Spare Parts (Doctor Who) - Reception and Outside References

Reception and Outside References

Reaction to Spare Parts has largely been very positive, and the story is often considered the definitive version of the origins of the Cybermen amongst fans.

In his introduction to Big Finish: The Inside Story, Russell T Davies called this story (along with The Holy Terror) "some of the finest drama ever written for any genre, in any medium, anywhere". Consequently it became the inspiration for one of the new TV series stories. Doctor Who Magazine #368 confirmed that the two-part story Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel was inspired by this story, and that Marc Platt received a fee for the reused story elements; he was credited in the programme's end titles. However, writer Tom MacRae noted that his television story was not a simple rewrite of Spare Parts: "My story isn't the same — it's got a different setting, different themes, and different characters, cos once we started talking, the whole thing developed in a very different direction. But as Russell says, we wouldn't have started this whole line of thinking if he hadn't heard Spare Parts in the first place." Spare Parts takes place on the Mondas of our universe, rather than the parallel Earth of Rise of the Cybermen, and the two stories feature two entirely separate races of Cybermen.

Briggs reprised the role of Zheng for the character’s cameo in the Sixth Doctor audio drama The Reaping.