The Wrong Cybermen

Did you know that when Terrance Dicks described the Slyther in his novelisation of Doctor Who And The Dalek Invasion of Earth, he was actually describing the Mire Beast, which appeared in The Chase?

That's because the BBC Photographic Archive sent him the wrong image.

Due to their constant redesigns throughout their existence, the Cybermen have often turned up in spin-offs and other media with the wrong look for the period - or just plain wrong. Sometimes this was down to the wrong reference image being given to an artist - but not always.

(Thanks to their continuity of design, this was a problem that never really bothered the Daleks. You might get the odd "Dead Planet" design in the wrong place - the one without the vertical slats round the middle - but that's about it, though Genesis of the Daleks got things the other way round and should really have depicted the original 1963 design).

Following their debut in The Tenth Planet, the Cybermen made their first appearance outside the TV series in the TV Comic Doctor Who strip.

The artist John Canning elected to use images of the original Cybermen from their first outing, probably because that was the look in the pictures he had been given. Although the strip had moved on to the Second Doctor, who had met totally redesigned Cybermen in The Moonbase, the strip persevered with the Tenth Planet look. It never did catch up, and these Cybermen continued to encounter the Second Doctor on a frequent basis until the Quarks took over as the regular villains. Like the TV series, the Cybermen never troubled the comic strip Third Doctor.

During the 1970's, Target began their range of Doctor Who novelisations. An early one was Gerry Davis' Doctor Who and the Cybermen - an adaptation of The Moonbase. The cover is a fantastic work of art from Chris Achilleos - but the wrong type of Cyberman has been used as a reference. The image is taken from a well-known portrait shot from The Invasion, of a Cyberman standing with the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in the background. This wouldn't have mattered quite so much if it hadn't been for the fact that the book had internal illustrations - and these depicted the correct design of Cyberman.

Despite using the correct form of Cyberman for the cover of Davis' next book - Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet - Target compounded their earlier mistake by having another Invasion style Cyberman on the cover of Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen. This time it was artist Jeff Cummins who had seemingly used the wrong photo reference.

The BBC would later run into a continuity error of their own by having 1980's Cybermen inhabiting their tombs on Telos when visited by the Sixth Doctor in Attack of the Cybermen. Their tombs were nothing like the 1960's version either.

The novelisation of The Wheel in Space does feature the right kind of Cyberman - from the neck up. The body is clearly based on a photograph from Tomb of the Cybermen (which features in the pages of The Second Doctor Who Monster Book seen below).

With no-one at the production office really paying much attention to Cyber-continuity at this time, as they weren't being used on screen, we got a real odd mix of Cybermen throughout the first half of the 1970's.

In 1973 fans were overjoyed to find that Radio Times were producing a 10th Anniversary Doctor Who Special. The wrap-around cover featured an image of Jon Pertwee being menaced by a few of his old enemies, including a Cyberman. This costume was, however, a composite job - made up of bits from The Invasion (the helmet) and Tomb of the Cybermen (the body).

It was this costume which was subsequently used as the basis for the Weetabix figures given away in 1975 and 1976.

It also appears to have been made the model for the Denys Fisher Cyberman doll, at least according to the packaging. The actual Cyberman doll itself bears little relation to any Cyberman seen on screen, what with its tiny head and the addition of a nose.

Radio Times had been responsible for another hybrid Cyberman back in late 1969, when a special photo shoot had been undertaken to introduce Pertwee. 

This Cyberman costume comprised elements of Tomb of the Cybermen (body) with The Wheel In Space (helmet) and The Invasion (chest unit).

Visitors to the Blackpool and Longleat exhibitions would have seen more mixed up Cyberman costumes, with the Wheel head placed on a body from Revenge of the Cybermen - and another with the reverse. Despite the mix-up, these costumes were allowed to remain on display for several seasons - up until the Earthshock versions superseded them.

If Target could be trusted to put the wrong kind of Cyberman on their book covers, they could also be trusted to include the wrong design within their non-fiction titles. The Second Doctor Who Monster Book was written by Terrance Dicks, and followed on from the hugely popular first volume, which featured monsters from throughout the history of the series. This second volume followed a different format - concentrating on each of the Tom Baker stories from Seasons 12, 13 and 14. For their feature on Revenge of the Cybermen, they elected to use photographs from Tomb of the Cybermen. Sticking a publicity shot of Baker in the corner was fooling no-one. 

At the Longleat 20th Anniversary event in 1983 visitors were polled by the BBC to nominate a Doctor Who story to be released on VHS. Winner was Tomb of the Cybermen, as fans were unaware at the time that this story was missing from the archives. The BBC thus decided to substitute another four part Cyberman story, one they actually still had - ideally one in colour and featuring that popular Tom Baker as the Doctor - hence the selection of Revenge of the Cyberman as the initial release. 

However, the sleeve designer opted to put together a montage cover comprising the current Davison logo, with an Earthshock Cyberman, and Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor as he had appeared in Season 18, rather than the Season 12 version seen in the actual story. What makes this worse is that the back cover features a trio of photographs - one of which shows Tom in the correct costume, with the proper design of Cyberman standing behind him.

There was an immediate outcry - not least because of the massive cost of the tape - and it was withdrawn, to be reissued soon after with the correct contemporary images.

The incorrect sleeve also had a prominent spelling error on it, as you'll spot above if you look at the top of the back cover. Its writer is given as "Gerry Davies". The text also describes as "memorable" the Nimon (!), Mandrels (!!) and Plasmatons (!!!). That would be "memorable" for all the wrong reasons, one presumes...?