Nightmare in Silver

238 – "Nightmare in Silver"
Doctor Who episode
Poster from the BBC website
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companion Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara Oswald)
Others Eve de Leon Allen – Angie Maitland Kassius Carey Johnson – Artie Maitland Jason Watkins – Webley Warwick Davis – Porridge Tamzin Outhwaite – Captain Eloise Joseph – Beauty Will Merrick – Brains Calvin Dean – Ha-Ha Zahra Ahmadi – Missy Aidan Cook – Cyberman Nicholas Briggs – Voice of the Cybermen
Production
Directed by	Stephen Woolfenden
Written by	Neil Gaiman
Produced by	Denise Paul Marcus Wilson (series producer)
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Caroline Skinner
Incidental music composer	Murray Gold
Series	Series 7
Length	45 minutes
Originally broadcast	11 May 2013 (2013-05-11)
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "The Crimson Horror" "The Name of the Doctor"
List of Doctor Who serials

"Nightmare in Silver" is the twelfth and penultimate episode of the seventh series of the British science-fiction drama Doctor Who and was first broadcast on 11 May 2013. It was written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Stephen Woolfenden.

The episode starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara Oswald. The episode marked the return of the Cybermen, following their last appearance in the sixth series episode "Closing Time".

The Doctor takes Clara, and her nanny charges, Angie and Artie, to Hedgewick's World of Wonders, an extraterrestrial theme park. They find the park is closed down and under military occupation. The Doctor convinces Captain Alice Ferring that he is an ambassador working for their missing Emperor, and is allowed to stay. They encounter a man named Webley, hiding from the troops, and he shows the visitors his "Webley's World of Wonders", a collection of oddities from across the universe. Deactivated Cybermen are harmless museum pieces, because Cybermen were defeated and exterminated a thousand years ago. He promises a silver "Imperial penny" for defeating one converted into a chess-playing machine, but they discover the operator is really Porridge, a chess champion with dwarfism.

The group prepare to return home, but the Doctor elects to stay and investigate some small metallic insects. The "insects" are Cybermites, which reactivate the Cybermen, who abduct and partially upgrade Webley, Angie, and Artie. Under threat from the reactivated Cyberman army, the Captain reveals that her platoon are incompetent, a punishment unit banished to this planet to keep them out of trouble, and are unfit to defend against Cybermen. Porridge explains the Cybermen were only defeated by blowing up a galaxy occupied by trillions: "blow up" is now the default defence protocol. The Doctor puts Clara in charge of the troops, warning her not to let them destroy the planet while he rescues the children.