'Nightmare in Silver' (Story Code 7.12) by Neil Gaiman

“We needed children. But the children stopped coming. You brought us children. Hail to you, the Doctor – saviour of the Cybermen!” – Cyber-Webley

The Doctor takes Clara and her two wards, Angie and Artie, to Hedgewick's World, the galaxy's biggest amusement park. After materialising the TARDIS inside the ‘Spacey Zoomer’, a mock-up of the surface of Earth’s moon, the Doctor shows off the Golden Ticket that will allow his friends on any ride for free; the time travellers then meet a strangely-dressed showman in a top hat, who immediately ducks back out of sight as a platoon of armed soldiers arrive. With the aid of his psychic paper the Doctor is able to persuade the soldiers’ commander, Captain Alice Berridge, that he is a high-ranking Imperial Proconsul; the soldiers depart as quickly as they arrive, leaving the way clear for the showman to reappear. Having shown the Doctor, Clara, Angie and Artie how the abandoned park has fallen into disrepair, the showman takes them back to his spaceship, home of ‘Webley’s World of Wonders’: a collection of waxwork representations of famous and infamous personalities, and other oddities – including a chess-playing Cyberman! The Doctor instantly goes on the defensive, but Webley assures him that the creature is only an empty shell, and then challenges his guests to play against it and work out how it can play chess. Artie quickly loses with a ‘Fool’s Mate’, but Angie is cleverer, declaring that the trick works with mirrors. After the Doctor opens the plinth under the chessboard to reveal a dwarf named Porridge operating a remote control, Webley hands Angie her prize of a silver penny and then tells his guests that he has two other dormant Cybermen in his collection. The assembled party are unaware that they are all being watched: on the shoulder of a nearby waxwork, two silver, worm-like creatures are monitoring their actions... Porridge takes the Doctor, Clara and the kids back to the ‘Spacey Zoomer’, where Angie and Artie enjoy jumping in the simulated reduced gravity; Clara then leads her wards back to the TARDIS – but the Doctor is not ready to leave yet, he wants to investigate the “funny insects” he has seen… Leaving Angie and Artie to sleep in Webley’s spaceship, the Doctor and Clara head off to search for the insects; meanwhile, Webley plays a game of chess against his pet Cyberman – but the silver creature comes alive and seizes his arms! To Webley’s horror, a swarm of silver insects emerge from the Cyberman’s casing and flow across his arms, taking him over… Porridge tells Clara that Hedgewick's World was destroyed in the Cyberwars a thousand years ago; the conflict between humanity and the Cybermen was harsh, and only ended at a terrible price: the destruction of the entire Tyberian Spiral Galaxy, which destroyed not only the Cybermen, but also trillions of innocent people on the worlds they had conquered… At the soldiers’ base, Captain Alice learns from one of her troops that many important electronic components have gone missing; the soldiers then receive a visitor: Angie. Back at Webley’s ship, Artie gets scared of the dark and switches on the light – only to be grabbed by a Cyberman! Seeking out the soldiers, the Doctor and Clara are surprised to find Angie amongst them; however, before Clara can get angry, a Cyberman appears at the entrance to the base – a new-look Cyberman, upgraded, sleek and super-fast. As the soldiers open fire, the silver giant effortlessly zooms forward, snatching up Angie and leaving, all in the blink of an eye! When Captain Alice admits that she and her troops are a ‘Punishment Platoon’, the Doctor puts Clara in charge and instructs them to find a defensible base while he goes off to rescue Angie. Meanwhile, the Cyberman takes Angie to Webley’s ship, where the showman and Artie are waiting under the control of Cybertech fastened to their faces… Reviewing the map of the amusement park, Clara decides that ‘Natty Longshoe’s Comedy Castle’ is their best choice for a safe base; Captain is about to protest, when Porridge arrives and reminds her that the Doctor’s companion is now in charge. Arriving at ‘Webley’s World of Wonders’, the Doctor finds one of the mechanical insects - a Cybermite - and uses it to relay a warning to the Cybermen; he then uses his sonic screwdriver to access the insect’s local transmat system, transporting himself to the Cyberman base. Here the Time Lord is greeted by the Cyber-controlled Webley, who thanks him for bringing the two children and then heralds him as the saviour of the Cybermen! Webley explains that the Cybermen set up the amusement park as a trap to provide them with a supply of spare parts, and they particularly needed the malleable minds of children; however, the Cybermen no longer need children to help build their new home planet because they now have something far better: the Doctor. As hoard of Cybermites attack the Time Lord, swarming over his body and forming a metallic mesh on his face, the Doctor’s psyche connects to the Cyber Hive Mind: the Time Lord’s psyche appears inside the virtual world of the Cyberiad, where he finds himself facing an evil version of himself – the Cyberplanner. The Doctor struggles with the Cyberplanner for control of his body, but the two forces are evenly matched – in the real world, the Time Lord’s body cavorts about the room, as each side tries to gain control over the other. When the Doctor tells the Cyberplanner that he could purge the Cybermites from his body by regenerating, his opponent grudgingly concedes a stalemate; this gives the Doctor an idea: he and the Cyberplanner can play a game of chess for control of his brain... Clara, Porridge and the soldiers arrive at the castle and begin making plans for its defence; one of the soldiers, Missy, goes out on patrol and encounters the upgraded Cyberman; she tries to hide, but the silver giant detects her breathing, and sends its detached hand to attack her… Clara reviews the weaponry in the soldiers’ armoury and is disappointed by what she finds: just one anti-Cyberman gun and a few hand-held deactivation pulsers; Captain Alice explains that with the Cybermen declared extinct there was little need for weaponry, although they do have a last-resort bomb capable of imploding a planet. In the Cyber-base, the Doctor sits at a chess board, rapidly moving from one side to the next as his personas play against each other. Inside the Hive Mind, the Time Lord and the Cyberplanner continue to verbally spar’ gaining the upper hand, the Doctor slaps his Golden Ticket on his face-tech, using the one metal that is resistant to Cyber-control to disrupt the hold over him. At the castle, Captain Alice tells Clara that her ‘Punishment Platoon’ were sent to the planet because they couldn’t take orders; vowing to complete her mission this time, the captain takes up the bomb and starts to activate it – only to be struck down by a bolt of energy, fired with terrifying precision by the upgraded Cyberman now standing outside the castle. Clara sets a trap using two of her troopers as bait, and successfully atomises one of the Cybermen. When the Doctor subsequently arrives at the castle with Webley, Angie and Artie, Clara is furious at her kids’ predicament; but the Doctor interrupts her with the news that the Cybermen have developed a patch to combat his own ‘gold patch’, and he orders the soldiers to tie him up. A short while later, inside the throne room, the Doctor sits tied to a chair in front of the chess board, with only his hands free to move the pieces. The Cyberplanner manages to regain control of the Time Lord’s body, and tells Clara about being the ‘Impossible Girl’; but Clara notices the Doctor’s hand independently writing “Hit Me” on a notepad – and promptly complies, enabling the Doctor to painfully recover his body. As the two intelligences inhabiting the Doctor’s form resume their game of chess, Clara orders her soldiers to use power cables to electrify the castle’s moat. Inside the Hive Mind, the Cyberplanner seizes control and activates all the dormant Cybermen on the planet – and inside their massive underground base, millions of Cybermen come to life… In the throne room, the Cyberplanner tries to trick Clara into handing over the trigger to the Decimator bomb; although Clara isn’t taken in, the Cyberplanner still manages to snatch the trigger and smash it, and then gloats that his army has arrived outside the castle – Endgame! As Clara and her soldiers watch from inside the castle, the first Cyberman steps into the moat and is electrocuted by the current running through the water; but Clara’s elation is short-lived, as the Cyberman upgrades itself and continues walking across the moat, closely followed by the rest of the Cyber-army behind it. As the Cybermen enter through the castle doors, Clara’s closest troopers, Beauty, Brains and Ha-Ha desperately try to hold them at bay; meanwhile Porridge comes to a decision, and he grabs the Decimator bomb... The Cyberplanner offers the Time Lord the option of sacrificing his queen so that Angie and Artie can be released from Cyber-control; the Doctor complies – but opens the way for the Cyberplanner to achieve mate in five moves. Webley makes to shoot the children, but Porridge intervenes with a pulser, only to be kicked effortlessly aside. The Cybermen take over the castle, forcing Clara and her troops to retreat. The Doctor informs his opponent that the Time Lords invented chess, and that he can achieve mate in just three moves. As the Cybermen close in for the kill, Clara, Beauty, Brains and Ha-Ha brace themselves for the end… but the silver giants inexplicably slow down, and then freeze in place like statues: the Cyberplanner has been forced to use the entire resources of the Hive Mind to process the Doctor’s game plan. The Doctor explains his strategy: move one, turn on his sonic; move two, activate the pulser held by the unconscious Porridge; step three, amplify the pulser and use it to purge the Cyberplanner from his head-tech, distributing it across the three million Cybermen on the planet instead. Angie works out that Porridge is the Emperor, recognising his face from her coin and Webley’s waxwork – even though he is smaller in real life. Porridge activates the Decimator bomb and announces that they have just eighty seconds before detonation – and as everyone braces themselves for their inevitable destruction, the device activates a beacon that draws the Imperial Flagship towards the planet, which then teleports them aboard the state room! As the Doctor’s request that the TARDIS be brought aboard too is carried out, the seconds count down to zero… and then Hedgewick's World explodes, wiping out the Cyberiad menace upon it. After reflecting how it was good to escape the loneliest job in the universe for a while, Porridge asks Clara to marry him; Clara tactfully declines the proposal of ruling over a thousand galaxies, much to Angie’s surprise, and so Porridge sends her, the Doctor and the children away before he changes his mind. The Doctor returns Clara and her kids home, and after promising to see his friend again next Wednesday, he vows to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her. Back in space, Porridge’s state vessel sets off, passing a piece of shattered Cyber-tech that still pulses with energy…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Jason Watkins (Webley), Warwick Davis (Porridge [Emperor Ludens Nimriod Kendrick]), Eve de Leon Allen (Angie), Kassius Carey Johnson (Artie), Tamzin Outhwaite (Captain Alice Ferrin), Louise Joseph (Beauty), Will Merrick (Brains), Calvin Dean (Ha-Ha), Zahra Ahmadi (Missy), Aidan Cook (Cyberman), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of Cybermen)

Directed by Stephen Wolfenden
Produced by Denise Paul
Series Producer Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
11th May 2013 @ 7.00 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Clara

*Working title: 'The Last of the Cybermen', 'Silver Ghosts', 'A Nightmare in Silver' and 'The Last Cyberman'