Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors

But sssssoft, what light thru
yonder window breaksssss...

Mars attacks!

Series Five, Story Three (Story Code OO)

Starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
with Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria)

Written by Brian Hayles
Directed by Derek Martinus
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Script Editor – Peter Bryant

Broadcast Dates, Viewership, Audience Appreciation

• "One" – 11 Nov 1967 (6.7m, 52%)
• "Two" – 18 Nov 1967 (7.1m, 52%) **MISSING**
• "Three" – 25 Nov 1967 (7.4m, 51%) **MISSING**
• "Four" – 2 Dec 1967 (7.3m, 51%)
• "Five" – 9 Dec 1967 (8.0m, 50%)
• "Six" – 16 Dec 1967 (7.5m, 51%)

Each episode starts with a custom-filmed intro of a snowy landscape, and the episode number (in words) after the story title and author.

How To Watch

• Not yet posted on the Doctor Who: Classic YouTube channel (as of March 2025)
• Not available on BritBox or Pluto.tv due to its incomplete status
• 2013 DVD release with animated versions of episode 2 and 3.
• 1998 VHS release with the 4 surviving episodes plus a brief recap of eps 2 & 3, including an additional VHS documentary "The Missing Years," a booklet, and cd containing the full audio of eps 2 and 3
• Loose Cannon reconstructions of eps 2 and 3 are available here. Please support official BBC releases.

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in the year 5000 where the Earth is experiencing a new ice age. A team at Brittanicus Base, led by Clent, uses an ionization beam to hold back the glaciers, but things are not going well, and the whole of Britain is on the verge of being overwhelmed. A remote team finds a large humanoid figure buried in the glacial ice. The Doctor and friends arrive and almost immediately diagnose a reactor malfunction, winning the trust, albeit warily, of Clent and his team. The creature, still in its block of ice, is brought to the base where it eventually thaws and inadvertently revived. Taking Victoria hostage, the creature, known as Varga, claims to hail from Mars as part of a team whose ship crashed in the glacier thousands of years earlier and was buried in an avalanche.

The discovery of the ship in the ice causes a dilemma; using the ionizer would possibly destroy the ship and cause its atomic engines to contaminate the region with deadly radiation, while not using the ionizer would mean the glaciers would spread over Britain. The base computer, upon which Clent relies heavily, is unable to provide a solution, as the prospect of destroying itself either way makes it unable to choose. Meanwhile, Varga thaws out his fellow warriors and attempts to reactivate their ship, including a sonic weapon which it brings to bear upon the base. After a prolonged standoff, the disaffected scientist Penley, who had been second in command at Brittanicus before Clent's over-reliance on the computer's logic caused a rift between them, opts to use the ionizer, which destroys the ship and the Ice Warriors, the feared nuclear explosion does not occur, and the glacier's advance is kept at bay. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria depart, hoping for a warmer climate on their next landing.

Blather

The glaciers are coming but we look FABULOUS.

Visually, the most distinctive element of this story is the ultra-futuristic costume design and the sleek white computer console, and their drastic incongruity against the 18th century architecture of the base, complete with Queen Anne era wallpaper and candle sconces. From the perspective of 55+ years, it's obvious that between the design and construction of the Ice Warrior costumes, the human characters' costuming, and the computer, there was no room in the budget for a similarly futuristic Brittanicus base so they simply grabbed what was available in the scene storage. They pay some lip service to the base being in a house that was 'classified for historic interest,' but even that only advertises the limitations of the show's budget at the time.

The Ice Warriors are nominally the bad guys in this story, but I can't escape the notion that they are driven by desperation. Apart from one line about deciding whether to go back home or conquer Earth, what's the issue? They just woke up after thousands of years and they want to go home (where they'll probably discover their species is extinct – especially after their decimation at the hands of the Doctor some 3000 years earlier in the following Ice Warrior story). There's an ionization beam pointed straight at them for the entire story, so of course they're grumpy about it, and thus aim their sonic beam back at the humans just to give them a better bargaining position. They have no reason to trust the Earthlings, and do treat them very callously, but if the situation were reversed would we humans have acted differently? Surely the Doctor could've sat both parties down, explained the gravity of the situation, and negotiated a better outcome than what did happen; arguably in the modern era of Doctor Who this would've happened. There's a lot of bias at play in this story. The humans are the good guys mainly because they're the home team, not because they're more ethical.

It's also worth wondering how differently, if at all, the events in this story would've played out if the TARDIS hadn't arrived. The Doctor fixes a few things and clarifies some problems, but he's not the one who ultimately makes the decision about the ionizer. Jamie gets shot and is feared dead, but otherwise barely impacts the plot, and poor Vic is kidnapped by Varga so she can get exposition hissed at her for a few episodes. But it's ultimately Penley, the former chief scientist, who comes in and makes the call.

After Penley fixes the problem, they break out the celebratory cheese.

And this is ultimately the problem. The dilemma, to shoot or not to shoot, is established in episode two. They then spend four-plus episodes agonizing over it, until finally they decide "shoot." If you were watching on original broadcast, that meant an entire month. In a sense, this is germane to one of the story's central themes, humanity's over-dependence on computers and logic and their helplessness when needing to make a difficult decision on their own, but good gravy this is one of the six-parter stories most guilty of being overlong by two episodes. At least.

Clent is a class of Season Five leaders, along with Robson from "Fury from the Deep" and Jarvis from "Wheel in Space," who all appear to have gone to the same school of management, where leadership is established by bellowing "I'M IN CHAAARGE!!!" as events spiral further out of their control.

And for all the blather about how Season Five was the Base Under Siege season, it's evident that economics drove this decision. One main location means saving money on sets, yadda yadda yadda. But what this also means is after four seasons of wildly imaginative stories, we have a greater uniformity of concept, of style, and a greater eagerness to re-use baddies, or deliberately introduce monsters that will be recycled (Cybermen twice in S5 alone, Yeti ditto, Ice Warriors would pop up thru the Pertwee era, etc.) and it seems to be a sacrifice of innovation.

I do note how unfortunately timely Penley's friend Storr is; the knee-jerk contrarian who is so counter-programmed against technology and science that he refuses medicine while sick, and decides the Ice Warriors are awesome because they're threatening to destroy Brittanicus base because anti-science = good. He then offers his services to the Ice Warriors, who promptly blast him. Clearly we as a species learn nothing.

Tidbits

Bernard Bresslaw was famous as a comic actor known for his facial expressions, but was offered the role of Varga due to his height (6'7") and was persuaded to take the role by his young son, a big Doctor Who fan. He didn't realize he'd be completely masked until arriving at rehearsals.

The only baddie who also cut a novelty single

Clent's limp was not scripted, it was Peter Barkworth's idea.

Originally this was slated to be the first story in the production block, but with the location shooting needed for "Abominable Snowmen," they bumped it up to second.

Episode six required re-writes to accommodate Deborah Watling's unavailability for most of the taping day. Victoria was sent ahead to wait in the TARDIS and was written out of the closing scenes.

The Ice Warrior costumes were tweaked between the pre-filmed sequences and the studio taping days, so there is some visible variances.

A short trailer was specially scripted and shot for this story, shown at the end of episode six of "Abominable Snowmen," featuring Penley and Clent. The video is, alas, missing, and the only surviving audio is of poor quality. An enterprising fan created visuals for it and it's available here. It's also included on the DVD.

Haven't I Seen You Somewhere In The Future?

• Peter Sallis (Penley) never appeared on Doctor Who again, but is best known as the original voice of Wallace of Wallace and Gromit fame and Cleggy in Last of the Summer Wine. He was originally cast as Captain Striker in "Enlightenment" but when the filming schedule changed due to industrial action, he was no longer available.
• Angus Lennie (Storr) would play Angus the piper in "Terror of the Zygons"
• Roy Skelton (computer voice) was regularly engaged on Doctor Who as a voice actor and occasional onscreen role.
• Sonny Caldinez (Turoc) had previously appeared as Kemel in "Evil of the Daleks" and played an Ice Warrior in all their classic era stories
• Tony Harwood (Ice Warrior) makes his third straight appearance, having been a Cyberman and a Yeti in the previous two stories
• Michael Attwell (Isbur) returned as Bates in "Attack of the Cybermen"

Does the BIPOC character survive? n/a

Sausage Factor: 92.3% (11/12 credited guest actors are male, although the uncredited base technicians in the background are largely female)

Rating: Two out of Four Little Black Boxes With Wires

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John Geoffrion is a semi-retired semi-professional thespian, a professional data guy, and a Dad. He usually falls asleep to the Classic Doctor Who channel on Pluto.tv

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