Nightmare in Silver was the twelfth and penultimate episode of series 7 of Doctor Who.

This adventure introduced a dramatic redesign of the Cyberman race that replaced the previous Cybus Industries design they had maintained since their return in Rise of the Cybermen, with these Cybermen employing a multitude of new abilities, including that of being able to convert species other than humans. Not counting the ambiguous Cybus-like Cybermen from A Good Man Goes to War-onward, this episode also definitively reintroduced the original Cybermen of the Doctor's universe to television for the first time since the series restarted back in 2005, their last television appearance being Silver Nemesis 25 years prior. Likewise, the Cybermats evolved with their progenitors into a more compact form known as Cybermites. Additionally, the Cybermen utilised a Cyber-Planner for the first time onscreen in the revived series, last seen in The Invasion. The episode also saw the introduction of the "Cyberiad", the collective consciousness of all Cybermen. It also saw the Cybermen become much more efficient and deadly, being able to almost instantly adapt to weaknesses; they also overcame their weakness to gold.

Unknown to the viewers at the time, the Doctor's threat to purge Mr Clever from his body through regeneration was a lie. Similar to the The Twin Dilemma with character Azmael, the Doctor had no regenerations left.

This episode also marks one of the few times on-screen that the Doctor has allowed children inside of the TARDIS, due to them being associated with one of his companions. He previously had done so in his previous incarnation with Sarah Jane's companions in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith when they asked to take a look inside the time machine.

This episode also allowed Matt Smith to undertake a dual role as the Eleventh Doctor gained an evil Cyberman alter-ego, Mr Clever, making Smith the sixth actor of the Doctor to have played both the Doctor and one of the main antagonists in a story, following William Hartnell in The Massacre, Patrick Troughton in The Enemy of the World, Tom Baker in Meglos, and Peter Davison and Colin Baker in Arc of Infinity.

Synopsis[]

The Eleventh Doctor takes his companion, Clara Oswald, and her wards, Angie and Artie, to the biggest amusement park in the galaxy, Hedgewick's World of Wonders. However, the theme park is empty, occupied only by a "punishment platoon" and a lone impresario with empty Cyberman shells as exhibits... or so it seems. When the Doctor decides to stay a while to investigate strange insect creatures that are roaming the park, he soon discovers that these insects are really machines seeking to convert the life forms on Hedgewick's World into the newest generation of the ever-upgrading menace...

Plot[]

The TARDIS lands and the Eleventh Doctor, Clara, Angie, and Artie Maitland step out. The Doctor welcomes them to Hedgewick's World of Wonders, the biggest and best amusement park ever. Angie and Artie point out that it looks like the Doctors is wrong and that they are actually on the moon, despite his protests to the contrary. Suddenly, a rock opens and a short man in a top hat peeks out and asks if they are his ride from Dave's Interstellar Taxi Service. They deny it, prompting the man to note that the service was supposed to come months ago.

A shout goes up and the man disappears. A military platoon comes storming out and demands identification from the travellers. The Doctor flashes his Golden Ticket, and when that doesn't work, whips out the psychic paper. The captain recognises him as the Imperial Consul, and asks for news of the Emperor. The Doctor tells her that he hasn't heard anything more than she has; from this, the Doctor learns that the Emperor has vanished. The Doctor dismisses the platoon, and the top-hat man comes out again.

The man leads them into the desolate, formerly grand amusement park, and then into his attraction: Webley's World of Wonders. He introduces himself as Impresario Webley, and shows them his waxwork attractions of beings. He asks Artie for a game of chess, and leads him to a chess board, explaining that "we destroyed them 1000 years ago, and now he's back to destroy you. Behold the enemy!" Webly pulls a sheet of the other side of the table, revealing a Cyberman powering up. The Doctor yells for everyone to get down.

However, Webly smiles and assures them that it's completely harmless. He cites his display as "the six hundredth and ninety-ninth wonder of the universe", and a master at chess, despite the fact that it is an empty shell. He offers five Imperial shillings for a penny if Artie can beat the Cyberman at chess. Artie offers a sandwich, and Webley accepts. The Cyberman defeats Artie with a fool's mate. Webley shows that the shell is free of all devices and offers a silver penny to Angie if she can figure out how it works. She guesses that it's done with mirrors, but the Doctor deduces that it's being controlled by a man inside the box. He opens up the box, revealing Webley's conspirator, Porridge, and Webley gives Angie the silver penny.

Webley shows off the rest of his Cyberman collection, as well as a wax figure of Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff XLI, Defender of Humanity and Imperator of Known Space. The adults lead the kids off to the Spacey-Zoomer ride - an anti-grav ride - and let them fly and float around. Afterwards, Clara wants to get the kids home, but the Doctor doesn't want to leave. He finds "funny insects" that he wants to investigate, and forces everybody to stay longer. The kids crash on couches in Webley's house, and the adults go off to explore, with the Doctor warning the kids not to wander off. The terrified kids settle into the couches.

Webley resets his chess board while eating the sandwich he won off of Artie. Suddenly, the Cyberman grabs him and Cybermites begin upgrading him. Meanwhile, Angie declares the future to be stupid, complaining that there isn't even phone service. She leaves, despite protests from Artie, as the insects crawled over Clara's phone. Elsewhere, Porridge explains the Cybermen to Clara. He tells her of the Tiberian spiral galaxy, which had to be blown up to destroy the Cybermen. Porridge comments that he feels like a monster: instead of mourning a billion trillion deaths, he feels sorry for the person who had to press the button. The Doctor interrupts and asks Clara if she told Angie she could go to the barracks. Clara realises that Angie has wandered off.

In the barracks, the platoon are trying to fix their systems, when Angie appears. The captain asks Angie where her sister was. Realising that she meant Clara, Angie denies that they are sisters, calling Clara stupid and saying she was talking to Porridge (the captain mistaking this as Clara talking to real porridge). The captain pulls Angie off for a talk.

Meanwhile, Artie wanders off, looking for a light switch. After he finally finds the lights, one of the Cybermen suits suddenly grabs him.

At the barracks, Angie is telling the captain about Porridge when Clara storms in. Without warning, an upgraded Cyberman appears in the doorway. The Cyberman captures Angie and escapes. Clara tries to go after Angie but is stopped by the Doctor. He promises that he will get Angie back and invokes his "power" as "Imperial Consul", stripping the captain of her rank and giving it to Clara. He tells Clara not to let them blow up the planet, to get to somewhere defensible, and to stay alive.

The Cyberman brings Angie to a room, where she finds her brother controlled by a Cyber earpiece. She attempts to get his attention; he responds in an electronic voice that she should wait to be upgraded. Seeing Webley shushing her, Angie screams in terror.

Meanwhile, Clara, in her new role as commander, scrounges up all their resources to build an offence against the Cybermen. They decide to move to Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle for defence. The captain informs Clara that the platoon can deal with one Cyberman, but there are protocols that they must follow if they cannot find and destroy it: specifically to blow up the planet. Clara rejects this and orders the platoon to move to the castle.

The Doctor returns to where he left the children, finding them missing. He spots a cyber insect on a display. Regarding it, he informs whoever is watching the feed that the children are under his protection, and he is coming to get them. Then he informs the machine that "[it] is beautiful!", sonics it, and studies it. He uses the sonic to tune into the local transmat, bringing himself to the children and Webley. Webley explains to the Doctor that, as the battle raged between humanity and the Cyberiad, the Cybermen built a bunker to repair their damaged units. They needed children's brains to build a new Cyber-Planner, as a child's brain has infinite potential. However, now that the Doctor is there, they have no need of the children; a Time Lord has a brain filled with more potential than mere children. The Doctor scoffs, telling them that they can only convert humans. Webley tells him that that is no longer true; thanks to the Cyber-Wars, the Cybermen were forced to learn how to bypass their limitations of assimilating only humans into their fold.

Webley throws Cybermites onto the Doctor, which incorporate him into the Cybernetwork. He becomes the Cyber-Planner, with non-human brain power to dream up ideas to strengthen the Cyberiad. The Cyber-Planner takes stock of the Doctor's body, noting the unfamiliar systems and remarkable brain power. Finding the title "Cyber-Planner" dull, it instead calls itself "Mr. Clever." Inside the Doctor's mind, the two meet and battle for control, the Cyber-Planner using his memories to torment the Doctor.

The Cyber-Planner finds delight in his cleverness, realising that there is information on the Time Lords available. The Doctor blocks it all but information on regeneration. He threatens to regenerate right then and there, to burn out the Cyber-Planner. He doesn't want to, unsure of what he'll end up with next, but acknowledges that he could do it. The Cyber-Planner declares a stalemate, concluding that they are too well balanced; each controls 49.881% of the brain, leaving .238% unclaimed. The Doctor challenges the Cyber-Planner to a game of chess; winner takes all. If the Cyber-Planner wins, he gets the Doctor's mind. If the Doctor wins, he gets his mind back, the children are freed, and nobody dies.

Elsewhere, Missy takes guard of a corridor. She notices a shadow, and reports it as a possible Cyberman. It is a Cybermen. The Cyberman detaches its hand, which crawls over to Missy and drags her out of her hiding place. Back at base, the platoon realise that the Cyberman is on its way. Clara demands to be shown all weapons, which consist of one anti-cyber gun, hand pulses able to disable a Cyberman on contact, and a weapon which can implode the planet. Clara takes the remote control for the last weapon from the captain, but the captain informs her that the fallback voice-activation is set to respond to her voice only. Clara orders her to detonate the device only when she directly orders her to. The captain challenges Clara's command, but Clara asserts her authority with Porridge's help and signs for the remote control.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and the Cyber-Planner begin their chess game. While they play, the Cyber-Planner asks the Doctor why the Cyberiad has no record of him. He then realises that the Doctor has purposely erased himself from history, and notes that he could be reconstructed from the holes he left. The Cyber-Planner rails against him, telling the Doctor that he cannot win against him. The Doctor counters with his knowledge of early Cybermen. Their codes can be scrambled by cleaning fluids and gold. The Cyber-Planner laughs: "That's your plan? Cleaning fluid?" The Doctor replies in negative, slapping his Golden Ticket on the the metallic growth on his face, temporarily scrambling the circuits. He comes back to himself, collects the chess board, and leaves with the children and Webley.

Back at the castle, the captain and Porridge are discussing a secret regarding Porridge. Clara interrupts, asking why it was necessary to blow up a whole planet just to get rid of one Cyberman. Porridge says there are other ways to kill a Cyberman, but they don't always work. Blowing up the planet is the only sure-fire way to do it. The captain says that she was sent to the punishment platoon because she didn't follow orders, and that she can make up for it now. She declares that she will do what she was born to do: fight for the Empire. She begins to voice-activate the weapon but is shot by a Cyberman. Clara decides to go on the offensive, otherwise facing death. The platoon mobilises with hand pulses and the anti-cyber gun and launch sneak attacks on the Cybermen, with limited success.

The Doctor approaches the castle with the children and Webley in tow. Clara comes out with the anti-cyber gun and the Doctor greets her. The Doctor rattles off his news: he kidnapped the Cyber-Planner, which is in his head, the kids are in a walking coma, which he may or may not be able to correct, there are more Cybermen active, and the Cyber-Planner is installing a gold patch. He asks for a table and for somebody to immobilise him.

Once tied up, the Doctor removes the gold sheet from his face; either of his own will, or because Mr. Clever managed to bypass gold weakness. The Cyber-Planner reemerges and begins to taunt Clara. As the Cyber-Planner continues to rattle on threats, the Doctor moves his hand, writing "HIT ME!" on the notepad beside the chess board. Clara obliges, smacking him; the Doctor explains that a sudden shock to his nerves is what he needed to get back control. Clara demands to know the stakes. The Doctor tells her but admits that the Cyber-Planner will probably break his promise if the Doctor wins the chess match. Clara begs the Doctor to fix Angie and Artie, but he says that they're just in standby mode. When Clara protests, the Doctor says the children have a much better chance of getting out this situation alive than she does. Taken aback, Clara asks which of the two personalities said that. With a smirk, Mr. Clever states it was him. He threatens her immediate death, and she leaves to prepare the platoon for the coming onslaught.

Clara discusses their weapons, which are minimal at that point. Spotting a cable, she cleverly devises a plan to electrify the water in the moat. They drop the cable into the water, turn on the power, and raise the drawbridge to force the Cybermen to cross the water.

The Doctor's game continues. Inside his mind, the Cyber-Planner awakes the legions of Cybermen hidden in the barracks.

Inside the castle, the platoon prepares their defence. The Doctor calls for Clara, and she goes to check on him. The Doctor cheerfully asks her for a rundown on their weapons, with keen interest in the planet-imploding bomb. She shows him the remote trigger, which he tries to take possession of. She snatches it away from him, suspicious of who really is in control. The Doctor says the Cyber-Planner is hibernating, but Clara doesn't buy it. She tells him to tell her something only the Doctor knows. Looking rather sincere, the Doctor begins to tell her that he is falling in love with her. He moves to kiss her, but Clara slaps him again.

The Doctor comes to himself, asking Clara how she knew. Clara that's even if what Mr. Clever said was true about the Doctor; the Doctor himself would never say those things. Clara tells him to finish the game, and the Cyber-Planner grabs her hand, wresting the remote control from her and destroying it. The Doctor is grim, but is overtaken once more; Mr. Clever states that without the threat of the planet blowing up to deter them, he can now order the Cybermen to attack.

Clara and the platoon ready their attack with the five hand pulses and the nearly depleted anti-cyber gun. The Cyber-Planner declares endgame and moves to finish the Doctor. The Cyber-army begins to assault the castle. One steps into the moat and is apparently electrocuted. The platoon celebrates, but then the Cyberman upgrades itself. The patch is spread through the ranks, and the Cybermen continue onward. Clara gives orders to defend the castle, and tells Porridge to keep himself safe. Two soldiers shoot down the first Cyberman, but balk as more come through. Porridge grabs the bomb, muttering that he should have destroyed the planet when he had the chance.

The Cyber-Planner taunts the Doctor, offering him one more deal. If the Doctor sacrifices his queen, the Cyber-Planner will release the children but win the game in five moves and take the Doctor's mind. The Doctor accepts the deal and Angie and Artie are released. The Cyber-Planner taunts him once more, telling him how foolish he was to have pointlessly sacrificed himself for two human children. He mockingly asks the Doctor if he thinks that the death of the children will affect his relationship with Clara. Webley moves to kill the children, but Porridge slaps a hand pulse onto his leg and kills him. Angie awakes and the Doctor tells her to look after Artie.

The Doctor taunts the Cyber-Planner, telling him that sacrificing his queen was the best move he could have made. The Time Lords invented chess, and the Doctor has cleverly set up a trap that will give him checkmate in three moves. Outside, the Cybermen are overwhelming the platoon, but as they are about to deliver the killing blows, the Cyber-Planner pulls in their resources, giving him extra processing power to figure out and counter the Doctor's strategy. It saves the lives of Clara and the rest of the platoon, but puts the Doctor at a serious disadvantage.

As the platoon makes their last stand, the Doctor initiates his endgame. Move One: Turn on sonic screwdriver. Move Two: Activate pulse. Move Three: Apply pulse. "That's cheating!" the Cyber-Planner howls in impotent fury. The Doctor slaps himself with the hand pulse and destroys the Cyber-circuitry in his body.

Clara rushes in to find the Doctor completely back to himself and unties him. The Doctor explains that, having been expelled from his body, Mr. Clever is now in every Cyberman. The Doctor decides that they need to blow up the planet to destroy the Cybermen. This seems impossible since the captain is dead, but Angie deduces that Porridge can voice activamperor. The statue was made taller than he actually was but his face matches that of it, as well as the face on the coin she was given. Porridge reluctantly admits that Angie is right, but states that he hates his job and if he activates the Desolator, its all over. Confronted with the reality of the situation, Porridge reluctantly activates the Desolator, which will blow in about 80 seconds. However, the activation by Porridge has signalled the Imperial Flagship which transmats everyone and, at the Doctor's request, the TARDIS, aboard. As the group watches, the Desolator destroys Hedgwick's World of Wonders and presumably all of the Cybermen.

Porridge remarks that he liked being normal: not an emperor of a thousand galaxies, not lonely. Clara says that he doesn't have to be lonely, and he agrees, proposing to her on the spot. The Doctor attempts to interrupt, but is shushed by Clara, who prompts the Emperor to continue. Porridge makes a convincing argument, to which Clara declines gently. Angie calls her stupid for not saying yes, loudly declaring that one day, she'll be queen of the universe. Porridge pretends to threaten them with execution, before mirthfully telling them to leave.

The Doctor returns the children and Clara to their home, pondering Clara's identity once more. Back on the imperial ship, the Emperor asks if there was any Cybertech remaining. With the answer being no, the Emperor then flies his ship home — with a floating Cybermite blinking in the darkness of space.

Cast[]

• The Doctor - Matt Smith^[1]
• Clara - Jenna-Louise Coleman
• Angie - Eve De Leon Allen
• Artie - Kassius Carey Johnson
• Webley - Jason Watkins
• Porridge - Warwick Davis
• Captain - Tamzin Outhwaite
• Beauty - Eloise Joseph
• Brains - Will Merrick
• Ha-Ha - Calvin Dean
• Missy - Zahra Ahmadi
• Cyberman - Aidan Cook
• Voice of the Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs

Uncredited Cast[]

• Big Red - Julian Seager
• Platoon Soldiers - Georgina Burford, Annelisse Murray, Sasha Latoya, Alphaeus Daniel, Eugene Henderson, Danielle Saunders
• Cybermen - Martin Challinor, Toby Rattery, Angus Brown, Paul Bailey, Charlie Smith, Simon Carew
• Emperor's Guards - Anne Lyken-Garner, Remington Croney, Sy Turner
• Gloria - Katie Dowler

Crew[]

Uncredited crew[]

Stargate Studios[]

• VFX Supervisor - Mark Spatny^[2]
• VFX Producer - Darren Frankel^[2]

BBC Wales VFX[]

• VFX Supervisor - Sue Land^[2]

Worldbuilding[]

Species[]

• Waxworks sculpted in the likeness of a Shansheeth, an Uvodni head, the upper body of a Blowfish, a creature resembling a Gastropod, an Ultramancer, a Pan-Babylonian and a Lugal-Irra-Kush can be seen on display inside the room housing the chessboard.

Cybermen[]

• The Cyber-Wars ended 1,000 years ago. The planet where Hedgewick's World is situated was used to hide 3 million Cybermen and repair them.
• The "Cyberiad" refers to the collective consciousness of the Cybermen.

The Doctor[]

• Whilst under possession by the Cyber-Planner, the Doctor mimics the Ninth Doctor's accent and catchphrase of "Fantastic", as well as the Tenth Doctor's of "Allons-y".
• In addition to his binary vascular system, the Doctor has a hyper-conductive nervous system and "remarkable brain processing power", according to Mr Clever. He also notices that the Doctor has had "ten complete re-jigs" (regenerations).

Clara[]

• The Doctor and Clara meet on Wednesdays for their adventures.

Games[]

• The Doctor claims that the game of chess was invented by the Time Lords.
• Artie Maitland plays chess versus the "Cyberman" (Porridge) and accidentally commits a Fool's mate.

Technology[]

• Angie has a cell phone but can't get any service on Hedgewick's World.
• The platoon has a broken solid state, sub ether ansible-class communicator, a malfunctioning weather controller, and these pieces of cyberia-class weaponry: an anti-cyber gun, hand pulses, and a bomb that can implode the planet.

Influences[]

• According to "Behind the scenes...", the Cybermen were redesigned for this episode and got a variety of new abilities and features. These new Cybermen share several similarities with the Borg of Star Trek franchise - which were in turn originally based somewhat upon the Cybermen. The Cybermen's ability to adapt to attacks is reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Additionally, the Borg used nanoprobes to convert individuals, similar to the Cybermites, and Webley's cyber-appearance is reminiscent of the Borg's "half machine, half human" face. And as of Star Trek: First Contact they, like these Cybermen, assimilated new members by use of something coming out of their wrists. Voice notifications for individuals to convert were also typical for the Borg and the Cybermen, both new and old.
• This episode uses a camera technique known as "Bullet Time", popularised in The Matrix to frame out the high-speed movements of the new Cybermen, as shown in the "Behind the Scenes" featurette.

Story notes[]

• The episode had the working titles of The Last of the Cybermen, Silver Ghosts, A Nightmare in Silver and The Last Cyberman.
• Clara asks "Can Cybermen fly?", with the answer being no. However, they eventually gain the ability to in Death in Heaven, where Missy's Cybermen are able to fly.
• Though not stated in the episode, Neil Gaiman revealed that he saw it as taking place "a quarter of a million years into the future".^[3]
• The ending of the story, in which a lone Cybermite is seen drifting into space, having escaped the destruction of the planet, is reminiscent of the end of The Tomb of the Cybermen, in which a single Cybermat escapes from the tombs just before they are sealed.
• Subsequently, the Cybermen exiting their tombs mirrors the cliffhanger of Earthshock Part 3 when three rows of Cybermen march towards the camera. It's also very similar to the scene where the Cybermen come out of their tombs in The Tomb of the Cybermen.
• The Doctor threatens to regenerate to eliminate all traces of Mr Clever from his body, though it's later revealed that this was actually a bluff. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) However the Doctor could have been threatening to commit suicide, like Azmael previously did. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)
• The scene where Porridge operates a Cyberman exoskeleton in a game of chess is a homage to the Turk, an animatronic man that was purported to be a chess-playing automaton (an animatronic capable of completely independent motion). In reality, the Turk was operated from within by a human chessmaster, not unlike Hedgewick's "Cyberman". The Turk previously served as an inspiration for the television story The Girl in the Fireplace and audio stories The Silver Turk.
• This is the eleventh time the actor playing the Doctor has portrayed a different character in the same story - although in this case only, the Doctor and the other character physically inhabit the same body. Other doppelgangers previously were seen with:

• William Hartnell (The Chase and The Massacre)
• Patrick Troughton (The Enemy of the World)
• Tom Baker (The Android Invasion and Meglos)
• Peter Davison (Arc of Infinity and The Caves of Androzani)
• David Tennant (Journey's End)
• Matt Smith (The Almost People and The Wedding of River Song)

• When the Doctor lets Mr Clever access his memories on regeneration, the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors are seen. Each image is taken from photograph stills used as promotional material during the respective actors' tenures.
• The converted Webley tells the Doctor that the Cybermen had turned children into Cyber-Planners in the past because of a child's imagination. This mirrors the reasoning behind the Renegade Daleks' use of a young girl as their Battle computer in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• The Cyber-Planner makes its first appearance within the revived series. However, this is not the first time it has been incorporated into the elements of the revived timeline. Cyber-Planners previously appeared in GAME: The Eternity Clock.
• This is the third consecutive series' penultimate episode where the Cybermen have been featured, after The Pandorica Opens and Closing Time.
• Following the success of The Doctor's Wife, Steven Moffat invited Neil Gaiman to write a second script for the series. Gaiman advised Moffat that he would be unlikely to be available, especially since his previous episode had been such a time-consuming endeavour. However, he was persuaded when Moffat suggested that this would be an opportunity to revamp the Cybermen.
• A lifelong fan of the series, Neil Gaiman had fond memories of Patrick Troughton's encounters with the Cybermen. He felt that it made sense for them to be regularly updated, thinking in terms of the rapid evolution of modern technology like smartphones. He also wanted to make the Cybermen more stealthy and spooky, whereas the modern versions had been portrayed as noisy and slow-moving. Gaiman felt that the parallel-universe Cybermen would likely have merged with their counterparts from Mondas, giving him the freedom to conceive a new form of Cyberman which drew upon the best of all of their previous appearances.
• Neil Gaiman was keen to revisit the Cybermats. He knew that the they had been inspired by silverfish, which led him to take the concept to its next logical stage, in the form of the Cybermites. He imagined that this microscopic form of Cyber life could actually be a component of the process which turned a human being into a Cyberman.
• Neil Gaiman considered various settings, including the Greater Cyrrhenic Empire. He settled on a 1950s seaside fairground. However, when he described potential scenes such as an army of Cybermen emerging from the water onto the beach, he was informed by the production team that his notions were not achievable on the series' budget. Instead, Gaiman reworked his plans for a futuristic amusement park.
• The Doctor was originally to be accompanied by a Victorian governess named Beryl Montague and her two charges, Charlotte and Godfrey. Neil Gaiman accordingly conceived elements which would suit Beryl's nineteenth-century origins, such as the presence of an alien freak show and the primacy of Porridge's duty to his subjects.
• Neil Gaiman's work on the script ground to a halt when he lost his laptop after leaving it behind on an aeroplane. Too busy with other commitments to reconstruct his work to date, Gaiman deferred further progress.
• Alice's punishment platoon was initially conceived as being exclusively female.
• The sequence in which the soldiers are attacked by a Cyberman moving at incredible speed was inspired by Neil Gaiman's attendance at a party in late April to recognise the third anniversary of Kickstarter. Observing the silver balloons which festooned the venue, he considered how easy it would be for a Cyberman to inveigle itself into the proceedings unnoticed while the guests danced and celebrated.
• In the aftermath of the Cybermen's defeat, there was initially a sequence in which Angie saw an older version of herself wearing a wedding dress who had apparently been brought to the imperial ship by a future Doctor.
• The episode was to end with an ominous scene in the Cyberiad featuring Cybermen from throughout their televised history, including the “Oldest Cyberman” resembling those seen in The Tenth Planet, who would hint at a broader plot to snare the Doctor.
• The showdown with the Cyber army was originally set on an island attraction accessible only by boat; like the castle which replaced it, this bore the moniker "Natty Longshoe", which was an homage to Pippi Longstocking.
• Nehemiah Webley was named after folk and alternative musician Jason Webley, who had collaborated with Neil Gaiman's wife, Amanda Palmer.
• The chess-playing Cyberman was dubbed Marvello, and then The Amazing Marvel, before losing its moniker altogether.
• Until a very late stage, the theme park was called Lampwick's World after the delinquent boy who led Pinocchio astray. However, the name was amended to Hedgewick's World when it was discovered that there was an actual retailer of light fixtures called Lampwick's World.
• The episode comprised Block Ten of season seven.
• This was the third of four consecutive episodes produced by Denise Paul, while Marcus Wilson, who would receive a credit as series producer on these occasions, turned his attention to The Day of the Doctor.
• The scenes at the castle was the first material to be shot.
• Neil Gaiman announced his return to the series during his Hugo Award acceptance speech for The Doctor's Wife, commenting that "only a fool or a madman would try again – so [he was] on his third draft now".
• Warwick Davis stated that it was a "thrill" to be in the series, especially in an episode with the Cybermen written by Neil Gaiman.
• Neil Gaiman hoped to write a script that would win Matt Smith a BAFTA.
• Production on The Name of the Doctor began the day special effects shots were completed on this episode, as the requirements of the schedule necessitated the overlapping of Blocks Ten and Eleven.
• During editing, a scene was dropped in which the Doctor mimicked Prince Philip while masquerading as the Proconsul; ironically, Matt Smith would later play the Duke of Edinburgh in the first two seasons of The Crown.
• Neil Gaiman struggled to find a way to better involve the Doctor in the action. He finally came up with the idea of engaging the Doctor and the Cyber-Planner in a duel set inside the Time Lord's mind, affording Matt Smith the opportunity to give a very different onscreen performance.
• Neil Gaiman originally wanted the Cybermen to be silent, as he found the 1960s Cybermen much scarier than the Daleks "because they were quiet, and they slipped in and out of rooms".
• On redesigning the Cybermen, Neil Gaiman decided to "take the 1960s Cybermen and [incorporate] everything that's happened since". However, Gaiman said that he "got completely side-tracked by a mad, strange romp". Steven Moffat stated that the Cybermen were redesigned because they did so often in the classic series, and yet had been consistent in the new series. The previous design of the Cybermen also appear in this episode, but are not the primary threats.
• Neil Gaiman was motivated to provide a "rationalisation" for the Cybermen in current Doctor Who continuity. The classic series had depicted the Cybermen as alien cyborgs, while the revived series depicted them as human cyborgs from a parallel Earth; Gaiman opined that his Cybermen stemmed from an encounter and amalgamation of these two types of Cybermen following The Next Doctor.
• During filming at Castell Coch, a copy of the readthrough script was found in a taxi in Cardiff. It was marked as being Eve De Leon Allen's copy and had the working title of The Last Cyberman. The script was found by Hannah Durham, who posted a picture of the script to Facebook with the caption: "found Dr Who script in the back of a taxi. Cheeky spoilers anyone?" It was then posted to Reddit by Dan Rowling with the caption: "Look what a Facebook friend found in a taxi in Cardiff on Monday". Arrangements were then made by Hannah Durham and Dan Rowling to return the script to the BBC.
• The theatre-repurposed-as-military-barracks is the same theatre-repurposed-as-military-barracks from The Doctor's Daughter.
• The punishment platoon use the same communicators as the Clerics from The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone.
• Matt Smith found his dual performance to be a struggle and received little support from the crew, whom he constantly voiced his frustrations at.
• While Neil Gaiman enjoys the script as he wrote it, he found that the finished product was misinterpreted by Stephen Woolfenden, leaving a lot of his intentions unclear. Gaiman revealed in 2018 that he felt like the product was being taken out of his control and being weakened without his consent, leaving him with a bitter experience. Whilst this hasn't altered his love of the show or his desire to return, it did lead him to demand full creative control over future projects based on his scripts.

Ratings[]

Overnight viewing figures estimate that the episode was watched by 4.7 million viewers, rising to 6.64 million after calculating the final ratings, making it the ninth most-watched programme of the week on BBC One.^[4]

Filming locations[]

to be added

Myths[]

• Ha-Ha is Alfie Owens grown up. This theory circulated on Tumblr, postulated as a result of Ha-Ha's claim that he "has heard of the Cybermen since [he] was in [his] cradle," which was taken to be a direct reference to the events of Closing Time, as well as actor Calvin Dean's physical similarity in build to James Corden, who played Alfie's father Craig. As the story is set some 1,000 years after the supposed final destruction of the Cybermen and the end of the Cyber Wars, this is unlikely. It is also not borne out by any dialog in the episode itself.

Production errors[]

• When the Doctor is running to the castle, the gold ticket he used to shut down the Cyber-Planner is missing from his face. However, when he encounters Clara and the Platoon, the ticket is on his face again.
• One of the Cybermen's chestplates is pushed up, most likely due to it being too short for the actor wearing it.

Continuity[]

• According to Webley, there are 699 Wonders of the Universe. The Third Doctor once declared as much after the destruction of the 700th wonder, the Great City of the Exxilons. (TV: Death to the Daleks)
• The Doctor can play chess. (TV: The Sun Makers, The Androids of Tara, The Curse of Fenric, The Wedding of River Song). Also, the Time Lords inventing chess was a query first considered by the Second Doctor. (PROSE: Dreams of Empire)
• This is not the Doctor's first encounter with a Cyberman purported to be an automated game-playing machine. When the Eighth Doctor encountered the Silver Turk, a Cyberman, it too attacked its 'controllers'. (AUDIO: The Silver Turk)
• The Doctor mentions and exploits the Cybermen's weakness to gold (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen, Earthshock, Silver Nemesis) and cleaning fluid. (TV: The Moonbase)
• Two impact suits can be seen. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
• The Doctor says the children are under his protection. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
• Angie and Artie Maitland travel in the TARDIS, as they had previously blackmailed Clara into taking them along. (TV: The Crimson Horror)
• The Doctor shows Mr Clever the memory of his most recent regeneration. (TV: The End of Time)
• When talking about the Doctor to Clara, Mr Clever says that he's "had some cowboys in here". The Tenth Doctor used this phrase to describe the state of the ship SS Madame de Pompadour. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace) The Eleventh Doctor also said this to young Amelia Pond. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
• Mr Clever seems excited to get knowledge of the Time Lords, whereas earlier in their history, the Cyber-Leader considered the secrets of the Time Lords to be of no concern to the Cybermen. (TV: Silver Nemesis)
• Several wax replicas of creatures are seen in Webley's room. This includes an Uvodni head, (TV: Warriors of Kudlak) a Blowfish head, (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) a Shansheeth head, (TV: Death of the Doctor) a Chameleon, (TV: The Faceless Ones) a dummy, (TV: The God Complex) an Ultramancer, a Pan-Babylonian, and a Lugal-Irra-Kush. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten)
• The Doctor previously visited an amusement park "controlled" by aliens. (TV: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy)
• Angie's mobile phone has no service, indicating that the Doctor didn't give her a superphone, as he had with other companions since his ninth incarnation. (TV: The End of the World, 42, The Doctor's Daughter, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
• The Doctor mentions the Cybermats. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen, Revenge of the Cybermen, Closing Time)
• The Doctor echoes a quote from his former companion Rory Williams when confronted by the troops aiming guns at him: "Don't shoot, I'm nice!" (TV: The God Complex)
• The Doctor's defeat of the Cyber-Planner, distracting him with a bluff about an alleged checkmate to drain his power, is the same stratagem he used against Fenric in his seventh incarnation. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
• The Doctor refers to an enemy, the Cybermite, as "beautiful". (TV: Tooth and Claw, The Girl in the Fireplace, The God Complex, PROSE: Dark Horizons)
• The Doctor has previously told companions not to "wander off". (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)
• UNIT also designed a device that would blow up a planet to be used if left with no other options, the Osterhagen Project. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
• The Doctor and Mr Clever discuss the Doctor removing himself from databanks across the universe. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, The Angels Take Manhattan)
• The Doctor says that the Cybermen can't convert non-human beings. However, in his sixth incarnation, he met Cybermen who, whilst in the Land of Fiction, converted Fairies, Trolls, Mermen, Vampires and even a Whale into their Cyber-forces. (AUDIO: Legend of the Cyberman)
• Porridge's title of Imperator is similar to a title Imperiatrix on Gallifrey which Pandora and the Doctor's former companion Romana held. (AUDIO: Lies, Pandora to Appropriation)
• The Doctor's body being possessed by a villainous being that makes him appear to be an evil version of himself is similar to the instance where the Ninth Doctor had his body overtaken by an entity in COMIC: The Cruel Sea.
• The Tenth Doctor also considered regenerating to rid himself of a being who was possessing him. (TV: 42)

Home video releases[]

DVD & Blu-ray releases[]

• Nightmare in Silver was released on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Doctor Who Series 7 Part Two in region 1/A on 28 May 2013, region 2/B on 27 May 2013, and region 4/B on 22 May 2013.
• Also, this episode was released as part of the Complete Seventh Series boxset on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1/A on 24 September 2013, in region 2/B on 28 October 2013 and in region 4/B on 30 October 2013.

Digital releases[]

• In the United Kingdom, this story is available on BBC iPlayer.

External links[]

• Nightmare in Silver at The Locations Guide

Footnotes[]