/29/21

Many fans are quick to point out that the Third Doctor never faced the Cybermen, and that’s the sort of thing Big Finish likes to fix, although they did that a while ago in “The Blue Tooth,” but never mind. This one is also set out in space, on a failed colony, after a time when the Cybermen have supposedly been defeated, but the galaxy is still trying to recover from the war. Which means a small group of desperate Cybermen trying to find a MacGuffin that’s ended up on this planet. Writer Marc Platt has created an interesting set of supporting characters, including a cyber-hunter and a traveling musician whose instruments are all internal, but they’ve also all got their own agendas and spend a lot of time being secretive in ways that are understandable, but contribute to the problem. The Cybermen, much like Star Trek’s Borg, have undergone an evolution over the decades where instead of surgically upgrading certain individuals, they just release nano-bots that convert anybody and everybody. Which is scary, to be sure, but it doesn’t really fit with their early appearances. The Doctor, in the process of being converted, has to sound flat and robotic, which puts a strain on Tim Treloar’s impersonation abilities. Maybe that’s what a mind-controlled Third Doctor would have sounded like, but it’s hard to tell. Jo seems a bit harder-hit in this story than previous ones, but the Cybermen are pretty scary, and she forges a connection with the secondary characters who get killed. The ending is a bit more emotional than dramatic, but it’s not bad for the official Cybermen outing.