Silver Nemesis is the 25th Anniversary serial in the 25th Anniversary season. It's the 151st serial and it's 3 episodes first aired from November 23 to December 7 1988. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor and Sophie Aldred is Ace. It was the first script by Kevin Clarke and the 6th and last serial to be directed by Chris Clough. Clarke hadn't seen much of the series when he called script editor Andrew Cartmel looking for work. He lied when he said he had an idea for the 25th Anniversary serial. He showed up to TV Center the next morning with out any ideas and on the spot he came up with the idea that the Doctor is God. Luckily it's an idea that wasn't used. It just didn't make any sense to me. John Nathan-Turner, the producer, added the Cybermen to the script in order to have more silver in the story. Nathan-Turner also wanted to have Prince Edward in the serial but that got nixed by the Royal Family. They do have a cameo by a fake Queen. In the commentary both script editor Andrew Cartmel and Chris Clough think that there wasn't much point to that, it didn't really move the story along. There's a fair bit of non-moving material in this serial.
There's a whole bunch of story in this serial, the Cybermen, some 20th century fascists and a crazy lady from the 17th century are all looking for the Nemesis statue. The statue was created by Rassilon as a defense for Gallifrey and it's got 3 parts, a bow, an arrow and figure of a woman. The 3 parts need to be put together to get it to work. It has great power that none of them would use for good. The Doctor launched the figure into orbit in a powered asteroid. It's been looping back to Earth every 25 years since the 17th century. Bad things happen when it gets near but that's about to end with the current arrival. It's going to crash on the earth November 23 1988 near Windsor Castle. They weren't allowed to actually film at Windsor so they used Arundel Castle.
The 3 parties after the statue arrive and there's plenty of fighting and running about. The fascists are the first to fall, the crazy lady merges with the statue and the Cybermen's fleet is destroyed when the statue rams it. The Doc and Ace head off for their next adventure. I enjoyed the story but not as much as last weeks story. There were complaints from reviewers that the story was just a rehash of the last Dalek story and I can see why they'd say that.
There's a commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Andrew Cartmel and Chris Clough. It was mostly enjoyable. There's the usual making of, some deleted and extended scenes, trails and continuity, photo gallery, info track, isolated score, Radio Times listings and an add for the forth coming DVD of Time And The Rani.
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