‘I think things are coming to a head’. Modern shows often feature a “night before battle” episode that refocuses on the characters before the end – think Game Of Thrones‘ A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, for instance. Episode Five reminds me of one of these. After a brief foray by the Yeti, which topples the huge Buddha in the courtyard, a humbled Khrisong admits defeat. The focus then turns to the evacuation of Detsen Monastery. There’s something very moving about this: in a short time, these monks have been established as men of peace, gentle and kind. Seeing them turfed from their home gives the story personal stakes beyond the “end of the world” (in fact, at this point there’s nothing to say the whole world is in danger).

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Haisman and Lincoln avoid the pitfalls of many six-part stories by spacing out the revelations and making sure each episode feels like a concrete step forward rather than simply a restatement of what the audience already knows. This starts with the resurrected Yeti rampaging through the monastery, features some mid-episode tension as the Doctor and Jamie face Yeti on the mountainside, and finishes with the reveal of Padmasambhava.

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The episode continues the slow burn, but with a clear sense of direction and momentum. The first half concerns Khrisong’s desire to protect the peace of the monastery, even if it means he has to fight. It’s deft characterisation that means the main antagonist of the episode is also entirely sympathetic – he’s devoted his life to defending the monks, and it’s ultimately his bravery that nearly bags the Doctor a control sphere for study.

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The only surviving episode of the story suggests that the whole thing was impressively done. For a start, the location filming – which is extensive – looks great (even if it looks more like the Death Zone than the Himalayas), and convincingly remote. Fair enough, the mix between the daylight location film and the apparent night-time of the monastery during the Yeti attack is jarring, but this is the only moment when the location and studio scenes overlap.

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This episode continues the horror movie overtones of The Tomb of the Cybermen. This time, it opens like a werewolf film, with Traver’s friend John attacked at night by something huge and hairy. The episode makes the most of this strong start by repeatedly implying the next attack is about to come: first, when Jamie glimpses a ‘great hairy beastie’ on the TARDIS scanner – which turns out to be the Doctor in his new coat; then when the Doctor is unconsciously menaced by the looming shape of a Yeti, and then, finally, when Jamie and Victoria come face to face with one in a mountain cave.

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It’s a bit of a mess, but the pace doesn’t let up in this final episode, and while it lacks the grandiose climax of the Dalek civil war, there’s still a lot to like about this. Not least of which is Toberman. Again, acknowledging the problematic elements of the character, his is the most prominent role for a black actor to date, and his ability to battle through Cyber control to reassert his humanity and save the day with his own ‘hold the door’ moment is rewarded by one of the more downbeat endings of the era, with Troughton playing the Doctor’s silent grief against Parry’s grim self-recrimination.

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Although they’ve been set up as the Doctor’s new regular adversaries, the Cybermen aren’t just a straightforward swap for the Daleks. Though they’re almost as effective at points in this episode – striding unstoppably through smoke bombs to hunt down the fleeing humans, looking just like an army of Jason Voorhees, they’re also pathetic. Their words aren’t, ‘Exterminate!’ but ‘We will survive’. They talk, without emotion, obviously, of becoming extinct. The Daleks want to conquer existence. The Cybermen just want to exist.

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The first half of the episode is set-up and exposition, starting with the weapons testing room which serves the purposes of reminding us what the Cybermen are (not robots, like the empty shell in the firing range, but people in metal suits: making a plot point of the fact that they’re literally men in monster costumes), explaining the Cybermats, and placing a Chekhov’s cyber-gun in plain view. It also establishes why the archaeologists don’t just leave: someone has sabotaged Captain Hopper’s rocked (Toberman smirking in the background of the scene is a lovely acting choice by Roy Stewart).

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After the two-month season break, Doctor Who returns with a pre-titles sequence (well, sort of: a pre-episode-title sequence anyway) that restates the basics of the show and introduces the idea of Victoria as a new companion – which was barely hinted at in The Evil of the Daleks. As well as explaining the function of all his knobs, the Doctor reveals that the TARDIS allows him to travel through the universe of time, and – after some clumsy set up – reveals he’s 450 years old. Again, there’s a greater emphasis on his alienness than has previously been the norm.

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‘The end. The final end.’ As this was conceived as a way to write the Daleks out of Doctor Who it’s fitting that they should go out with a bang, and what this episode lacks in spectacular dialogue or intricate plotting it makes up for in sheer spectacle. The dilapidation of the Emperor, gradually blown apart in the crossfire as the city erupts in flame, looks astonishing even in the fragments that have survived.

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