Inspirations: Nightmare in Silver

After his highly successful contribution to Series 6 - The Doctor's Wife - it was only natural that Neil Gaiman would be invited back. Steven Moffat asked him the question: "... would you like to make the Cybermen scary?".

Gaiman took the bait, as he was a big fan of the Cybermen, favouring them over the Daleks. He could recall having watched The Moonbase as a child - especially the Cybermen kidnapping people from the sickbay, which he had found creepy. This is what he wanted to bring to a new story.

The writer discussed ideas with a friend and one of these included a setting of the Cyrrhenic Alliance - previously mentioned in The Ribos Operation.

Moffat decided that the time was right to have the Cybermen undergo a change of design. They were well-known for this throughout their history, with constant redesigns from story to story - sometimes minor, like footwear, sometimes major, like the addition of the "earmuffs" in The Invasion or the radical changes seen in Earthshock.

Gaiman thought that the Cybus versions might have interacted with the Cybermen from this universe and swapped technology. He and Moffat also looked at the way technology was evolving rapidly, symbolised by the mobile phone.

There were concerns that the RTD versions were too slow-moving and noisy. The new ones were to be capable of stealth and speed.

The Cybermats, first introduced in Tomb of the Cybermen, were the inspiration behind the Cybermites.

Cyber-Planners (or Directors) had been seen in The Wheel in Space and The Invasion, and Gaiman wanted to bring this concept back.

A 1950's fairground setting was considered, and Gaiman had an image of thousands of Cybermen emerging from the ocean and marching up a beach.

The "freak show" would house beings who were actually aliens. This was the group threatened by the Cybermen, which morphed into a military unit, which in turn became the punishment unit - meaning that these were people not really suited to dealing with a Cyberman army.

This then became the story of a small human outpost under threat, but the funfair element persisted.

Early drafts (when the story was called "The Last of the Cybermen") featured the character Beryl, a Victorian governess who would later evolve into Clara. As a child-minder, this introduced the idea that her young charges would be involved in the episode.

Worried that he hadn't got much for the Doctor to do, Gaiman came up with the idea of him competing against himself as the embodiment of the Cyber-Planner after he is partially converted.

The Doctor had previously claimed that Time Lords couldn't be converted in Closing Time, but part of their upgrade is that they can now use any species.

Design wise, their Valkyrie (named from Norse Mythology / Wagnerian opera) owes a lot to Tomb of the Cybermen. Just look at the half-moon shaped hand and foot holds.

The Cyberman playing chess was inspired by "The Turk" - an automaton created by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770 for the Empress of Austria. It turned out to be fake, with someone hiding underneath.

Chess as a motif was to run through the story, with the Doctor later playing a game against the Cyber-Planner.

"Natty Longshoe" got her name from Pippi Longstocking, from Swedish children's stories written by Astrid Lindgren from 1945.

Next time: Call me by my name...