Cybermen 50th Anniversary: Retropective Celebration

I was looking at that list and there's not many on their that I rate as really good stories, which is strange because I think the Cybermen are fantastic as an idea. But I think, as an idea, their time has gone: they came from a time when people could genuinely be concerned about how replacing parts of the body could dehumanise you and lead to loss of individuality. These days, though, it seems that bodymods and prostheses are "just" another way of expressing our individuality and there are some people actively anticipating a chance to drop their meatsuit and become part of a singularity.

Of the Cybermen stories, many could have been written about other villains without it changing the story too much. I think they have been best served in the Tennant stories where you got a palpable sense of the body horror that becoming a cyberman could engender. The closest the classic series came to it, IMNSHO, was Attack Of The Cybermen (a story where it the Cybermen were well-placed as villains, too). I don't think they lend themselves to humour very well, but I would love to be persuaded otherwise).

I loved the Earthshock designs best, followed by Series 2 of the revived series (truth be told, the best Cyberman designs come from Star Trek TNG: the Borg are a really scary visualisation of the the Cybermen). While I really enjoyed Dark Water/ Death In Heaven, I felt they were starting to verge in on Iron Man territory in their design and ability.

Very difficult choice.
I would have to be either Tenth Planet or a Troughton story. I went for Tenth Planet.

I voted Nightmare In Silver because it doesn't get enough love. People were expecting The Doctor's Wife 2 as opposed to a harmless fun action-packed episode featuring the Cybermen and I think it will be one of those episodes that will be re-assessed by fandom in ten years' time.

I went with The Invasion, even though I've never seen it. However, the BBC Radio Collection CD of it - with linking narration by Frazer Hines - was brilliant and it's one of my favourites of those BBC soundtrack releases.

I also think the Cyberman look in that story is the best of all the designs. When I hear Cybermen on audio that's how I imagine them looking... even if the voices put them in a different era.

I chose the Invasion, but I almost voted for Dark Water/Death in Heaven. In the end, I decided that Dark Water/Death in Heaven was more of a Master story than a Cyber-story. Even though Vaughn was the main villain of The Invasion, that was really more of a Cyber-story.

Someone should also add Cyberwoman to the list. Not that I think anyone is likely to vote for it, but that is a TV story that primarily focuses on the Cybermen.

The animation isn't bad. If you really don't want the animation, you can always listen to the audio for episodes 1 and 4, and watch the remaining six live action episodes.

I agree. In most of the Big Finish stories, it's important that the villains are Cybermen, whereas in most of the TV stories, you could swap in the Daleks and not have to change too much. It's funny to say, but I feel like Big Finish gave the Cybermen their own identity. 

For TV i went with Earthshock, mainly because that was the first Cybermen story i ever saw. So that would trump what came before.

On audio its a toss up between, Spare Parts and The Silver Turk

I've only read the first 3 issues of Supremacy of the Cybermen, so cant say much about there comic adventures lol