Doctor Who: The Tomb Of The Cybermen (1967)

Although Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor is one of the least seen - due to the BBC's great purge of old Doctor Who episodes - I've always have a certain affinity for his puckish portrayal of The Doctor.

The Tomb Of The Cybermen is the earliest complete story to survive from his years as the Time Lord and what a cracker it is!

Having picked up Victoria (Deborah Watling), after her father gave his life to save them in The Evil Of The Daleks, Jamie (Frazer Hines) and The Doctor take the TARDIS to Telos in the 25th Century (according to Lance Parkin's invaluable AHistory).

There they team up with an archeological expedition from Earth that has just discovered the entrance to the lost tombs of the cybermen; the cybermen having 'vanished' mysteriously from the universe five centuries earlier.

The expedition is sponsored by the Brotherhood of Logicians, whose representatives - Klieg (George Pastell) and Kaftan (Shirley Cooklin) - are clearly up to no good from the moment we meet them.

Having gained access to the frozen tombs, the Logicians reveal their evil plan to bargain with the cybers in the hope of gaining allies in a scheme to take over the Earth and turn it in to some kind of logical paradise.

Naturally, the cybermen have no interest in dealings with inferior beings and things spiral out of control.

A large amount of slack has to be cut for the cheap-looking props and special effects (don't, for instance, pay any attention to the hook and cable on Toberman's back when he is picked up and thrown by a cyberman), but that doesn't detract from the very dramatic emergence of the cybermen from their tombs (even though they are clearly just tearing through clingfilm to escape).

Tomb Of The Cybermen is a simple, straight-forward, four-episode story that develops the cybermen's mythology - by introducing us to various-sized rodent-like cybermats and the Cyberleader - while not overly concerning itself with canon and continuity; concepts that weren't developed until much later on.

That being said there are wonderful little character touches that build the persona of The Doctor; like the third episode conversation between Victoria and The Doctor about his family, and his finding a picture of a cybermat in his diary, but not knowing what it was beforehand.

Victoria is a strange companion, coming from Victorian England she seems totally unsuited to time and space travel, and mainly contributes to the proceedings by screaming and adding a level of cuteness to the male-dominated TARDIS of the time.

However, like Jamie, she is another companion not from contemporary Earth - a trick that the current incarnation of the show has yet to really pick up on (excluding Captain Jack, of course).

It would be interesting to see how modern writers handle an ongoing companion not from 21st Century Earth, because it has to be said there is very little in The Tomb Of The Cyberman to actually suggest that Victoria is from Victorian England (except, maybe, a passing reference to the shortness of the skirt that she changes into).