Last night on Doctor Who, I believe The Cybermen were buried – not in the sense that they were trapped underground which... well actually they also were - but rather in the pro-wrestling sense of the word. So today I'd like to start this series by talking about the episode 'Closing Time' while I introduce a few ideas related to the concept of...
THE BURIAL
A “burial” in the wrestling-sense refers to the intentional actions by a promoter (or writer/director) to lower the standing of a character in the eyes of their audience. This can be done in a number of ways, but is usually related to having a character perform worse than the audience are expecting in order to lower their expectations for future performances or loose interest in that character all together. Often in the wrestling world this is some sort of punishment or a reaction to a failed character that is damaging the overall product. While audiences may sometimes loose interest in a character of their own accord, the term “burial” is used when the author of a text means this to happen on purpose.
With the instant feedback of a live audience, the authors of wrestling can be subject to a heightened creative impatience. The decision to purposefully lower a character's standing can sometimes be the reaction when the current direction of a story has gone suddenly awry, is turning certain customers away or one character's success is damaging another's. However even in this situation a burial is almost never the correct course of action. After all, any character at a level where their standing can be lowered clearly has something to give and it is usually in the best interests of everyone involved to salvage this in some way. The decision to bury anybody is more often the result of the massive egos that exist both in front of and behind the scenes. There is most likely some intent to embarrass or disgrace a performer before any consideration of the impact on their character.
The term “burial” has been the subject of a lot of discussion within the wrestling community this week in relation to WWE Night of Champions 2011 [← My review, yonder!], where it has been argued that both the performers Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk were soundly buried as a result of their matches. I'm not going to get further into those discussions here, but it's important to demonstrate how this concept is relevant in it's native context today.
What I do want to discuss here is last night's episode of Doctor Who and how I feel the term “burial” is applicable to it's treatment of The Cybermen. 'Closing Time' was notable for a couple of reasons – it was both the first Cybermen-centric episode since 2009 and also the first since Steven Moffat took over from Russell T. Davis as the shows executive producer. In this story, a crashed Cyberman ship buried beneath the surface of the earth for centuries is brought back to life when the council lays down new electricity cables. Weakened, the Cybermen on board look to repopulate themselves by abducting and converting people they find in the shopping mall directly above them. They dig up into the mall and send out a Cybermat, which is mistaken by the employees of the shops for a toy, to scout the surface. There they set up teleports to bring people down to the ship for conversion. When they finally come into conflict with The Doctor, the Cybermen barely threaten anyone and despite killing a few people off-screen, they never pose any major trouble for the time-lord or his companion Craig. The resolution to the story actually sees the monsters killed with the power of love, and in a rushed and contrived way to boot.
Now you could excuse their ineptitude by arguing that these were weak Cybermen by usual standards, but the last time we saw a “weak” Cyberman this was not the case. In the Season 5 episode 'The Pandorica Opens', The Doctor and Amy are confronted by an old and broken Cyberman underneath Stonehenge. Even when half-dead, this single Cyberman incapacitated The Doctor and would have killed Amy without help from a third party. I thought this scene was great and actually established the Cybermen as an enemy to be feared even in a weakened state. It is interesting that this is the second time Steven Moffat has chosen to portray the Cybermen as broken down relics during his time on the show, yet here in Season 6 a whole group of them aren't as menacing as just one without an arm.
We shouldn't forget that the Cybermen have appeared once before in Season 6, part of the opening to 'A Good Man Goes to War'. In this scene, The Doctor and his companion Rory destroy an entire fleet of Cybermen ships just to intimidate the survivors to give them information. Many fans complained that this was disrespectful of the monster's pedigree and their easy dispatch made them look weaker than they ever have. This is something I agreed with, however I didn't think it was a true “burial” as it was actually using the Cybermen's standing with the audience to put over how serious and aggressive The Doctor was at this time. Arguably the Cybermen were not made to look weak, rather The Doctor was simply made to look strong. However when taken together it would appear that the Cybermen in Season 6 are just weak all over, whether they're in a full fleet or just buried under a mall.
When I defined a “burial” earlier, I said that “any character at a level where their standing can be lowered clearly has something to give”, and that is surely true of The Cybermen. In 'Closing Time' it seems as if the shows authors are weakening this classic monster on purpose, and I can only speculate as to why. It's worth noting that this is the same year Steven Moffat has announced he is putting that other iconic enemy of The Doctor, the Daleks, away to rest for the foreseeable future. Of this he said:
"There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe."
- Steven Moffat
It's a fair point, and at the time I was in full support of the move. However, when we consider the treatment of The Cybermen it looks as if Moffat has something against the classic 'Who' enemies in favour of his own creations, the strong and scary Weeping Angels and The Silence. Both are great additions in their own right, but it's almost as if Moffat is making the old foes both impotent and absent on purpose to elevate these new monsters in contrast. His attitude towards the Daleks sounds healthy, he claims he wants to keep them strong by having them defeated less often – but where is this attitude for The Cybermen? Not only have they been defeated twice this season alone, they've been defeated with ease! If a hero is only as strong or as interesting as his foes, then The Doctor is also hurt by this treatment of his enemies and as the focal point of the series this is not a good thing.
It will be hard for the audience to accept The Cybermen as a serious threat now they have been so thoroughly shown up in their latest two appearances. I think they're going to have to do a lot of work to re-establish them now, so it might be better that this monster join the Daleks on the shelf before their reputation is tarnished forever. It is very rare to see a burial in film or television because it is so often an emotional, egocentric, irrational response to an immediate issue. Yet here on Doctor Who I'd say we've just seen one, and as usual it is doing no one any good.
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