Thin Ice (audio story)

Thin Ice
Adapted from:	Ice Time
Doctor:	[[doctor::Seventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Ace
Main enemy:	Major Felnikov The Ice Warriors
Main setting:	Moscow, the Soviet Union and London, November 1967
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Marc Platt
Director:	Ken Bentley
Release details
Release number:	2.03
Release date:	April 2011
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-490-0
The Lost Stories
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Thin Ice is an audio play based on the unproduced story Ice Time, which was originally scheduled as one of the stories for the planned Season 27, which was supposed to air in 1990. However, the cancellation of the series made the proposed Season 27 and this story moot.

Publisher's summary

Moscow 1967. The Doctor and Ace have arrived behind the Iron Curtain, and the Soviet Union is seeking a new weapon that will give it mastery in the Cold War.

What is the secret of the Martian relics? As the legendary War Lord Sezhyr returns to life, the Doctor is faced with some of his oldest and deadliest enemies.

The fate of Earth – and the future of Ace – are now intertwined...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Ace - Sophie Aldred
• Markus Creevy - Ricky Groves
• Lt. Raina Kerenskaya/Sezhyr - Beth Chalmers
• Hhessh - Nicholas Briggs
• Major Maxim Alexandrovitch Felnikov - John Albasiny
• Adjudicator/Vitali Semyonovitch Wolshkin/Glarva - Nigel Lambert
• Yevgeni/Yasha Lemayev - John Banks

References

• Ace is unfamiliar with the Russian words "glasnost" and "perestroika". The Doctor notes that they would not become well known in the West until several years after her native time.
• The Doctor claims to have last visited the Kremlin centuries earlier.
• Ace anachronistically refers to Roger Moore as the current James Bond. Markus Creevy tells that Moore is the star of the television series The Saint whereas Sean Connery plays Bond.
• The Doctor, Ace, Markus and Raina attend the ceremony in Red Square marking the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution on 7 November 1967. They see Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first person and the first woman in space respectively, on the podium. The Doctor explains to Ace that the celebration of the October Revolution is held in November because Russia was still using the Julian calendar, which was eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar, in 1917.
• This is Ace's first encounter with the Ice Warriors.
• The Ice Warrior Lord Hhessh has grown fond of fish fingers.
• Lt. Raina Kerenskaya is from Kiev while her grandfather was a fur-trapper in the Ukraine. As of November 1967, she is fifteen weeks pregnant.
• At the end of her visit to London in 1967, Ace is disappointed that she has not seen a single hippie.

Notes

• Part One lasts for 29:35, which is 4-5 minutes longer than a standard episode.
• Part Two lasts for 48:15, which is 23-24 minutes longer than a standard episode.
• Part Three lasts for 36:03, which is 10-11 minutes longer than a standard episode.
• Part Four lasts for 37:03, which is 11-12 minutes longer than a standard episode.
• The whole story lasts for 151:01, which is 52 minutes longer than a normal four-part story.
• This story deals with Ace's departure as it was meant to happen, though the Virgin New Adventures and DWM comic strips both had other endings for her. However, she did not leave. Discussion between the various parties involved with the production resulted in the conclusion that Ace would never have left anyway.
• Ice Time, the unproduced television story on which this story is based, was set in 1960s London.
• This story takes place in November 1967, the same month as the original broadcast of DW: The Ice Warriors in which the eponymous aliens made their debut.
• This is the first audio drama to feature the Seventh Doctor and Ace travelling without another companion since BFA: The Rapture in September 2002. Either Hex or Bernice Summerfield had appeared in all of the stories featuring the pair in the interim.
• This audio drama was recorded on 30 September and 1 October 2010.

Continuity

• The Doctor claims to have never delivered a baby before. He would do so again in Ireland in September 1649. (BFA: The Settling) He would later claim to have delivered the Mongol military leader Genghis Khan, whom he described as a "sweet baby." (NA: Tragedy Day)
• Ace first visited 1960s London in DW: Remembrance of the Daleks.
• Immediately after the events of this story, the Doctor and Ace travel to October 1989 where they are reunited with Markus Creevy and Colonel Felnikov as well as the former's then twenty-one-year-old daughter, Raine. Both Markus and Felnikov take some time to realise that Ace is the same girl that they met in 1967, having not aged a day in the interim two decades. (BFA: Crime of the Century)
• Hhessh mentions "rival factions" of Ice Warriors, and that the militaristic force on Earth are the last "true" Ice Warriors. The Third and Fifth Doctors had previously encountered one of these pacifistic factions on Peladon. (DW: The Curse of Peladon, DW: The Monster of Peladon, BFA: The Bride of Peladon)
• Ace refers to Perivale (DW: Ghost Light, DW: Survival) and Fenric (DW: The Curse of Fenric).

Timeline

• Thin Ice takes place after DW: Survival.
• Thin Ice takes place before BFA: Crime of the Century.

External links

• Official Thin Ice page at bigfinish.com