Rather than comment on the substance of Moffat’s mid-season finale, I’m going to dwell on a minor detail from the introduction.

In Doctor Who terms, the Cybermen are in principle my favorite recurring foe. Their only problem is that no writer has used them particularly well. Often, particularly from 1975 on, the Cybermen are used as random monsters. They stomp around and proclaim and try to conquer, and then the Doctor defeats them using their one weakness. They’re silver men who are allergic to gold. That’s their thing.

It’s only in the 1960s that the writing much tries to speak to the actual themes or dilemmas that the Cybermen represent. Of those stories, Tomb of the Cybermen probably comes the closest. The set design establishes an ominous atmosphere. The Cybermen are portrayed as something horrible looming just out of reach, if you’re foolish enough to bother them. Kick the hive and you get what’s coming to you. They take you and doom you to the same perpetual undying that you have disturbed.

The Cybermen are unknowable, and to even try to know them is dangerous. Best just leave them to their devices and hope that they don’t become aware of you.

The other good example is perhaps more controversial. Although the script and costume design are both ridiculous and tawdry, the Torchwood episode “Cyberwoman” actually hits more thematic targets than any other televised Cyberman story. It focuses on the psychological and body horror of conversion, and portrays the Cybermen as an infection. You can contain it, and that’s fine, but if it spreads then good luck trying to stop it.

Outside of these two examples, and a few clumsy examples of lip service here and there, the thematic and conceptual elements of Cybermen are largely neglected — that is, until 2010.

I am supremely bored with Steven Moffat’s version of Doctor Who. I just — I’m ready to give up on it. The biggest highlights so far have been his two brief sequences with the Cybermen — first in the 2010 finale and then in the opening to this past Saturday’s episode. Each of those examples is more of a setpiece than a real scene, and the Cybermen serve no important story value, but each is amongst the most effective uses of the Cybermen since the 1960s.

Moffat’s Cybermen feel more themselves than they have done since 1968 or so. These are quiet, reserved planners who can be reasoned with only when it comes to survival of the group.

There’s always been something a bit sad about Cybermen, and that comes up here. Granted they’re probably up to no good, but in this story the Cybermen are more or less minding their own business, observing a portion of space, when Rory barges into their hive, kicks it apart, and demands information that they had no use for in the first place.

By Rory’s standards the Cybermen aren’t really worthy of individual consideration, and that probably goes for them, too. They’re just collectors — of information, of hardware, of drones. They don’t even appreciate what they collect; they just soak up all that they touch. Everything is a piece of the collective. To extract anything from that collection means threatening the whole. There’s no other circumstance where they’d let a piece go.

Properly portrayed, Cybermen are a little pathetic and desperate yet simultaneously resilient. The whole is so very hungry for survival, but the pieces are empty and rickety and helpless. Maybe not physically, but separate a Cyberman from the collective and he’d probably just bumble around, confused, looking for anything to give its life (or perpetual undeath) meaning. It would go insane from loneliness, more or less.

There is some deep metaphor to draw from here, particularly in regard to modern life, and it’s strong enough that you don’t need to hit people over the head to make a point of it. It’s just that no one has bothered to characterize the Cybermen in ages — until now, obliquely and to no real purpose.

As much as Moffat is wearing on me, I would like to see his idea of a full, proper Cyberman story. I don’t want it farmed out to Mark Gatiss or some other third-string puppet author. I want to see Moffat’s own exploration of the creatures. Based on the last couple of snippets, I’ve a feeling he’d do them full justice.

Otherwise, I can hardly be bothered to think about his show.

Cyberman catch phrases through the ages:

1967: “We… Muzzt… Survive…”
1982: “Ex-cellent!”
2006: “Delete!”
2012: ?