After fantasy author Neil Gaiman's ("Coraline," "American Gods") previous romp writing last series' episode, "The Doctor's Wife," a lot of hype has been built up surrounding his return to "Doctor Who." For this week, episode 12 of series seven, "Nightmare in Silver," he said he would "make the Cybermen scary again"—the Cybermen being the logical, cold and calculating cyborgs first seen with the First Doctor in "The Tenth Planet."

First of all, the comparisons between "The Doctor's Wife" and "Nightmare in Silver" end with mutual authorship. The episodes are so vastly different in tone and style. And although this episode is nowhere near as mind-blowing as "The Doctor's Wife" and will likely not win a swathe of awards for the show or for Gaiman, it is not a failure. It is, for lack of a better word, simply unmemorable. 

I can't say that the Cybermen are necessarily scary. The redesign has made them faster, which was one of the classic quibbles with the Cybermen. It's also given them some sufficiently creepy head-swiveling and hand-detaching abilities, and they can upgrade patches to the Cyber-system like no other, making them nearly indescrutible. The vocal rework was a nice touch, making them sound more sinister and less bubbly. 

The episode begins with Clara (soon to be known as "Worst Nanny Ever") and her "time-traveling boyfriend" taking her wards Artie and Angie to the so-called best amusement park in the galaxy, only to arrive and discover that it has been abandoned in the wake of the Cyber War that left an entire galaxy devastated. The dilapidated theme park, host only to a "punishment platoon" of reject soldiers, a strange, left-behind salesman (Jason Watkins), his partner Porridge (Warwick Davis) and the seemingly-empty shells of three Cybermen. 

The children are stolen by the lightning-quick Cybermen and placed on stand-by for the majority of the episode, which I appreciated, as they were beginning to become grating. Angie and Artie were taken for their "limitless potential" for ingenuity, a throwback to the 1988 "The Rememberance of the Daleks," in which a schoolgirl takes up the mantle of Battle Computer for a Dalek sub-group. The children, as well as the mystery of the "impossible woman," took a backseat to the reawakening of three million Cybermen. 

This episode featured Clara taking on leadership of the platoon when the belligerent captain Tamzin Outhwaite is shot and killed. Captain Clara seems a little out of character and more similar to snippy and snappy Oswin Oswald from "Asylum of the Daleks" than her modern incarnation. While Clara sets up for battle, the Doctor, who has been possessed by the so-called Cyberplanner, the disembodied director of the Cyber-hive mind. The Doctor challenges the Cyberplanner to a game of chess with all stakes on the line—full control of the Time Lord's mind, the children, the planet.

Matt Smith's Jekyll-and-Hyde performance of the Time Lord torn between consciousness was a little overblown at times, but possibly also the best sequence of scenes in the episode. It might have made more sense to see the Cyberplanner to be more cold and logistical rather than the outwardly sinister portrayal, but I choose to interpret the Cyberplanner's personality as one very similar to that of the Dream Lord from "Amy's Choice:" a creation of the Doctor, featuring all the of the most dangerous and negative aspects of the Time Lord personality. 

Warwick Davis's Porridge, whose speech to Clara about the Cyber War is phenomenal and filled with foreshadowing, should be praised. The twist at the end, when "Porridge" turns out to be the missing Imperial Emperor and teleports everyone to his waiting spaceship, feels a bit like deus ex machina to me, but with the context of the aforementioned speech, it makes a little more sense as to why Porridge did not zap everyone off the planet into his spaceship and blow it up. In the speech, Porridge discusses the weight of the war, including the destruction of an entire galaxy and the billions of people who lived there. And yet, he, who had to make the decision to end those lives, is now faced with the choice to destroy another planet or to start another war again. 

There was a plethora of nods to classic "Who" and other sci-fi classics (namely "Star Trek"). To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed and the slightest bit disappointed with how much the episode referenced other works, as Neil Gaiman's originality shines throughout his novels and "The Doctor's Wife," but the homages to the old series were appreciated nonetheless. I would have preferred to make the most of the location—the creepiness of an abandoned, old theme park was not lost on me, but it could have been played up more than it was.

That being said, the episode was not a total flop, in any sense. It was just so highly anticipated that the expectations were so high, and it did not meet those lofty ideals. The "Nightmare in Silver" may frighten some, with the Cybermen's eerily blank faces and the like, but it will leave me sleeping just fine tonight.

Next week's episode, "The Name of the Doctor" (please, no, don't reveal the name of the Doctor, let this be some sort of teasing joke) is the series seven finale, and the trailer reveals some worryingly dark shades of what's to come...

Reach Staff Reporter Christine Bancroft here. Folllow her on Twitter here.