A Brief History Of Time (Travel): Attack Of The Cybermen
Attack Of The  Cybermen
Plot
The TARDIS is commandeered by the mercenary Lytton and a group of Cybermen, who are using another captured time machine to travel back to 1985. There, the Cybermen intend to use Halley's Comet to obliterate the Earth, thus preventing the destruction of their home planet Mondas in  1986 and perverting the course of history. Taken prisoner on Telos, the  Doctor and Peri escape and ally themselves with the native Cryons. But  in order to stop the Cyber plot, they may have to rely on none other  than Lytton, whose motivations remain a mystery to all.
Production
The return of the Cybermen in 1982's Earthshock had been a popular success for Doctor Who. As a result, producer John Nathan-Turner and script  editor Eric Saward -- who had written Earthshock -- were eager to use the venerable  monsters to lead off the Sixth Doctor's first full season in 1985.  Saward, a fan of the Cybermen, was keen to tackle the serial himself.  Indeed, he hoped that this would be one of two adventures he would  contribute to Season Twenty-Two: he had missed out on the chance to  write a Doctor Who story the previous year because industrial  action had delayed his scripts for Resurrection Of  The Daleks from Season Twenty to Season Twenty-One.  Nathan-Turner, however, was keen to avoid the wrath of the Writers'  Guild, which would take a dim view of the Doctor Who script  editor commissioning himself for one-third of the year's output. He  informed Saward that he would only be permitted to write the season  finale, Revelation Of The Daleks .
Nonetheless, Saward turned to disc jockey and music producer Ian Levine,  a longtime Doctor Who fan who had been acting as a continuity  adviser to the production office. Levine had unsuccessfully proposed  several plot ideas in recent years, and Saward now suggested that they  collaborate on a storyline for the Cyberman tale. In late 1983, Levine  put together an outline entitled “Return To Telos&#8221. It was  agreed that this would draw heavily on the Cyberman stories of the  Sixties, most notably their 1966 debut adventure The Tenth Planet (in which their home planet,  Mondas, is destroyed in 1986) and 1967's The Tomb  Of The Cybermen (which established the existence of the Cyber  installation on Telos).
John Nathan-Turner knew that the press could not resist  hints that the TARDIS might lose its police box form
It appears that Saward then augmented Levine's outline with his own  creations, including the mercenary Lytton (first introduced in Resurrection Of The Daleks ) and the Cryons.  With the latter, Saward attempted to devise a realistic race of aliens  in which each member possessed a distinct personality, as opposed to the  monolithic throngs usually portrayed in science-fiction. The notion of  the Doctor attempting to repair the TARDIS chameleon circuit, meanwhile,  came from Nathan-Turner. He saw this as an excellent publicity vehicle,  since he knew that the press would not be able to resist hints that the  time machine might be losing its traditional police box form.
Given Nathan-Turner's edict, there was no question of Saward being  credited as the story's scriptwriter. Furthermore, Levine's working  relationship with the Doctor Who production office was maintained  with the understanding that he would not receive onscreen  acknowledgment. As a result, Saward turned to writer and teacher Paula  Woolsey, an ex-girlfriend with whom he was still on good terms. Woolsey  had also performed some research for Saward's first Doctor Who serial, The Visitation . Officially, Woolsey  would be the scriptwriter of the story resulting from Levine and  Saward's work, which was now called “The Cold War”.
The true extent of Woolsey's input into the scripts is unclear. Some  sources suggest that Saward wrote them in their entirety, and Woolsey's  only role was to serve as a figurehead to mislead Nathan-Turner. Other  sources indicate that Woolsey did write draft scripts, although these  were then considerably revised by Saward, at least in part because of  Woolsey's lack of experience in television. Saward himself has suggested  that even the storyline was largely Woolsey's creation, and he simply  worked with her to incorporate the Cybermen, the Cryons and Lytton;  Levine has denied this assertion, however.
Regardless, on January 10th, 1984, Woolsey was commissioned to script  part one of “The Cold War”. The second -- and final --  installment was then requested on February 21st. These were both  forty-five-minute episodes, in keeping with the plan agreed upon in the  spring of 1983 to modernise the Doctor Who format. Whereas Season  Twenty-One had consisted of twenty-six installments of twenty-five  minutes' duration, broadcast twice weekly, Season Twenty-Two would be  made up of thirteen weekly episodes, each three quarters of an hour  long. This would mark the first major format change for Doctor  Who since it premiered in 1963, and brought the programme in line  with the rest of the BBC's drama line-up.
Originally it was revealed that a colony of Cryons is  living inside Halley's Comet
By the spring of 1984, considerable work remained to be done on “The Cold War”, now designated Serial 6T. At this time,  Matthew Robinson joined the production as director; he had previously  worked on Resurrection Of The Daleks .  Saward and Robinson collaborated on the final draft scripts, with much  of their effort concerned with simplifying the plot developments in  episode two. Originally, it was revealed that a colony of Cryons is  living inside Halley's Comet. Lytton's job was to convince the Cybermen  to use the comet as the agent of the Earth's destruction in order to  lure the Cyber Controller there, where he would be ambushed by the  Cryons. This scheme is uncovered by the Cybermen, who then turn against  Lytton.
It was planned that all of the Telos material would be studiobound.  However, late in the day, Serial 6T gained additional money for location  filming. This prompted Saward to introduce Stratton and Bates and add  scenes on the surface of Telos, allowing him to emphasise the  Telos-based elements of the plot earlier than had previously been the  case. Saward also came to enjoy the character of Griffiths and decided  to postpone his demise, which was meant to take place near the end of  the opening episode. Robinson, meanwhile, was concerned about the lack  of female characters, and decided that all of the Cryons should be  women; Varne and Flast were initially intended to be male. Finally, the  title became Attack Of The Cybermen, while it was agreed that the  author's credit would refer to the pseudonymous “Paula  Moore”.
Shortly before recording began, Robinson found himself scrambling to  adjust his cast. The actor initially chosen to portray Strattion was  Trevor Raymond, but he suffered a broken arm and had to drop out of the  production. He was replaced by Jonathan David, who had been hired to  play the Cyber Lieutenant. David, in turn, was replaced by Brian Orrell,  while Orrell's original role as a Cyberman was taken by John Ainley.
Filming began on May 29th, at a variety of London locales. The scene in  which Lytton's mob reconnoiter the diamond merchants was recorded  outside the Dartmouth Castle pub; the diamond merchants' premises were  actually the offices of United International Pictures. The junkyard on  Totter's Lane was really the London Scrapyard. Finally, the sequence of  the Doctor tracing the signal was filmed on Davis Road.
The surface of Telos was represented by the same  Buckinghamshire quarry as in 1967
The next two days were spent recording all of the material on the  surface of Telos. Eager to maintain continuity with The Tomb Of The Cybermen , Levine had prevailed  upon Robinson to follow its lead in representing Telos with the quarry  owned by the Gerrards Cross Sand & Ballast Company at Wapseys Wood,  Buckinghamshire. It was planned that the Cybermen in these scenes would  be dressed in blue overalls and globular helmets, to imply the hostile  nature of Telos' surface. However, it was found that these additions  made the monsters look ridiculous, and they were dropped. Finally, cast  and crew returned to London on June 1st for the scenes in the garage  used by Lytton's gang, which were recorded at Cameron Scrap Merchant.  Model filming followed on the 7th and 8th at the BBC Model Stage.
Also on June 7th, Doctor Who appeared to have scored a casting  coup when American model and actress Koo Stark -- best known as the star  of the 1976 erotic film Emily, but at the time making headlines  for her relationship with Prince Andrew -- was cast as Varne, after  having originally been offered the role of Rost. A photocall featuring  Stark, Colin Baker and Faith Brown (Flast) was held on June 12th. Just  two days later, however, a contract dispute led Nathan-Turner to dismiss  Stark from Attack Of The Cybermen. She was replaced by Sarah  Greene, a friend of Robinson's.
The first studio session for Serial 6T took place on June 21st and 22nd  in BBC Television Centre Studio 6. The Cyber base on Earth featured on  both days, while the TARDIS scenes were recorded on the 21st and the  sewer material on the 22nd. Rehearsals then began for the second studio  block, which would encompass all of the Telos sequences. The costume and  make-up for the Cryons continued to evolve during this time; the silvery  wisps of hair near the mouth were a particularly late addition,  suggested by Nathan-Turner to help conceal the join between the mask and  the actor's skin.
Ian Levine was disappointed that a completely new design  for the Cyber tombs had been conceived
The remaining studio days spanned July 6th to 8th, and also took place  in TC6. Levine was again successful in persuading Robinson to harken  back to The Tomb Of The Cybermen , with  Michael Kilgarriff hired to reprise his role as the Cyber Controller  after a gap of eighteen years. However, Levine was very disappointed to  discover that a completely new design for the Cyber tombs had been  conceived. Instead of being cocooned behind a semi-transparent membrane  on several levels of scaffolding, the Cybermen would now lie dormant  within a single row of pods, each hidden behind a door. This was a  result of the serial's budget limitations and also caused concern for  Robinson, but Nathan-Turner felt that so few viewers would be aware of  the discrepancy that he could not justify the added expense. The first  day of the new block was devoted to scenes in and around the  refrigeration unit. Material in the tombs was taped on the 7th. The  remaining Telos sequences were then completed on July 8th, including  those in the Cyber laboratory, the ductwork, and the Cryon caverns.
Attack Of The Cybermen part one was broadcast on January 5th,  1985, inaugurating Doctor Who's twenty-second season. This was  the final Doctor Who story directed by Matthew Robinson, although  he was scheduled to work on “The Nightmare Fair”, the  intended premiere adventure of Season Twenty-Three, prior to the BBC's  decision to postpone Doctor Who for eight months. Robinson would  go on to direct episodes of EastEnders, Bergerac and Byker Grove. Byker Grove was Robinson's own creation and  he also served as its executive producer, a position he would later  occupy on EastEnders. Robinson then became Head of Drama at BBC  Wales before moving to Cambodia, where he produced the HIV drama Taste Of Life and formed a movie production company called Khmer  Mekong Films.
Attack Of The Cybermen was Paula Woolsey's only Doctor Who story. She submitted two further story ideas independently of Saward  after completing the Cyberman tale, but these were abandoned in the wake  of the production shake-up brought about by the postponement of Season  Twenty-Three. Attack Of The Cybermen would remain Woolsey's only  broadcast television script.
Sources
Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor by David J Howe,  Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1993), Virgin Publishing, ISBN 0  426 20400 8.
Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing, ISBN 1 85227 680 0.
Doctor Who Magazine #207, 22nd December 1993, “Archive:  Attack Of The Cybermen” by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK  Ltd.
Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #3, 22nd January 2003, “Everything Must Change” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing  Ltd.
In-Vision #79, August 1998, “Production” edited  by Anthony Brown, Cybermark Services.
Original Transmission