An archaeological expedition from Earth lands on the desolate planet Telos, on a mission to explore the fabled tombs to which the dying Cybermen retreated long ago. But the frozen tombs are filled with traps and, as the TARDIS arrives, one team member has already perished. The Doctor's curiosity compels him to help the scientists, even as it becomes clear that the expedition's backers -- the logicians Klieg and Kaftan -- harbour sinister motives. Soon Victoria is menaced by the silverfish-like Cybermats, while the Doctor and Jamie are trapped below ground, witnesses to the emergence of the Cybermen from their long hibernation...

Ever since the Daleks had incited a nationwide craze in early 1964, successive Doctor Who production teams had searched for their heirs apparent. This quest seemed to have finally ended with the Cybermen, introduced in The Tenth Planet in October 1966. A sequel, The Moonbase, was rapidly commissioned and reached television screens in February 1967. The feedback was again very positive, and plans were quickly assembled for a third confrontation between the Doctor and the silver giants. On March 3rd, their co-creator, Kit Pedler, was commissioned to write “The Cybermen Planet” -- picking up on an ultimately deleted reference in The Moonbase to the Cybermen having colonised the planet Telos prior to the destruction of their original home, Mondas, in The Tenth Planet.

Pedler, who had little formal experience as a writer for television, again worked closely with story editor Gerry Davis, with whom he had originally developed the Cybermen. Davis envisaged the new adventure as an opportunity to explore the monsters' background and utilise them in a narrative that was very different from the “base under siege” formula of their previous appearances. Pedler and Davis decided to introduce a distinctive leader for the silver giants, in the form of the Cyberman Controller. They also conceived a new type of Cyber-creature: the Cybermats, which were modelled on silverfish and were intended to be more suitable for commercial exploitation.

The Cyberman Controller's head was intended to explode when the Tomb doors were sealed

By mid-April, the story had been retitled The Tomb Of The Cybermen, although “The Ice Tombs Of Telos” was also briefly considered. The scripts arguably forged new ground for Doctor Who in terms of their graphic content, although Pedler and Davis had intended to go even further, such as by having the Cyberman Controller's head explode when the Tomb doors were sealed in Episode Four. Part of the reason why Toberman had so little dialogue was that he had originally been envisaged as deaf, and was to wear a futuristic hearing aid. For the first time, dialogue in The Tomb Of The Cybermen provided the Doctor's age. The stated figure of 450 years accounted for the 650 years which had been posited in the Doctor's character outline from 1963, as well the two centuries which the production team felt had been shed when his body was “renewed” at the end of The Tenth Planet.

Davis, meanwhile, was in the process of leaving his regular job on Doctor Who; this meant that he could share the writing credit on The Tomb Of The Cybermen without violating BBC prohibitions against story editors providing scripts for their own programmes. His replacement would be Peter Bryant, who had been assisting Davis since around the start of the year. This was intended to be a stepping stone in Bryant's ascent to replace producer Innes Lloyd, who was also planning to move on from Doctor Who. However, Bryant had not been a producer for television before and, given the technical complexities of Doctor Who, the BBC felt it prudent to give him a trial outing in the role. Since The Tomb Of The Cybermen would be made at the end of the fourth recording block, it was deemed an ideal candidate. As such, Bryant was temporarily promoted to producer, while his new assistant, Victor Pemberton, received a three-month appointment as story editor.

By now, it had become traditional for one or more serials made at the end of a production block to be held over to start the subsequent broadcast season, and this was also the plan for The Tomb Of The Cybermen. In late April, however, it appears that some consideration may have been given to reversing course and airing The Tomb Of The Cybermen directly after the preceding serial, The Evil Of The Daleks. A caption slide was prepared for the seventh and final episode of that story, which suggested that the Cyberman story would begin transmission “Next Week”. This was never used, however, and The Evil Of The Daleks would indeed conclude Doctor Who's fourth season.

It seems that Morris Barry, the director of The Moonbase, was always the man that the production office had in mind for The Tomb Of The Cybermen. During work on that serial, he informed some of the actors playing the Cybermen that their services might be requested for another story within a few months. Unlike the radical reinvention seen in The Moonbase, only minor changes were made to the design of the Cyberman costumes for The Tomb Of The Cybermen. The Cyberman Controller, on the other hand, was differentiated from the other Cybermen by its lack of chest unit, and the inclusion of a large cranial dome. This headpiece was meant to glow, but the mechanism did not work as intended.

Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines were contracted for The Tomb Of The Cybermen exactly one week apart, on June 1st and 8th, respectively. Meanwhile, cast as Kaftan was Peter Bryant's then-wife, Shirley Cooklin; the role had been written especially for her. Production began with location filming on June 12th in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. The surface of Telos was actually the Wapseys Wood quarry, owned by the Gerrards Cross Sand & Ballast Company. During breaks in filming, Hines began flirting with Cooklin -- not realising that she was his boss' wife.

Filming then continued indoors from June 13th to 16th, at the BBC Television Film Studios in Ealing, London. Material recorded there included the opening and closing of the Tomb doors, the emergence of the Cybermen from their hibernation, and Toberman's fight scenes. Unusually, the lone TARDIS scene was also recorded, to save having to erect the set in the studio. Barry's team used a variety of Cybermats, constructed by Michealjohn Harris of the BBC's Visual Effects department. Some were radio-controlled, battery-powered or clockwork, while others were designed simply to be pulled along on a string, and a few were not intended to be mobile at all.

On June 19th, model filming for The Tomb Of The Cybermen was conducted at the BBC Television Centre Puppet Theatre in White City, London. Each episode was then taped on successive Saturdays at Lime Grove Studio D in Shepherd's Bush, London, beginning on July 1st. Unfortunately, the recording of Episode Three on the 15th was an unpleasant experience for Deborah Watling, who had contracted the flu. Doctor Who's fourth production block then concluded on July 22nd. The stuffy atmosphere of Studio D was now exacerbated by the summer heat, prompting Cooklin to fall asleep while playing Kaftan's corpse -- her castmates only realising what had happened when she began snoring! With the serial complete, Bryant returned to his role as story editor. However, Pemberton declined to continue as his assistant, deciding that he preferred the life of a freelance writer.

Sydney Newman's congratulations indicated that Peter Bryant's promotion to producer was virtually assured

During the break between seasons, Doctor Who's timeslot was generally filled by Juke Box Jury, which normally preceded it in the BBC's schedules; for the third year running, compilations of Laurel and Hardy short films were pressed into service to fill the resulting gap on Saturday evenings. When Season Five got under way with Episode One of The Tomb Of The Cybermen on September 2nd, Doctor Who returned to 5.50pm, having been brought forward to 5.45pm during The Evil Of The Daleks. The following day, Head of Drama Sydney Newman telephoned Bryant to congratulate him on his work, indicating that Bryant's promotion to producer was virtually assured.

The first three parts of The Tomb Of The Cybermen were each followed by The Dick Van Dyke Show. With the broadcast of Episode Four on September 23rd, however, the sitcom was replaced by a chat show called Dee Time, hosted by disc jockey Simon Dee. The concluding installment of the Cyberman adventure incited considerable controversy due to its violent and disturbing content, particularly the scene in which fluid spurted out of a Cyberman's innards after it was attacked by Toberman. On September 26th, Kit Pedler appeared on the premiere of the BBC commentary programme Talkback to debate the issue and defend Doctor Who.

• Doctor Who Magazine #281, 25th August 1999, “Archive: The Tomb Of The Cybermen” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #4, 4th June 2003, “Heroes And Villains” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #10, 2017, “Story 37: The Tomb Of The Cybermen”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Second Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1997), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Sixties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1992), Virgin Publishing.