Spare Parts was the thirty-fourth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. It explained the somewhat surprising origins of the Mondasian Cybermen.
It was the partial inspiration for two 2006 Doctor Who television episodes — The Age of Steel and Rise of the Cybermen, on which Spare Parts writer Marc Platt received acknowledgement.
Publisher's summary
"I'm not even sure they are people by the end. They’re just so many tinned left-overs..."
On a dark frozen planet where no planet should be, in a doomed city with a sky of stone, the last denizens of Earth's long-lost twin will pay any price to survive, even if the laser scalpels cost them their love and hate and humanity.
And in the Mat-infested streets, round about tea-time, the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa unearth a black market in secondhand body parts and run the gauntlet of augmented police and their augmented horses.
And just between the tramstop and the picturehouse, the Doctor's worst suspicions are finally confirmed: the Cybermen have only just begun, and the Doctor will be, just as he always has been, their saviour...
Plot
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
- Yvonne Hartley - Kathryn Guck
- Dad - Paul Copley
- Thomas Dodd - Derren Nesbitt
- Sisterman Constant - Pamela Binns
- Frank Hartley - Jim Hartley
- Mrs Ginsberg - Ann Jenkins
- Doctorman Allan - Sally Knyvette
- Cybermen / Cyber-Commander Zheng - Nicholas Briggs
References
Species
- Yvonne has a pet Cybermat.
- The Doctor tries to fight off a Cyberman with gold, but it has no effect.
- This story marks the first chronological appearance of a Cyber-Planner. It originates in a union of the brightest minds of the Mondasian Council.
- Part of the Cybermen design is structured after the Doctor's own brain.
Preview illustration by Martin Geraghty featured in DWM 320
Notes
- This story has similarities to the unproduced story Genesis of the Cybermen. Both looked into the past of the Cybermen and featured the Fifth Doctor. (REF: Doctor Who: Cybermen)
- This audio drama was recorded on 26 and 27 March 2002 at The Moat Studios.
- The parts of this audio story have individual names. Part 1 is "Surfacing", Part 2 is "Necessary Force", Part 3 is "Popping the Seals", and Part 4 is "Shelter".
Continuity
- This story takes place at the beginning of the Cybermen's creation. Many of its events lead into those of TV: The Tenth Planet.
- Mondas began to drift through space, due to the sudden arrival of a moon between Earth and Mondas. This upset the gravitational equilibrium of Mondas, causing it to escape its orbit. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
- Cyber-Commander Zheng would return for a cameo appearance in AUDIO: The Reaping. That story depicted him as still being operational in September 1984.
- The Doctor's desire to eliminate the Cybermen from history is rather illogical, and certainly contradicts the Fourth Doctor's rationale for not destroying the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks. Despite his grief, the problematic effects on just the Doctor's personal timeline are easy to see. Eliminating Cybermen means not only that Adric might not die, but also that:
- Zoe Heriot might never start travelling with the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon
- The Second Doctor might not have encountered UNIT, and therefore the conditions of the Third Doctor's exile on Earth might have been substantially different
- The First Doctor's regeneration might have happened under radically changed conditions
- Nyssa has sympathy with people losing their family. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
External links
- Official Spare Parts page at bigfinish.com
- Spare Parts at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- DisContinuity for Spare Parts at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
