The Origins of the Cybermen

The Cybermen are often regarded as the second most famous Doctor Who villains.  But how where they first created? In the Doctor Who universe there are all sorts of theories and contradictions that exist around the Cybermen’s past, so I will be focusing on how they were envisioned in real life, by Kit Pedler.

Kit Pedler, a medical researcher, had been drafted into the Doctor Who production team as a kind of scientific advisor – he was presented with hypothetical and fictional problems, and then asked to give an idea of what would happen if the event really took place. His response to the question “What would happen if an alien intelligence got inside the Post Office Tower?” was later developed into the script for “The War Machines”.  When script editor Gerry Davis asked Pedler about a new planet similar to Earth drifting into the Solar System, his response formed the basis of the final William Hartnell story “The Tenth Planet”. Pedler wrote the script featuring cybernetically enhanced humans, as his biggest fear, being a doctor, was “dehumanising medicine”. He predicted a time when spare part surgery had become common place and a time where it would be impossible to tell how much of the original human remained. He predicted that these creatures would be motivated by logic and the will to survive at any cost, sacrificing their entire bodies and minds for immortality. From this concept, he created the Cybermen.

Cybermen through the years

After “The Tenth Planet”, the Cybermen would go on to appear in later stories, in a variety of new designs. They have also appeared in a range of BBC books and Big Finish audio plays.

So vote in our poll to decide your favourite Cybermen story. We will watch the winner on Sunday afternoon. The Bar opens at 3.00pm and we press play 3.30pm.

Hope to see you there.