Parallel evolution

This speech is basically a continuity hand grenade. It suggests that not only did the humans that converted themselves into Cybermen arise spontaneously and independently on Mondas and a parallel Earth, but that the Cybermen the 2nd Doctor fights on Telos in Tomb Of The Cybermen also arose completely independently of the ones on Mondas, as did the ones in The Invasion who recognised the Doctor and Jamie from “Planet 14” (and boy do fans wonder about what went on there).

Moffat even, just for good measure, name checks Marinus, a planet that only ever appeared on TV in one 1st Doctor story, The Keys Of Marinus, but which appears in the 1987 comic story The World Shapers, where it’s made out that Marinus eventually turns into Mondas.

Now instead of nearly identical monsters arising independently on two different planets, we have nearly identical monsters arising no fewer than five separate times. This is about more than the constant, brave and impossible mission to make all the contradictory stories in the Doctor Who canon line up however. It changes the very nature of the Cybermen into something far more malevolent, as well as making them eerily relevant today.

Always read the comments

The Daleks, the racist pepper pots that will forever relegate the Cybermen to also-ran status, have frequently been held up as Doctor Who’s Nazi metaphor. But the Daleks are the work of one man. If the 12th Doctor had decided to leave baby Davros in that field of hand mines it could easily have led to a much less exterminated universe. Even if you’re against child-murder, to rid the universe of Daleks you just have to get them all into one place and then blow them up. It’s been done in the first ever Dalek story, in The Evil Of Daleks (hailed as their “Final end!”), in Remembrance Of The Daleks with the obliteration of their entire planet, and during the Last Great Time War. Annoyingly there always seems to be one that sneaks through the cracks and starts it all up again, but in principal killing all Daleks is a perfectly sensible way to defeat them.