Doctor Who - Farewell Matt: Nightmare In Silver

Doctor Who: 

Nightmare In Silver 

By Neil Gaiman

“Your move. But before you take it, just so you know, sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Time Lords invented chess. It's our game. And if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves.”

Once it was announced that Neil Gaiman was going to write another episode for Doctor Who I was happy at the news and couldn’t wait to see it.  Now when it was announced that his story was going to feature The Cybermen, well, I was even more eager to see that episode and when the airdate was announced I circled it on the calendar.  Now you see The Cybermen are my favorite villains in Doctor Who and the prospect of seeing them getting a new take by Neil Gaiman filled me with delight that hopefully The Cybermen will be given justice and done right.

Now everyone loves The Doctor’s Wife and it was such a wonderful story and one of the best in the Matt Smith era so the expectations are high this time around for Neil Gaiman.  So will Nightmare In Silver be heralded as one of the best Cybermen stories like Earthshock or will it be really lousy like Silver Nemesis.  Read on to see what I thought.

Neil Gaiman Talks Doctor Who and Nightmare In Silver

Neil Gaiman participated in a press call on Wednesday, which I was fortunate to attend, to talk about his upcoming story “Nightmare in Silver”.  Since his call was loaded with spoilers I found it safer to post this after the story aired.   We found out a lot like William Hartnell's Doctor scared him as a kid, He really enjoys writing for Doctor Who and that Patrick Troughton is his favorite Doctor.  Here are some of the highlights from that press call.

First off he explains how the story a Nightmare In Silver came about.

  

Well, they began - the entire episode began with an email from Steven Moffat which was a sequence of emails. The first one saying, you know, would I like to write another Doctor Who episode following on from “The Doctor’s Wife?” And me writing back and saying I really didn’t have time and life was just completely mental and I was sorry.

 And I remember Moonbase, the second outing I think it was of the Cybermen. I didn’t see the first one but the second one, Moonbase, I saw and I was terrified of them. I was much more scared of them in a way that I was the Daleks because they were sort of quiet and they slipped in and out of rooms and it was such a - very off putting.

And then him writing back and saying, you know, if I could find time somehow, he’d really like it if I made the Cybermen scary again. And that one got to me because when I was a kid, I was a huge Patrick Troughton fan. Patrick Troughton was my Doctor.

Doctor Who - Nightmare in Silver Review - (Some Spoilers)

Review by Ken Parker

Sometimes you look forward to things so much that there is no way they will ever reach those bloated expectations. Look at the facts. Despite some fan opinion that this last half of season 7 has been sub par, the stories have been more focused and paced. The stories, for the most part, have concentrated on the Doctor and Clara and their involvement in their adventure and less about an upcoming deadly danger or secrets being kept by some annoying winking woman or who is really the Doctor. The stories have been stand alone and enjoyable. I attribute this to the writing, the acting and the chemistry that has been given time to develop between the Doctor and Clara, the best Doctor, Companion duo since the 10^th Doctor and Rose.

Behind The Scenes: Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver"

Neil Gaiman Introduces Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver"

Another Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver" Clip

Neil Gaiman On Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver"

Radio Times has an interview up with Neil Gaiman and he gives a pretty good description of his new Doctor Who story Nightmare in Silver.

First he gives a brief synopsis of the story.

The Doctor has been talked by Clara into taking the two kids she looks after, Artie and Angie, for an excursion, a day out, and he decides to take them to Hedgewick's World, the biggest, best and most wonderful amusement park in the galaxy, a quarter of a million years in the future, because he has a golden ticket and it gets four people in for free, gets you free ice creams and it gets you to the front of any line, which is great because the lines for the Spacey Zoomer can go on for weeks. And that's where it starts.

Unfortunately, it also starts with them discovering that Hedgewick's World has been closed for several years and there's almost nobody on it now except for a small army troop on manoeuvres and a mad old showman named Mr Webley who landed his spaceship there after it closed and is now there with a Cyberman that plays chess. That's where it begins. This is also 1,000 years after the end of the big human/Cyberman war – where we won.

He also gives a description of the characters that will be in the story.

Jason Watkins plays Mr Webley, this wonderful, slightly alcoholic old showman touring the universe with a waxworks and a chess-playing Cyberman. Warwick Davis is his henchman, who is called Porridge. He's affable, sweet and helps Webley and cannot wait to get off this planet.

Tamzin Outhwaite is a captain named Alice Ferren who's in charge of the platoon doing troop exercises on an abandoned amusement park planet and as we discover, as the story goes on, it's actually a punishment platoon. They're all people who've got into trouble. She was sent there for disobeying orders. They're not the kind of crack troop you'd want if it so happened that a Cyberman moves in – a new model Cyberman that we haven't seen, who is absolutely lethal and hyper-intelligent.

Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver" Preview Clip

Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver" Promo Pics

Win Doctor Who - Plague of The Cybermen Book !!!!!

To get things ready for this weeks brand new Doctor Who"Nightmare in Silver" we have one book to give away and it is a Cybermen one so it makes sense.  All you have to do is leave and the answer in the comments to the trivia question and you need to leave your twitter handle so we can get in touch with you if you are the winner. That's it.    The winner will be announced May 14th

Here is the trivia question?

What was the Series 6 story that "Nightmare in Silver" writer Neil Gaiman wrote?

Good Luck.

Doctor Who: Nightmare In Silver BBC America Trailer

Trailer For Doctor Who "Nightmare In Silver"

Movie Style Promo Pics For The Next Three Doctor Who Stories.

The next slew of movie style posters for the next three Doctor Who stories have been released and they look pretty good. My favorite is Nightmare in Silver.