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Signs and signifiers across nearly twenty-nine years:
A cry of "old skool!" as the new Cybermen appear, from one who was not born when Earthshock was first broadcast (I am a relatively senior citizen at these gatherings), is a remarkable indicator of how much time (chronological and cultural) has passed since Earthshock was broadcast. The look of the 1982 Cybermen was widely hailed at the time as modern, cutting-edge, restoring Doctor Who to the forefront of respectable SF design. The next year, Philip Purser (reviewing The Five Doctors in The Daily Telegraph) thought that the 1980s Cybermen looked as though they were wearing tinfoil. Purser's view has probably prevailed. The fighter-pilot Cybersuits, however baggy and plainly vulnerable they might seem, were not only an influence on the look of Star Trek's Borg, but given that Earthshock was broadcast on the eve of the Falklands War serendipitously anticipated the militarily triumphalist mood that gripped the Conservative sectors of the British media later in 1982. The depiction of 'Britain 2010' by The Lenny Henry Show (1985) as the domain of the blonde-wigged Cyberman Thatchos was perhaps sharper than the makers knew.
A cry of "old skool!" as the new Cybermen appear, from one who was not born when Earthshock was first broadcast (I am a relatively senior citizen at these gatherings), is a remarkable indicator of how much time (chronological and cultural) has passed since Earthshock was broadcast. The look of the 1982 Cybermen was widely hailed at the time as modern, cutting-edge, restoring Doctor Who to the forefront of respectable SF design. The next year, Philip Purser (reviewing The Five Doctors in The Daily Telegraph) thought that the 1980s Cybermen looked as though they were wearing tinfoil. Purser's view has probably prevailed. The fighter-pilot Cybersuits, however baggy and plainly vulnerable they might seem, were not only an influence on the look of Star Trek's Borg, but given that Earthshock was broadcast on the eve of the Falklands War serendipitously anticipated the militarily triumphalist mood that gripped the Conservative sectors of the British media later in 1982. The depiction of 'Britain 2010' by The Lenny Henry Show (1985) as the domain of the blonde-wigged Cyberman Thatchos was perhaps sharper than the makers knew.
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