The Ice Warriors: Doctor Who: Season 5
| SYNOPSIS |
| DETAILS |
| CAST & CREW | REVIEWS |
 Goldby |  Boland |
The Ice Warriors SYNOPSIS:
The second ice age is advancing across Britain in the year 3000 and at the Brittanicus base a team are combating the glacier advance with an ioniser. Senior scientist Arden excavates an armoured figure from the glacier and takes it back to base. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive just as the base is being evacuated, the battle against the glaciers is being lost.
The Doctor uses his scientific knowledge to insinuate himself with himself with Leader Clent's Ioniser team effectively replacing Penley who recently quit. Varga, an ice warrior from Mars, revives once thawed and captures Victoria intending to free his frozen ice Warrior crew and ship from the Glacier where they have been trapped for a millenia.
Varga succeeds and his crew set about excavating their ship and gun down Arden and Jamie injuring the latter who have come for Victoria. The base faces the dilemma of being unable to use the Ioniser further in case it causes the alien ship's engines to explode destroying the base but they still need it to halt the advance of the glaciers.
Penley refuses his services and Clent will only rely on information from his computer leaving the Doctor of trying the desperate gamble of offering himself as a prisoner to the martians to report on the ship's propulsion system and rescue Victoria.
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The Ice Warriors DETAILS:
| Episode | Broadcast | Run Time | Viewership (In Millions) |
| Part One | 11-Nov-67 | 24:21 | 6.7 |
| Part Two | 18-Nov-67 | 24:16 | 7.1 |
| Part Three | 25-Nov-67 | 23:58 | 7.4 |
| Part Four | 2-Dec-67 | 24:23 | 7.3 |
| Part Five | 9-Dec-67 | 24:25 | 8 |
| Part Six | 16-Dec-67 | 23:58 | 7.5 |
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The Ice Warriors CAST & CREW
Stars:
The Doctor:
Patrick Troughton(Second Doctor)
Companions:
Fraser Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield)
Guest Stars:
Peter Barkworth — Clent
Peter Sallis — Penley
Wendy Gifford — Miss Garrett
Angus Lennie — Storr
Peter Diamond — Davis
George Waring — Arden
Malcolm Taylor — Walters
Roy Skelton — Voice of the Computer
Bernard Bresslaw — Varga
Roger Jones — Zondal
Sonny Caldinez — Turoc
Michael Attwell — Isbur
Tony Harwood — Rintan
Production Staff for Serial OO:
Writer - Brian Hayles
Director - Derek Martinus
Script editor - Peter Bryant
Producer - Innes Lloyd
Missing Episodes 2 & 3 only
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The Ice Warriors REVIEWS
Goldby
This next one's tricky only seen it once or twice and not much has stuck in the mind but at least the guest cast in this one act totally convincingly and not the typical stereo type characters most resort to. They respond to their imaginary environment and make you believe this is all really happening.
Again the Tardis team is on top form and it's easy to see why Troughton is so many fans' favourite Doctor. He just captures the screen time of every scene he's in and makes the Doctor a totally fascinating character, a genius who sometimes seems a panicked coward. The Ice Warriors are believable and threatening too, there's only 5 of them but that seems to be more than enough to take on an army or an ionisation base. The bit with Victoria being pursued through the ice corridors sticks in the mind and the boss' secretary or second in command or whatever is completely bonable. Think you can see Jamie licking his lips in the background of some of her scenes.
It's obvious the production team of the time care and are really trying to bring out some quality from every BBC department from sets to costumes to make the show worth watching. The pace is again high compared to the Hartnell era and only seems to drag in part 6. Maybe it is better that this story is missing a couple of episodes 'cause it may drag the pace down
7/10
Boland
The Ice Warriors. Ahhh wait for the DVD when the two missing episodes are reconstructed somehow. But let’s see what we have! Four interesting episodes for sure, an interesting world run by computers facing a second ice age and glaciers threatening to destroy mankind. That’s the backdrop, then we have the Ice Warriors frozen in the ice coming to life and threatening anything. It’s a classic plot device that was used in The Moonbase and would be used in The Seeds of Death. Similar one used in the Wheel in Space and countless other Doctor Who stories through the ages. A project that is vital to Earth’s survival (Gravitron, Ioniser, T-mat) run in an isolated location is threatened/taken over by some nasty-pasty. Oh and it’s always in the future.
What’s curious is that the Ice Warriors follows the Abominable Snowman, another story set in the snow. Perhaps it was a cost cutting exercise allowing them to reuse sets and snow-simulating equipment. Or perhaps the production team weren’t thinking clearly. It wasn’t until day one of filming the Ice Warriors they thought... ‘Hey, didn’t we do this story last week?’ Anyways it’s interesting. Decent story, the Ice Warriors provide a problem as the dialogue doesn’t sync with the mouth movements, and it’s really hard to understand a word they say. Same with the computer.
Maybe when the DVD is released they will remaster the audio and the voices will be clearly audible. It’s well done though, the snow is almost convincing, there’s the comic relief in the crazy Scotsman, the atmosphere is well created through sfx and music. I do ask a few questions of the script. Where exactly are they on Earth? Some island in Europe I am guessing, but no real info is provided. The TARDIS materialises on its side, but leaves in episode six standing up and the credits wait on screen to start their roll. Nice costumes too, usually the futuristic ones are poor in this era, but I liked these. Nice legs on display too!
6.8/10
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