Daleks are at their best in Dalek and Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel encapsulates what I like about them more than most classic stories with them I’ve watched
I mean I’ll admit the later showings, even in the same seasons, for those two isn’t as good, but those stories themselves are great showcases for the terror of those monsters… when RotC/AoS isn’t focused on the parallel world stuff
In agreement with the Cybermen being at their best in the 60s. The Tenth Planet easily the best TV use of them. Those costumes where you can see their still human hands and eyes, and mostly cloth showing a still human form underneath, and that unsettling, almost melodic voice they have is all terrifying. Far better design than when they get more and more metallic. The stories for them in the 60 are consistently good, the weakest one being Wheel, but it’s still ok. Earthshock probably the only other good outing for them in the rest of the classic series.
As for the modern series, I hate the Cybusmen. They’re just clunky noisy robots, given a stupid catchphrase like the Daleks. The only good scene with them is the Sally Phelan scene. The way the Cybermen were quiet, with more humanlike movement was always more effective than them just stomping around everywhere. The Nightmare in Silver redesign was just too Iron Man for my tastes, but I guess the helmets looked sleek and cool, but again, still too mechanical, I want some proper indication that they are still people underneath. World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls was the first time they did the Cybermen well, and I think is one of the all-time greatest Doctor Who stories. Yes the second part is a bit more taken over by the Master, but that doesn’t bother me, it’s brilliant, I just see it as one half a fantastic Cybermen story and the other have a fantastic Master story. Best of both worlds. Ashad was wasted potential, but he was excellent in Haunting of Villa Diodati, but I can’t say much about the rest of the Cybermen in the Chibnall era. The clearly Invasion inspired design was ok, but again, too metallic.
And of course, Spare Parts is as great as people say it is.
The costumes are great. The story is men talking about stuff on one set for 4 episodes. It’s soooooo dull!
Sins of the Flesh is up there as one of the best.
Can’t say I agree with that
Coming in here to reiterate that yes, Sins of the Flesh is superb… this thread is starting to sound like a bunch of Cybermen considering how much we all think the same thing 
Coming back to this, I think my favourite cyberman stories do all three, but seem to hone in on one particular aspect.
Sins of the Flesh is the perfect cyberman story in terms of Conversion, you get the body horror, the social commentary, the uniformity, it’s great.
World Enough and Time is brilliant with it’s portrayal of Inevitability. Yes we’re seeing this through the eyes of Bill being converted, so that’s also a big factor, but I think the imagery that we see here, of proto-cybermen, you can see why people would turn to becoming cybermen, they hurt and they don’t want to anymore.
And then Supremacy of the Cybermen has the cybermen as a truly unstoppable force, invasion at every point in time at once, conquest on a scale that we’ve never seen before.
I think a lot of Cyberman fans get caught up by what Cybermen could do, that they don’t actually pay attention to what they actually do - and what they actually do is usually get overshadowed by the Daleks
- dwfan91
… … … … … … he’s not wrong
Sometimes I suppose…
To me Cybermen are more about body horror and the emotional connections humans have, which makes them slightly more terrifying. And the loss of bodily autonomy.
Whereas Daleks are Cthulhu Nazis.
It’s more likely for Earth to become a rogue planet with people looking for a new way to survive against forces they can’t control than it is for us to become space-faring murderous tin cans.
Ig what I’m saying is there’s more horror that hits closer to home with the Cybermen. But that loses effect when they’re just depicted as silver robots thrusted into interstellar battles for the sake of it. And only then do I agree with dwfan91’s take here. (Unless im misunderstanding without the added context of the video 
)
Plus they have different aesthetics. Daleks are very Atompunk, which distinguishes them quite a bit for me.
(Adding in brackets cuz I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread cuz it’s 2am and it gave me a “too similar” message")
For me, each of the core villains have an iconic aspect I’m looking for in a good portrayal.
The Master has to be charming and evil sure, but there has to always be some patheticness to them. They have to always either be slightly out of their depth, or when things inevitably go wrong they become pitiful. Without this, is it really The Master?
The Daleks have to be a force of nature. A threat that’s nigh impossible to stop and can and will kill easily without compromise (wow, they really are a metaphor for fascism!). This is why the best NuWho Dalek stories to me are the ones that keep the number of Daleks small; when you have too many Daleks they weirdly become almost less threatening to me (Parting of the Ways two parter being an exception).
And on topic, The Cybermen are about humanity and the lengths people will go to survive. They aren’t about conquest for conquest sake, and they sure as hell aren’t robots. They’re people who either are in an unfortunate situation and did what they felt they had to but lost their way, or people who were forced to be Cybermen by the former. And a Cyberman story needs to have that humanity and needs to have something to say about people for it to work for me. Something most NuWho Cybermen stories don’t understand, sadly.
It’s why on paper The Cybermen are my favourite recurring baddie, but in execution not so much 
I realize that this question could possibly go in the Star Trek Thread, but it has more to do with the Cybermen specifically. So, I’m in the middle of watching Star Trek: First Contact. And, it feels like the Borg are the ultimate evolution of the concepts that define the Cybermen. Maybe less so the “inevitability” as they originated as a alien race and not from humans, but the “conversion” and “unstoppable” criteria definitely apply. I think the conversion aspect of the Borg is scarier than the Cybermen because you see the humanity in the Borg. There’s no mistaking a Borg drone for just a bo-standard humanoid robot like the Cybermen often are. The Borg, by nature of their ultimate adaptability truly are unstoppable. Whatever strategy you come up with, only works for a limited time before they adapt and counter it. So, just wondering if you guys had any thoughts on the matter.
The Comparison definietly has some base (correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t the Trek/Who Comic Crossover also had those two crossovers with each other?. I do love a lot of the Cybermen Designs (even some of the more Robotic ones like the 80s), but I will say having more of the Human Body shown could be a) Great imagery b) Remind Writers more of their Purpose. The Borgs on their own are just great but are definitely something Who and its Cybermen Story could learn a Thing or two!
They did, yeah