The Ice Warriors

"Five thousand years of history... crushed beneath a moving mountain of ice."

Writer: Brian Hayles

Format: TV

Broadcast: 11th November - 16th December 1967

Season: 5.03

Featuring: Second Doctor, Jamie, Zoe

Synopsis 

In the distant future, Earth faces a new Ice Age. While a dedicated team of scientists battle to hold the approaching glaciers at bay, a startling discovery is made deep within the ice... an alien warrior frozen for millennia. When the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive they soon discover Earth is under threat from the Ice Warriors - fearsome Martians intent on conquering our planet for themselves.

Verdict 

The Ice Warriors is a fantastic story which sees the debut of a brilliant enemy who will become far too familiar for the Doctor in his future. It's not been a bad bunch of stories lately involving the Second Doctor with his last four adventure featuring the Daleks, Cybermen, the Great Intelligence and the Yet and now here with the Ice Warriors! Quite an introduction for the young and innocent Victoria as companion. Speaking of which, I thought this was her best story yet. Captured by Ice Warriors, set free with instructions but then captured again - I really did like her watching this story. I wasn't too excited about her becoming companion after The Evil of the Daleks, a story which was nicely referenced, but now she's certainly grown on me after two positive performances in this and the preceding story. I guess she's just needed time to settle down and it certainly looks like she has done now. She was far superior to Jamie in the companion role in this episode with the highlander not doing an awful lot. I loved how the Ice Warriors first arrive on our screens, coming to life after thousands of years suspended in ice, frozen. The discovery of the Warrior in the ice was done brilliantly and I really liked how they first thought it was a Viking due to the helmet. Far from it actually! This was an Ice Warrior from the planet Mars! The appearance of them is just terrific and terrifying! An almost human mouth behind a reptilian-like armour. Much larger than your average human, menacing claw hands and a slithering voice with a wonderful emphasis on the letter 's'. That really is a quality of an enemy like no other. The plot of the story was excellent with a tremendous glacier setting and some magnificent characters in the form of Clent and Penley as the highlights. Their relationship was conflicting and I really liked how throughout the story things were edging towards a much smoother future for them after the danger was averted. The comment by Clent at the end was superb. I loved the animation of the missing episodes 2 and 3 and I think it's just marvellous that we can now watch this serial in full! Varga was the standout Ice Warrior as commander and I liked how he was handing out threats left, right and centre! He certainly would follow through with them as we saw with the cliffhanger of episode four. Some of the cliffhangers were very good with episode 1 and 2's being my favourite. The Ice Warriors believing the ioniser could and should be used as a weapon immediately added to their evilness which is obviously needed in a great enemy and judging by the number of times they've returned, the Ice Warriors are just that. Their interest in science was intriguing and it was also very good that they needed fuel so would have to go to the base to try and attain it. The way the Doctor and Victoria defeated the Ice Warriors was very effective and it was ironic that their helmets worked against them! The computer was finally ignored and the Warriors were no more thanks to their own instruments being used against them. Overall, a splendid debut for the Ice Warriors in a memorable and strong story. 

Rating: 9/10