Doctor Who: Lost Cybermen Origin Story Gets Big Finish Audio Adapt

The Cybermen never quite got their due when they succeeded in some things the Daleks never did – they killed a companion, Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), and they even managed to kill the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi). They could be Doctor Who's secret MVP of villains despite the Daleks being the series' "Beyoncé of Baddies." Gerry Davis, who wrote for Doctor Who in the 1960s, and Kit Pedler, who was the series' scientific advisor in the 1960s, came up with the idea for the Cybermen and went on to write several of their stories on TV. They were introduced in "The Tenth Planet," the First Doctor's (William Hartnell) final story before he regenerated into Patrick Troughton, and it was during the Second Doctor's run that the Cybermen had their most famous stories, including "Tomb of the Cybermen" and "The Invasion," both considered classics with the latter featuring the iconic image of the Cybermen marching down Central London. Davis pitched an origin story back in the early '80s, but it was rejected and is now being adapted as a Big Finish audio drama by David K Barnes. "Genesis of the Cybermen" will be released as part of Big Finish's Doctor Who – The Lost Stories series.

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Cybermen

In Doctor Who: Genesis of the Cybermen, a King lies dying in his castle. His eldest son, Prince Sylvan, is an artist with no desire to inherit a kingdom, while Prince Dega toils in his laboratory, dedicated to saving their dying people from extinction. They will all burn unless he succeeds. When the TARDIS arrives, its crew believes they can help. But this planet is Mondas. And this is the Genesis of the Cybermen…

These will be the original Mondasian Cybermen from the first story "The Tenth Planet" and reintroduced by Steven Moffat in his final Twelfth Doctor story "World Enough and Time" and "The Doctor Falls". The Mondasian Cybermen are the OG Cybermen, the ones who wore a white stocking over their faces and a radiator on their chests as a result of low budgets in the costume department in the BBC in the 1960s. There's no real excuse for their voices sounding like really snooty London waiters, though. That was purely a creative choice and still sounds hilarious to this day. Maybe Doctor Who: Genesis of the Cybermen will reveal how they originally got that goofy voice. It still sounds goofy and hilarious.