Customer Rating: 
Summary: Thin-plated tale
Comment: I'd only seen bits of "Nemesis" on PBS nearly 20 years ago, and resolved to see it. Unfortunately, the story never becomes more than bits of a better "Who" story, with hints of "Earthshock", the last great Cybermen story. At only 3 episodes, the story has little room to move its characters around, leading to the paradoxical result of a Who story that's too long and too short all at the same time. The Cybermen are the stars of the show - the Nazis are like afterthoughts easily dispatched by the steel-men, and convenient cut-outs who keep the more interesting characters from confronting each other. (The Nazis seem to know enough about Nemesis, but are completely baffled by Cybermen who are impervious to their submachine guns and their Wagnerian flattery.) Unfortunately, the story isn't one worth headlining - and they spend more time just stalking around and catching gold-shot from the Doctor and Lady Peinforte. (These are easily the most vulnerable Cybermen of the entire series.) As the wily 17th century sorceress, Fiona Walker practically steals the show as Peinforte - already a known enemy of both the Doctor and the Cybermen. Walker gives her character a tremendous presence and snags some of the best lines. (She makes her trip into our era accompanied by a bodyguard with a murderous history of his own; when he gets cold feet before the trip, Peinforte admonishes him "have the courage of your convictions".) The problem with Peinforte is that the story hints at a backstory linking Peinforte with the Doctor, making you wish that you'd watch that story instead. There is some great hand-held camerawork, and when the action gets going the pace keeps your mind off the gaps of the plot, and the Cybermen themselves have a great entrance. Otherwise, this was forgettable Who. If you're in the mood for Cybermen, grab "Earthshock" or even "Revenge of the Cybermen".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Well worth tracking down.
Comment: I'd say from reviews of this story that Silver Nemesis is one of those Dr Who tales you either love or hate. For the record, the story involves a living metal which was sent into orbit by the Doctor, but which crashes to Earth in the late twentieth century. Its arrival heralds the appearance of the Fourth Reich, the time-travelling medieval Lady Peinforte, and the Cybermen. Okay, so this episode has some pretty silly concepts (anything orbitting the Earth with a decaying orbit would not take 25 years to go round, the Cybermen are too weedy for words - military weapons fail to penetrate their armour, yet a gold-headed arrow can do so easily (gold being a soft metal) and the way the Doctor escapes the guards in the castle just defies camp comedy). But why can't people just enjoy this for what it is - three episodes of entertaining, sci-fi escapism. The action is fast-paced, the story is filled with interesting characters, there are plenty of humorous touches and the music is great. This video also contains the making of Silver Nemesis, which is a bonus.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Plot Thickens
Comment: "Silver Nemesis" is "Doctor Who"'s 25th anniversary story only in the sense that Part One aired 25 years to the night after the first episode of "An Unearthly Child". It wasn't even the season premiere, and there wasn't a whole lot of celebrating going on. Most of the nods to "Unearthly", in fact, came in the Season 25 opener, "Remembrance of the Daleks". What made "Silver Nemesis" the anniversary -- apart from the token appearance of classic "Who" adversary the Cybermen -- was the plot, which purported to reveal great secrets about the Time Lord's true origin.As an actual story, "Silver Nemesis" never got off the ground. Most of the best material was left on the cutting room floor, as evidenced when the extended VHS release added nearly half an episode's worth of extra scenes.
Each of the three parts of "Nemesis" contains one utterly pointless extended sequence that adds nothing to the ongoing story, except lame laughs. In Part Two, 17th century villainness Lady Peinforte is stalked through the streets of 1988 Windsor by a couple of skinheads, who repeatedly berate her as a "social worker". What the heck is that about? In Part Three, Peinforte takes a long car ride with a tourist from Virginia, who speaks in the most inflated Southern accent since the movie "Steel Magnolias". All right, this actually gets funnier in retrospect, but it sure wasn't amusing in 1988. In Part One there is some promise, as "Doctor Who" veteran Nick Courtney makes an unbilled, dialogue-free cameo as a tourist at Windsor Castle. A stand-in for the Queen also shows up, walking her dogs.
The best version of "Nemesis" that exists is neither of the "official" ones (broadcast or VHS). A "lite" edit circulated around the Internet a couple of years ago, which eliminated all of the go-nowhere scenes listed above, and replaced them with the most interesting extra bits from the VHS release. The story is made markedly tighter by this substitution, while still coming in at a manageable three parts. The most interesting alteration is the change of cliffhangers: Part Two no longer ends with the non-terrifying revelation that "thousands" of Cybermen spaceships are orbiting the Moon. Instead, it concludes with a screech as the story's Nemesis -- the living Gallifreyan statue forged as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction -- comes to life in a shower of impressively digitized sparks. As the story is really about the Nemesis (not the Cybermen) and what she knows about the Doctor, "Silver Nemesis" takes sharper focus when she's given center stage.
But "Silver Nemesis" ultimately cannot deliver on any meaningful level. It asserts that the Doctor has "secrets", about "the old time, the time of Chaos". However, no matter how you edit the story, those secrets will never be revealed. Oh, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred still have terrific by-play together. You'll find out a little more about the Doctor's ongoing chess game with the shadows in Lady Peinforte's study, solved in the following season's "Curse of Fenric". However, it will still end with Ace asking the Doctor, "Who ARE you?", and will still end with Sylvester shushing her. That's not an anniversary. That's just par for the course.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This one is destined to be a classic.
Comment: It's hard to believe that "Silver Nemesis" got less than 5 stars average rating. This is an exceptionally good show, especially when you consider that it comes from the Sylvester McCoy era, where most shows were real stinkers! The lovely and attractive Ace is certainly a welcome addition, and the contrasting dialog between her and the Silver Nemesis sent chills up my spine. When Ace says, "Catch you later" to the Silver Nemesis, it's both funny and scary because we know Ace didn't know what to say. If you were faced with the Silver Nemesis you wouldn't know what to say either. It gives us a sense that these characters are very much out of time from each other, and have come together to do what they are suppose to do. Not everyone enjoys this form of entertainment, but don't shoot it down just because you don't get it, or if it seems a little weird or strange. This is not "I Love Lucy". Doctor Who is a very different show.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Happy 25th anniversary, Doctor!
Comment: In an untelevised adventure in 1638, the Second Doctor launched an asteroid containing a statue made of the living metal (yes, living metal) validium into space, but got the sums wrong, so that its decaying orbit would lead it back to Earth on 23 November 1988 (read, Doctor Who's silver jubilee).Three parties are striving to control the statue, named Nemesis: Herr De Flores, leader of a band of neo-Nazis, Lady Peinforte and her servant Richard, and that silver menace whom De Flores calls the Giants (q.v. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen), the Cybermen. The Doctor and Ace get involved in this when the former's alarm sounds at a Courtney Pine concert. They jet back and forth from 1988 to 1638 to discover answers, answers that the Doctor already knows but is keeping from Ace.
Our heroes must gain possession of the Nemesis to correct the Doctor's mistake, and it ends triumphantly when the everybody in the other three parties perish, save one.
Dolores Gray has a pleasant moment as a kindhearted Virginian tourist who gives Lady Peinforte and Richard a lift in her limo, replete with accent.
And the pair of skinheads mistaking Lady Peinforte and Richard for social workers is cause for a chuckle or eye rolling.
The concept of a comet causing events on Earth with its arrival every 25 years is interesting, as evidenced by the eve of the Great War (1913), the Anschluss of Austria (1938), Kennedy's assassination (1963), and the Cybermen invasion of Earth (1988). What other events did the Nemesis influence? The eve of the War of the Ausberg League (1688), the eve of the French Revolution (1788), the Battle of Gettysburg (1863)? Maybe.
A few questionable aspects to this story is the use of the Gregorian calendar (1752) in England re the Doctor's calculations, the motives of the Cybernized people shooting at the Doctor and Ace after the concert (maybe they also hated people whose alarms went off at concerts), and the existence in 1638 of Roundheads. Still, this doesn't detract from the story.
The Cybermen outfits must be brand spanking new compared to Attack Of The Cybermen, as they are polished and glittering, and as such, are a sight to behold. Still, glitter does not obscure the fact that they are still easily killed by gold coins, unless they were made with sharpened edges--who knows?
This is the second of what I call the "Ace Enigma Trilogy," the first being Dragonfire, the third being The Curse Of Fenric. For those who don't know what's going on, think--who moved the chess pieces after the Doctor's first visit to Lady Peinforte's house? And why does he bother playing the game in the first place.
Pity the series ended with Survival, otherwise we might have seen the story where Gainsborough did his painting of Ace.
Following the story are outtakes and a making of documentary, where the viewer gets to see the use of glowing paint for the Nemesis bow, Cyberleader David Banks demonstrating his new Cyber costume, rehearsal sessions in the BBC studio, the importance of first showing actors firing guns the safety catch, and other things.
As a silver anniversary celebration, Silver Nemesis, and its companion documentary has its hearts in the right places.
