CYBERMAN "We're in a parallel universe and we wanted to create episodes that felt like: what if the Nazis had won the war?" says production designer Edward Thomas. "It's zeppelins, it's Art Deco - clean lines, very industrial." flames ' // Last year, playgrounds - and offices - resounded once more to the cry of "exterminate" as the Daleks returned. Now the Doctor and Rose face another old adversary: the Cybermen! The flesh-and-metal > fiends have had a makeover, but what else is new? Find out over the next five pages. V Photos by Matt Holyoak CYBER CONTROLLER The daddy of them all. Note the different head casing, eyes that light up and sprockets on the chest CYBER LEADER The second in command has retained a bit more personality than the run-of-the-mill Cybermen: the black handlebars give it away /* , H J I / / ••••••••^••^H •BH.IHHBHBBHH ANATOMY OF A CYBERMAN h OIL DUCTS n "You might notice that they've got oil ducts in "HANDLEBARS" the eyes," says production Neill Gorton: "You couldn't build a designer Edward Thomas. Cyberman without handlebars on "It's supposed to be an the head! We wanted a completely oil duct, but it gives the t new Cyberman, but it still has image of a tear. They are that nod to the past." sad creatures. There are Edward Thomas: "We've replicated human beings inside that the head handlebars on the bodies. have been taken out of Things like that can get caught on their bodies and encased cameras and each other, so while in these metal cases. you're trying to design the most They'll never escape." spectacular-looking monster, you I also have to bear in mind J the practicalities." THE CYBER HEAD "The head is f ibreglass," explains Neill Gorton (special makeup and prosthetic effects), "but Russell [T Davies, executive producer] was adamant they had to look like steel. We tried different paint finishes and it just didn't work. We ended up doing it as 'cold cast metal': you take a CYBER CREATOR powdered metal, add it to a resin and brush that Roger Lloyd Pack (above) plays John Lumic, into your moulds, then put f ibreglass behind that. the man behind the Cyberman production When you polish it, it's a fabulous finish and looks company, Cybus Industries. "I play a kind and feels like metal. But it's very time consuming, of evil genius who's creating an army of polishing it by hand through different grades of Cybermen to make himself immortal," says sandpaper, wet and dry paper, metal polish..." Lloyd Pack, who broke his ankle a week after agreeing to the role. It was fortunate, then, 7 that the character of Lumic uses a wheelchair! SPROCKETS These enable life-support tubes to be connected to the chest L3 FLEXIBLE FOE Edward Thomas: "Because the actors have to do a lot of stunts, fall over, get killed, you've got to really make sure that [the costume) is user friendly. We had lots of concerns when we were CYBUS designing them..." INDUSTRIES I CURVES Edward Thomas: "The whole design concept of the episode was that it was going to be Art Deco, so we kept the very Art Deco lines. And it's I, mass-produced, it's a metal monster, so it all has to feel as if it clips together." f C11 SUITS YOU, SIR! Neill Gorton: "There's a suit underneath with rubber sections that you can see through the joints. It's made of Lycra and has a harness stitched into it of webbing with clips. They put that on first. "Then all the panels, the legs and arms go on in one piece, and the body panels are clipped around. Those clips are hidden; you poke a little | device through a hole to reach the clip, so you can ' unclip them really fast, which is especially handy if a Cyberman is desperate for the toilet! § "Then the head goes on, and they have silicone hands and neck. It's a lot of pieces - there are 13 making up the body." NEW MODEL ARMY Neill Gorton: "We wanted to bring the Cybermen into the 21st century, make them look more real and give them a uniformity that they didn't have previously. You always had one guy 6ft 2, one guy 5ft 6, one with a beer belly, one stood in the foreground overacting and two in the background, slouching. They are an army. They should be the same." The 2006 model went through many variations, with designers poring over the different incarnations from the original series. "We all put our designs ^^m in to be approved by Russell," says Actor Paul Kasey (above) says, It wasn t until prosthetics supervisor Rob Mayor, the first day of the shoot that I put it all on. It "then he picked bits he liked out of took about half an hour, the first time. By the certain designs. But the final design end of the shoot I'd got it down to about ten came from the art department." minutes. You feel like a powerhouse, like this machine that's so destructive. It's just great to bring them alive, to get inside one." ^flUSHEE^ WRITE ON TIME been ertttus!t\t wv: om MacRae - at 26, the his shield-shaped badge, watching youngest of the Doctor his episodes take shape. Who writers - has two "The Cybermen look as amazing Blue Peter badges. The when you see them in the flesh, so to Tfirst he won in 1988 in a competition speak, as they do on screen. The only to design an acre of theme park. difference is that when they move ("I had a robotic abominable they make a plasticky noise, which ot snowman and I drew a diagram screen they've dubbed into a more to show where the batteries went metallic 'Shonk! Shonk!' sound. to make his eyes flash," he recalls.) "Then they take their helmets off The second he got from a and it's ten guys standing around. Cyberman, or rather, Blue Peter Put the helmets back on and they're presenter Gethin Jones, who makes *^^^r Cybermen again. It's amazing." a guest "appearance" as a Cyberman Tom MacRae grew up with in MacRae's two-parter: Rise of the Sylvester McCoy as his Doctor (the Cybermen and The Age of Steel. Seventh), loved the show and always It's the latest resurrection for the wanted to write for it - and now he isj show, which last year brought back having arrived via Sky One's Mile the Daleks, amid a nationwide High, No Angels, Mayo and a scramble to hide behind sofas. The children's book, The Opposite, Cybermen last turned up in Doctor which, courtesy of his surname, Who in the story sits next to Madonna's. Silver Nemesis So, did coming face to face with a in 1988, when Cyberman scare him? "I don't think Sylvester you can be scared by something you'vi McCoy played written," he says. "Mind you, having! the Doctor, said that, I did have a nightmare abou while their first them just after I started [writing the appearance was (AVEN'T YOU episodes], where they were coming 40 years ago [CHANGED? at me and I was going, 'You can't! in the William \ The bulky 1966 I created you!'" Nick Griffiths Hartnell adventure model (far left) as The Tenth Planet. it appeared in The Tenth Planet; the Today's silver Cyber Controller www.radiotimes.com/doctorwho cyborgs have been (Ieft)in1985's redesigned: Art Attack of the RT DIRECT Deco-styled, more Cybermen; and this year's model The book Doctor homogenous, but no (below) on the less sinister. But how rampage Who: Aliens and Enemies is available will they be introduced for £5.99 (add to a new generation? £2.95 p&p per "The Cybermen are us; they're it's become a hackneyed idea. So into one of them. That's the story." copy). To order, humans converted," says MacRae. you're trying to keep what's brilliant The writer promises plenty of send a cheque, "They are technologically better, about them without everyone saying, special effects and something "very made payable and in the process they lost their 'We've seen that before.'" action film-y", but won't say where to BBC Shop, to: compassion. They were one of the How? "We've gone to the root the action is set. "Even answering BBC Shop, first sci-fi villains to do that 'How of what's scary, which is that they that is giving too much away," he says. PO Box 308, scary is it to lose your emotions?' come and they take you and they "But it was filmed in Cardiff." Which Sittingbourne, Kent, MW9 8LW; thing. The problem now is that don't kill you, but they turn you is where he met Gethin Jones, and got or call 0870777 001, quoting RTFAE. 14 SEE PAGE 26 AND CENTRE PAGES FOR OUR GREAT DOCTOR WHO OFFER RadioTimes 13-19 May 2001 .