Day 92 — April 2nd 2021
The Ice Warriors Episodes One and Two
The Ice Warriors — Episode One
I think I was operating on instinct today. I needed to go to the post office, so I put my headphones in, loaded up Audible, and listened to The Ice Warriors episode one on the way. That’s the nice thing about the Narrated Soundtracks — they mean I can experience the missing episodes while I’m busy doing other things. It was only later, when I sat down to have a look at the tele-snaps for the episode, that I realised The Ice Warriors Episode One exists in the archives. For some reason I had this story reversed in my head. I’d convinced myself that Episodes Two and Three existed and the others were all lost.
So I ended up doing this episode twice, and I even put in the DVD because for some reason today BritBox has deleted the entirety of Season Five. Everything else is there, but Season Five has gone missing. It’s the 1970s all over again.
I’m not complaining, though, because I really enjoyed this episode both as one to listen to and as one to watch, and it’s been interesting to see how my experience of the story has been altered by both versions.The main thing that really clicked for me with the audio is the house the story is largely set in. I know they’ve got a scientific base inside an old manor house, but it never quite lined up in my head before. I don’t think I’d ever given it enough attention to really get a handle on the idea of what we’re actually looking at. But the narration explains it really well;
‘The reason for the vastness of the dome is immediately apparent. Beyond the inner door stands a complete Georgian Mansion, perfectly preserved and protected from the elements.’
The narration actually works better, I think, than the sequence does on screen. And it’s closer to the intentions in the script, too, which describe the reveal of the house as something that’s supposed to be pretty impressive. Certainly, it gets a lot of time spent on the stage directions.
On screen, though, the house is revealed as a photograph seen through a window when the door opens, and it’s not given the level of wonder that I think it requires. It’s no wonder the idea never quite stuck for me before, because I think the episode as broadcast rather fumbles the reveal. It still looks pretty good, but I don’t think it sells the idea as well as either the script or the narration do. The idea of the old house perfectly preserved inside the dome is brilliant (and nicely mirrors the Ice Warrior perfectly preserved in the ice outside) and I’m surprised we’ve not seen the new series do something similar, especially given the number of nice old houses kicking around in South Wales. The closest we’ve had is Naismith’s operation in The End of Time, but I’m not sure it’s really comparible.
That’s not to say that everything in the episode works better when heard as a Narrated Soundtrack rather than properly viewed. You lose so much of Troughton’s performance in the audio. He seems especially alive in this one, and there’s several sequences where he’s genuinely bouncing around the set, and generally making sure that your attention is on him the whole time. On audio these sequences are lacking something, and just become quite long and talky. It’s nice to see how much he livens them up in reality, and it really makes you wonder how much is lost in all the episodes we can’t see. I said a lot that I think The Abominable Snowmen would improve massively if it were returned, and this is proof of just how much the full episode can bring.
I spent much of The Abominable Snowmen complaining about the slow pace of the story, but that’s not a criticism I can level at this one. This episode rattles along, to the point that we’ve already been introduced to much of the guest cast and discovered the Ice Warrior before the TARDIS has even rocked up. The key thing is that you don’t miss the TARDIS crew during this period. They don’t show up until a little over six minutes into the episode, but the time spent without them is so engaging and filled with character that it doesn’t matter.
And when the TARDIS does arrive… it lands sideways! Hah! I’d forgotten about that! It’s something else I’m surprised we’ve not seen more of in 21st Century Who. I guess there’s The Eleventh Hour and that’s it. It’s brilliant, though, as is the interplay between Doctor Who and his companions trying to get out of the box. A quick look at the script shows that chunks of it were developed by the cast in rehearsals, too.
I’ve made loads of notes of things I’ve enjoyed in this episode, but I fear I’ll run on for ages so I’m going to wait and save myself some things to discuss later on in the story instead. The one thing I will note is how much I laughed at Victoria’s reaction to their being scheduled for evacuation (‘Oh no! Not Africa!’). A really solid episode, and one of those occasions where my writing about it has made me realise just how much I’ve enjoyed it, to the point I’ve bumped the score up one to a 9/10.
Ooh, actually, there’s one other thing I want to bring up for this episode, and it’s on our semi-regular topic of photography.
There’s some fairly iconic images of Patrick Troughton operating an oscilloscope, one of which appeared on the cover of the Radio Times in 1968. For a long time they were always attributed to Fury From the Deep, but when you watch this episode it’s painfully clear that this is where those images are from. The error in attribution has been known for years and years now, but it’s an interesting example — I think — of how little there was to go on in the days before all these episodes were so readily available to view. The exact image used on the cover has sadly been lost to time, but the always brilliant Clayton Hickman restored it a few years ago.
The Ice Warriors — Episode Two
Having mucked up with Episode One, I let the DVD run on to this one just in case, and switched over to the Narrated Soundtrack once I’d confirmed that it was a missing one after all. The few snatches of animation I got to see before the switch, though, made me notice something I don’t think I ever have before. I was all ready to come on here and say ‘they’ve animated the wrong Ice Warrior for this one! When he thaws in Episode One it’s the version with the larger head, but they show the standard one here…’ but tele-snaps confirm that the same thing happened on broadcast! They switched the design between episodes, having decided that the version used in the pre-filming was impractical.
I’m glad they did make the revisions to the design, because I think the slimmer helmets look much better, and contribute towards a really iconic Doctor Who moster. I can’t say I’ve ever really given a lot of thought to the Ice Warriors before. They’re just sort of there as third or fourth tier returning monsters. But the design of them is really great, and I’d forgotten how much this story develops the idea that the big bulky carapaces we see on the outside are actually armour, protecting a creature inside them. That’s something which pretty much gets dropped after this one (as far as I can remember) until picked up again 45 years later for Cold War. We once did a photoshoot for some merchandise featuring the 2013 Ice Warrior costume, and I greatly enjoyed trying on all the different elements of the costume, though they were all far too big for a short person like me!
The other thing that gets forgotten after this story is that these creatures aren’t actually called ‘Ice Warriors’. That’s the name they’re christened with by one of the scientists in the first episode (‘proper ice warrior, isn’t he sir?’), but by the time they reappear in the next season I’m fairly sure they’ve taken to adopting it as their ongoing title. It’s an idea which sticks, too, with the aforementioned Cold War nicking the same conceit of finding one frozen in a block of ice. I’m not sure if they’ve ever been given an actual name on screen — maybe they’re just ‘Martians’?
Also interesting, and something I’ve not really noticed before, is that the Ice Warrior revived here isn’t necessarily an enemy. Oh, sure, he’s kidnapped Victoria, but he at least considers the possibility that he’ll simply leave Earth and go home without causing any trouble. Indeed, it’s his conversation with Victoria that makes him realise they might need to destroy the world;
Victoria: ‘Were there others with you?’
Ice Warrior: ‘Yes. Our spaceship crashed at the foot of the ice mountain. As we came out to investigate, a great avalanche of snow buried us.’
Victoria: ‘Then the others are still trapped in the glacier.’
Ice Warrior: ‘I will free them. Then we will return to the Red Planet.’
Victoria: ‘How? You can’t get them out by yourself.’
Ice Warrior: ‘You will help. How was I brought to life?’
Victoria: ‘Let the scientists here on Earth help you.’
Ice Warrior: ‘Tell me! They would not help me. They would keep me as a curiosity, and they would leave my warriors for dead, or destroy them.’
Victoria: ‘No, they, they wouldn’t.’
Ice Warrior: ‘But with my men, I can talk from strength. Then we shall decide.’
Victoria: ‘Decide what?’
Ice Warrior: ‘Whether to go back to our own world, or to conquer this.’
For me, this episode is made almost entirely by Scientist Penley. Ooh, he’s brilliant, isn’t he? We get to see a little of him in Episode One, but it’s here — and when he’s paired up with Doctor Who — that he really shines. I mentioned briefly last episode that the characters here are all given such defined personalities, and that continues here. I really feel I understand Penley, and why he chose to break away from the base and live outside. I really like his description of his decision in this one;
Penley: ‘You know about me then. My escapades in computer-land.’
Doctor Who: ‘They need you here, you know. They need you desperately.’
Penley: ‘Needing isn’t getting. I’m free of their problems for good.’
Doctor Who: ‘They’re your problems too, you know. It’s your world.’
Penley: ‘My world is up here. Private and no admittance. Well, I’m going to go then.’
Doctor Who: ‘I expect you know what you’re doing.’
Penley: ‘You know it’s nice to meet one that they haven’t got at yet.’
Doctor Who: ‘Oh, thank you.’
I’m also particularly fond of the computer’s description of Doctor Who when being considered for inclusion among the base’s personnel; ‘High IQ but undisciplined. Could be obstructive in certain situations’. That just about sums the Troughton incarnation up, doesn’t it?
Another decent one, and a 7/10.
