I skipped forward to Colin Baker's 'Attack of the Cybermen' which I don't think I'd seen before. So it was a nice surprise to see the return of the Lytton character (I've watched him about a hundred times in 'Resurrection of the Daleks'). However, it's a bit of mixed bag IMO.

The direction by Matthew Robinson is some of the best I've seen in classic Who. Cybermen get repeatedly decapitated throughout but the effect is so well shot and edited, that you can barely believe they didn't kill several Cybermen stunt-performers in the process ;-)

The alien lanscape (Another quarry) is shot and colour graded in this bleak and convincing way.

In my opinion, the violence went a bit too far a 'kids show' with a character having his hands crushed until blood is running all over the floor. Plus The Doctor stabs a Cyberman through the heart (If they have hearts) and then caps a load of them with a (Gasp!) gun. Also, having all the characters you've been following all needlessly killed by the end, seemed a tad mean spirited of writer Eric Saward.

I'm not a fan of the (then) new double 45-minute episode format as I really like my Who cliffhangers. The refrences back to old adventures was fun, seeing the Tardis' chameleon-circuit finally work was groovey and the "Borg-before-the-Borg" Cyberman converter things were interesting to see.