THE Time Ring takes the Doctor (Tom Baker), Sarah (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry (Ian Marter) back to the space station Nerva, but to a period many thousands of years earlier than their visit in THE ARK IN SPACE. The station is acting as a beacon warning space traffic of the existence of a new asteroid orbiting Jupiter, Voga, the planet of gold. A plague has killed all but a handful of Nerva's crew and visiting civilian scientist Kellman (Jeremy Wilkin) is in fact a traitor working with a group of Cybermen, who want to destroy Voga as gold dust can coat their breathing apparatus (and the plague is the result of poison injected by Cybermats). Kellman however is a double agent, working with one faction of the Vogan, whose plan has been to lure the Cybermen onto the beacon and destroy them with a rocket.
A weak link in DOCTOR WHO's excellent twelfth season, REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN is nevertheless fondly remembered as the initial Cybermen serial in colour, as well as being the first commercially available story released on VHS in 1983. Scripted by Gerry Davis - who had devised the monsters with Kit Pedler - the tale has long been a guilty pleasure for Whovians. The four-part adventure features an alarming array of double entendre, knowingly enjoyed by cast and crew alike. "Take the Cybermen from behind," "we're still heading for the biggest bang in history," and "pull it harder, it's coming" are typical examples, and the black-helmeted Cyberleader (Christopher Robbie) is unintentionally hilarious; often arms on hips, his strangulation of the Doctor looks more like a Swedish massage. Sladen's experience of her attack by a limp Cybermat - which had to be hugged to make them seem even remotely threatening - led her to decide to quit the series, only for the actress to thankfully reconsider once the show moved onto much better-realised productions.
The Vogans are an interesting addition to the series' mythology and can be seen as an allegory of 1970s Britain - a power that was once great but is now bitterly divided over how to exploit its remaining resources. But the story is spoiled by the titular menace; it may have been a return for the Cybermen after a long hiatus (they were last seen in 1968's THE INVASION), but they appear uncharacteristically emotional and have terrible dialogue. The idea of them being susceptible to gold dust is also less than inspired; previous entries have shown them to be vulnerable to radiation, solvents, gravity, low temperatures, electric currents, force fields, emotional impulses and grenades, and the revelation of this latest weakness only serves to further reduce their potency. This ineffectiveness is underpinned by the Doctor's outburst "you're nothing but a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship," a viewpoint reinforced by subsequent appearances.
Wookey Hole was an inspired choice of location for Voga. The show caves had gained a reputation for being haunted by a Dark Ages Witch, now petrified as one of the cave's rock formations, and stories of the serial's curse are more interesting than the programme itself. While scouting, director Michael E. Briant's wife discovered several Iron Age arrowheads, which she kept as mementos. This precipitated a chain of strange occurrences which beset the production, which began when Briant encountered a potholing ghost. Potentially the most serious incident occurred after certain crew members disobeyed instructions and interfered with the "Witch" formation. During the afternoon's shoot a boat driven by Sladen on the "Witch's Parlour" went haywire, forcing the actress to jump overboard to avoid smashing into a cavern wall.
