Silver Nemesis

The Seventh Doctor and Ace visit England in 1988, where three rival factions—the Cybermen, a group of neo-Nazis, and a 17th-century sorceress named Lady Peinforte—are attempting to gain control of a statue made of a living metal, validium, that was created by Omega and Rassilon as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey.

The statue has three components - a bow, an arrow and the figure itself - that must be brought together in order for it to be activated. They have been separated since 1638 when, in order to foil the first attempt by Peinforte to seize it, the Doctor launched the figure into orbit in a powered asteroid.

This asteroid has been approaching the Earth at twenty-five yearly intervals ever since, leaving a succession of disasters in its wake, and has now crash-landed near Windsor Castle.

The Doctor plays the three factions against one another and eventually appears to concede defeat to the Cyber Leader. This is just part of a carefully laid trap, and the Cybermen's fleet is totally wiped out by the statue.

The working titles for this story included The Harbinger and Nemesis.[3] Writer Kevin Clarke, who appears twice in the serial itself playing a tourist at Windsor, discusses the development of the plot on the DVD. He points out that he had seen very little of Doctor Who and that he met the production team without any idea of what his proposed story would be about. He made up a story on the spot in front of producer John Nathan-Turner that the Doctor is literally God, though this was not realised on-screen. The Cybermen were added later at the request of Nathan-Turner, to tie in with the programme's silver anniversary.

Part One was transmitted on the 25th anniversary of the first episode of Doctor Who. Parts Two and Three were the second and third respectively of the series ever to be premiered outside of the United Kingdom (the first being The Five Doctors), being shown on 25 November as part of a compilation broadcast of the story on New Zealand's TVNZ, after part one had shown in the UK but prior to the other two being transmitted there.[8]

Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "A bit of a mess, really. Some passable scenes, but the story lacks pace and character involvement. Its plot is virtually identical to Remembrance of the Daleks only two stories previously."[9] In 2012, Mark Braxton of Radio Times said that the story had "a certain comic-strip effervescence" despite many of the plot points not going well together or missing the mark.[10] DVD Talk's Ian Jane gave Silver Nemesis three out of five stars, describing it as "phoned in" and a remake of Remembrance of the Daleks. However, he felt that the story was still enjoyable due to the chemistry between McCoy and Aldred, as well as the faster pace.[11] SFX reviewer Ian Berriman said that the story was too ambitious, and criticised the Cybermen. Despite this, he noted that the serial still had "a great concept, ... some cool moments, a couple of enjoyably awful puns and one superb character: nutjob Jacobean villainess Lady Peinforte".[12] Alasdair Wilkins of io9 wrote that it is "not an unmitigated disaster, but it's definitely the worst of classic Doctor Who's creative resurgence in its final two seasons". He also felt that the story packed in too many elements and did not do much with the Cybermen.[13] Den of Geek listed the Cybermen's reaction to jazz as one of the "great things in not-so-great [Doctor Who] episodes".[14]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Seventh Doctor

• Silver Nemesis at BBC Online
• Silver Nemesis on Tardis Data Core, an external wiki