‘SPARE PARTS’

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Rise of the Cybermen on Mondas with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa

Tim Bradley’s CD cover of ‘Spare Parts’ signed by Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton and Nicholas Briggs

Tim Bradley’s vinyl cover of ‘Spare Parts’ signed by Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton

Tim Bradley with Peter Davison at the ‘Stars of Time Film and Comic Con 2016 @ The Tropicana’, Weston-super-Mare, August 2016

Tim Bradley with Peter Davison at ‘GEEKS Salisbury Comic Con 2017’, City Hall, Salisbury, July 2017

Tim Bradley with Sarah Sutton at the ‘London Film & Comic Con 2011’, Earl’s Court, London, July 2011

Tim Bradley with Sarah Sutton at the ‘London Film & Comic Con’, Earl’s Court, London, July 2011

Tim Bradley with Sarah Sutton at ‘GEEKS Salisbury Comic Con 2017’, City Hall, Salisbury, July 2017

Tim Bradley and Nicholas Briggs at the ‘Timeless Collectors’ fair, Fareham in December 2014

Yes, definitely! ‘Spare Parts’ is a cracking good ‘Doctor Who’ audio adventure! 🙂

This story has earned its place with the fans as being a well-written ‘genesis of the Cybermen’ story on Mondas by Marc Platt. This is no surprise, as ‘Spare Parts’ is also considered by many as one of the best ‘Doctor Who’ audio stories by Big Finish when it was released in 2002. Sarah Sutton thinks so too.

I’ve listened to ‘Spare Parts’, ‘Circular Time’ and ‘The Stockbridge Trilogy’ (‘Castle of Fear’, ‘The Eternal Summer’ and ‘Plague of the Daleks’) every Christmas. I play this story whenever I’m decorating the Christmas tree, especially as Nyssa and the Hartley family decorate the Christmas tree in the story.

‘Spare Parts’ is a four-part audio adventure by Marc Platt. The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa arrive in an underground city on a familiar planet. The Doctor has an idea of where they are and he doesn’t like the thought of it. It transpires that they’re on Mondas where the Cybermen are about to be born.

Peter Davison and writer Marc Platt in ‘Spare Parts’.

I like the atmosphere of Mondas in this story, as it takes places in an underground city. The planet is constantly frozen over by blizzards and is being pulled out of its orbit, making its way towards Earth. It’s pretty grim conditions for Mondas’ people to live in, despite the Christmas atmosphere evident.

I’ve had the CD cover of ‘Spare Parts’ signed by Peter Davison, who plays the Fifth Doctor, at the ‘Stars of Time Film and Comic Con @ The Tropicana’ in Weston-super-Mare, August 2016 and I’ve had it signed by the lovely Sarah Sutton, who plays Nyssa, at the ‘London Film & Comic Con’ in July 2011.

According to an audio interview for ‘The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories’, ‘Spare Parts’ has become one of Sarah’s favourite ‘Doctor Who’ audio stories. I’ve also had the CD cover signed by Nicholas Briggs, who voices the Cybermen, at the ‘Timeless Collectors’ sci-fi fair in Fareham, December 2014. 🙂

Sarah Sutton is tremendous as Nyssa in this audio story. Nyssa excels and I’m very impressed with how Marc Platt has handled writing for her character. Sarah is very lovely as Nyssa, as she gets to spend time with the Hartley family. She also gets to know and becomes friends with Yvonne and Frank.

Sarah Sutton and Peter Davison in ‘Spare Parts’.

Nyssa discovers that the Hartley family are victims of the Cyber-conversion process on Mondas. Horrified, Nyssa decides to stay and help. I liked the scenes where Nyssa stands up to the Doctor, as she argues her case and she reminds him of Adric’s death because of the Cybermen in ‘Earthshock’.

Peter Davison delivers an excellent performance as the Fifth Doctor in this audio adventure. The Doctor learns of the horrible truth when he and Nyssa are on Mondas. He’s determined to leave, despite warning the people with a church bell. Persuaded by Nyssa’s arguments, the Doctor decides to stay.

It isn’t long before the Doctor gets chosen as the new template for the Cyber-conversion process. I’m pleased with Peter’s characterisation of the Doctor in this story. He ranges with an array of emotions when defying Doctorman Allan on her ethics and morals in regard to the Cyber-conversion process.

Peter Davison and Sally Knyvette in ‘Spare Parts’.

Sally Knyvette (of ‘Blake’s 7’ fame) guest stars as Doctorman Allan in this story. Doctorman Allan is partly responsible for the creation of the Cybermen on Mondas. She’s no Cyber-Davros, as she’s a reckless alcoholic who’s determined to perfect the Cyber-conversion process so that her people can survive.

Derren Nesbit guest stars as Thomas Dodd, a black market spiff that lives on Mondas. He sells organic bodily parts and is a pretty dodgy and distrustful character. Thomas joins the Doctor when they enter the main centre of operations at Cyber Control and they discover some interesting revelations.

The guest cast also includes the Hartley family. Paul Copley (who’s been in ‘Hornblower’ and the ‘Torchwood’ TV story ‘Children of Earth’) guest stars as Mr. Hartley or ‘Dad’. Kathryn Guck guest stars as Mr. Hartley’s daughter Yvonne Hartley, and the appropriately named Jim Hartley guest stars as the son Frank Hartley.

Kathryn Guck, Jim Hartley and Paul Copley in ‘Spare Parts’.

The Cybermen took me by surprise when I discovered what they were like in this audio story. Of course, I’m talking about the fact that these are the Mondasian Cybermen. For this story, Big Finish decided to use the original Cybermen from their first TV story ‘The Tenth Planet’ featuring William Hartnell as the First Doctor.

These Cybermen are what I call the ‘confused Cybermen’. They have very strange and weird computerised voices that don’t match to what they would sound like in future Cybermen stories on TV with more robot-like voices. Despite that, it made sense to include ‘The Tenth Planet’ Cybermen for Mondas’ beginnings.

Nicholas Briggs, who voices the Cybermen in this audio adventure, does a remarkable job in recapturing the original ‘Tenth Planet’ Cybermen. He makes them sound so believable and authentic as they did on TV. These Cybermen are described to the last detail in this story, including the ‘cloth’ faces and all that.

The Cybermen also have names in this story. Cybermen don’t usually have names, do they? But the Cyber Commander is called Zheng in this audio adventure. This element of the story echoes the similar style of names that were given to the Cybermen that featured in the original TV story ‘The Tenth Planet’.

Nicholas Briggs and Peter Davison in ‘Spare Parts’.

There’s also the Cyber-Committee, which is chilling and disturbing to listen to with its description and voices. It made me wonder what made the people of Mondas become like what they’d be with augmented technology and why. I’m not sure if there was a mixture of voices to make the Cyber-Committee so ‘Borg’-like from ‘Star Trek’.

The Cybermats also appear in this audio adventure! Brilliant! 🙂 The Doctor screams angrily at Nyssa for bringing a Cybermat aboard the TARDIS. Thankfully, the Doctor forgives Nyssa, as she wasn’t to know. I could easily visualise the small worm/mouse-like creatures from ‘The Tomb of the Cybermen’ in the story.

The scenes where Yvvone Hartley has been completely Cyber-converted and she returns home to find her family and Nyssa again are very well-written! She doesn’t hurt anyone, as she wants to be with her family again. The moments where she sobs in her Cyber-voice and she dies so suddenly were very sad.

It’s no surprise that ‘Spare Parts’ became the inspiration for the new TV series Cybermen in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’/’The Age of Steel’. There are similar scenes in the TV story from this audio story, such as Sally Phelan feeling ‘so cold’ and Pete and Rose Tyler discovering that Jackie Tyler has become a Cyberman.

I liked how this Cybermen origins story isn’t similar to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, as that was about a psychopathic wheel-bound maniac who created the Daleks. This story focuses on the people being converted and the horrors of what will happen when you lose your identity and you have no emotion left.

I’ve seen four videos of some very well-animated scenes for ‘Spare Parts’ by Fraust66 on his YouTube channel. I found them exciting to watch, as they allowed a glimpse of what ‘Spare Parts’ as the Big Finish audio story could look like if it was shown on TV or if it was fully animated for a DVD release or as a webcast.

Sadly, the four YouTube videos featuring the animated scenes from ‘Spare Parts’ by Fraust66 aren’t available anymore, which is a shame. I’ve chatted to Sarah Sutton in two interviews by me with her about the idea of Big Finish doing an animation for ‘Spare Parts’. She thinks ‘Spare Parts’ should be a motion picture! 😀

The story’s ending was quite unexpected. I don’t know why that should have been the case. 😀 As the Doctor and Nyssa leave Mondas behind them, thinking they’ve changed the planet’s future, Commander Zheng resurfaces after he was presumed dead. He then declares, “Doctorman Allan! We begin again!”

The CD extras are as follows. At the end of Disc 2, there are trailers for ‘…ish’ starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, ‘The Rapture’ starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, the first season of ‘Sarah Jane Smith’ starring Elisabeth Sladen, the first season of ‘Dalek Empire’ (‘Invasion of the Daleks’, ‘The Human Factor’, ‘”Death to the Daleks!”‘ and ‘Project Infinity’) starring Sarah Mowat, Gareth Thomas and Nicholas Briggs, and the ‘Judge Dredd’ audio adventures, including ‘Wanted: Dredd or Alive’, ‘Death Trap!’ and ‘The Killing Zone’, starring Toby Longworth.

In June 2017, I listened to the ‘Spare Parts’ vinyl, which was released in April that same year. I stated I wasn’t going to purchase the vinyl release from Big Finish, even to Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton at the ‘Worcester Comic Con’ in August 2016. But curiosity got the better of me with the vinyl release.

I’ve now had my vinyl copy of ‘Spare Parts’ signed by Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton at the ‘GEEKS Salisbury Comic Con’ in July 2017. They were happy to sign the vinyl cover of ‘Spare Parts’ for me. I’m happy too! 🙂 Peter and Sarah also have their vinyl copies of ‘Spare Parts’ given to them by Big Finish.

I wanted to find out what a ‘Doctor Who’ audio adventure with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa would be like on a vinyl/LP record release. I really enjoyed ‘Spare Parts’ on vinyl and found it an intriguing and surreal experience to listen to, since it was a classic audio story by Big Finish and it was all new on vinyl!

Delighted that one of Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton’s audio adventures as the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa – ‘Spare Parts’ – was chosen to be released on vinyl as well as ‘The Chimes of Midnight’, starring Paul McGann and India Fisher, it was irresistible to purchase. The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa are my favourite TARDIS duo!

The cast and crew of ‘Spare Parts’. From left to right: Derren Nesbitt, writer Marc Platt, Sally Knyvette, Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Nicholas Briggs and Pamela Binns.

I already had ‘Spare Parts’ on audio CD and it wasn’t necessary for me to purchase the story again on vinyl, as it would be a collectors’ item. But for all the reasons I came up with against purchasing it, I didn’t want to miss out on an item featuring my favourite Doctor and companion. Thus, I went for it!

Listening to the story on vinyl was an interesting experience. Originally, the story was released as a four-part adventure on a 2-disc CD set. So, it was a surprise for me when I discovered that ‘Spare Parts’ was released on 4 vinyl discs, with the story released as a six-part story on the first three discs.

I hadn’t very much experience with playing vinyl records on a record player, although, as a kid, I used to enjoy playing my Dad’s Glenn Miller records as well as a Laurel & Hardy vinyl on a record player he had. I’m very pleased that I played the ‘Spare Parts’ vinyl on my Dad’s record player at home in 2017.

Having listened to the story for the umpteenth time, I knew what to expect when listening to ‘Spare Parts’ on vinyl. So, it was quite a surprise when I heard the cliff-hangers for each of the six episodes, with ‘Part One’ on Disc 1: Side A, ‘Part Two’ on Disc 1: Side B, ‘Part Three’ on Disc 2: Side A, and so forth.

Peter Davison, writer Marc Platt and Paul Copley in ‘Spare Parts’.

Disc 4 of the vinyl edition of ‘Spare Parts’ is a documentary disc looking into the behind-the-scenes making of the story. This includes interviews with director/producer Gary Russell, writer Marc Platt and executive producer/Cybermen voice artist Nicholas Briggs, who share their memories of making ‘Spare Parts’.

The documentary also includes interviews with Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton. This was a lovely surprise for me, as I didn’t expect to hear my favourite Doctor and companion being interviewed for the vinyl release. It was superb to hear Peter and Sarah share their memories of being in one of their favourite audio stories.

For me, the ‘Spare Parts’ vinyl edition was a worthwhile ‘Doctor Who’ purchase from Big Finish. I enjoyed the listening experience of hearing one of my favourite Fifth Doctor and Nyssa audio stories with the Cybermen via vinyl. I don’t normally purchase vinyl releases, but I’m so glad I did it with this story.

‘Spare Parts’ is a Big Finish audio adventure that deserves its praise! I’m pleased with how the origins story of the Cybermen is handled by Marc Platt. Nyssa is well-written in the story, and I liked her relationship with the Fifth Doctor, since Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton deliver amazing performances.

As of 2025, I continue to enjoy checking out and revisiting ‘Spare Parts’ when I can, especially on its vinyl release. It’s hard to believe that many years have gone by since the release of ‘Spare Parts’ on audio CD in 2002, and it’s still regarded as one of the best ‘Doctor Who’ audio stories ever made.

‘Spare Parts’ rating – 9/10