The Ice Warriors: Episode Six

Review of all 6 episodes:

This is a tremendous production in all respects. The costumes really stand out straight away as superb and believable. They are stylishly and expertly made especially for the humans and also for the Ice Warriors. The acting and characterisation are of a high standard throughout with guest parts well written and acted providing realistic and interesting characters. The Ice Warriors are brilliant, the TARDIS crew main cast are on great form and the script is fantastic. The story itself is great fun with plenty of action but also intelligent and thoughtful science fiction. There are ideas of humans over-reliance on machines, people torn between just running away from a system they dislike or fighting to change it, relationships with aliens (those different to us) and the threat of war and moral questions which result. More than that though it is just a fine example of a very well produced, exciting story with great villains and three dimensional characters.

I really could not disagree more (and frankly do not understand) a review I read on here giving this a very cool (pardon the pun) reception. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but the only direct criticism I could spot in that review was to say this is somewhat copied from the story of The Thing From Another World, other than that they just say it did not grab them. Well if this does not grab you I suggest Doctor Who will never rate well for you. This is top notch Doctor Who, and that is a view supported by its high rating on IMDb and by reviews by Doctor Who specialist reviewers such as the BBC Episode Guide. To say it is like The Thing From Another World is not entirely wrong in that the story contains an alien preserved in ice which is then thawed out but would that reviewer criticise The Brain of Morbius (widely considered one of the best ever stories) because it vaguely copies the premise of Frankenstein?! I am not a fan at all of copying other people's ideas or derivative stories. However, this is not derivative it purely shares an aspect of that story just as the ideas of nearly every science fiction story all share some aspect or other with at least one other story. The Borg in Star Trek for instance are quite close in concept to the Cybermen (and all cyborgs in sci- fi) but it does not make them rubbish because they are done differently enough and are good in their own right.

This story over its 6 episodes has way more going for it and way more ideas than just the alien in the ice premise. It is a perfect example of an alien menace adventure. The only significant flaw for me is a tiny bit of the scientific explanation regarding the ice age in Episode 1.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 9/10, Episodes 2-6 - 10/10

Although a couple of episodes form this serial are missing it is still a pretty enjoyable one. It follows a theme that the previous serial took – humans on one side, aliens on the other – but it does have more interesting characters than the Cybermen in the Ice Warriors. Unfortunately the missing episodes serve as the introduction to them and when I picked it up a few episodes later it was not as clear as I would have liked it to be, although they still have engaging motives for their actions. Their design is nice apart from being a bit chunky and unwieldy as costumes (witness several of them boshing their heads on the low door frame) an their low hissing voices are sinister even if they are hard to hear all the time.

The plot uses them pretty well although the conclusion centering around the computer is a bit all over the place and I'm not entirely sure it worked. It is a little slow at times and I don't think it had the urgency and sense of danger that the Tomb of the Cybermen did better. The human cast are good and the standard of performances is generally better in this season than in previous ones (in terms of the supporting cast). Troughton gives another very good turn and even Hines is growing on me now that I have had a few chances to actually see him in a story or two; Watling is yet to really make an impression on me though – not all her fault, she really does feel like another in a long line of "passing through" companions who come and go is lost episodes.

All told though, an enjoyable enough serial with good characters in the aliens and humans, although the pace is a little slow and perhaps could have done with a bit more urgency and pace.

Clent refuses to make a decision on how to proceed, having faith only in his computer, but when it fails Penley is the only one that can be relied upon.

It's been a very good debut story for The Ice Warriors, they often blur the lines between friend and foe, but are good value here. Their mission is simply to survive, they're not maniacal or ranting, just carry out their business with certainty.

The computer has become a menace, a very vague similar type computer would be used later on in Inferno, The Ice Warriors screams of originality.

Terrific production values once again, I thought the closing scenes looked very good.

This shows the pitfalls of having a manager in place of someone with an in depth knowledge, Clent can't think for himself, Penley backed by The Doctor has to be brave.