The Ice Warriors (TV story)

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The Ice Warriors
Doctor:	[[doctor::Second Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Jamie McCrimmon Victoria Waterfield
Main enemy:	Ice Warriors
Main setting:	Great Britain, the future
Key crew
Writer:	Brian Hayles
Director:	Derek Martinus
Producer:	Innes Lloyd
Release details
Release number:	39
Premiere broadcast:	11th November - 16th December 1967
Format:	6 25-minute Episodes
Production code:	OO

Story Notes

The most obvious influence on this story is John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" (1938) which has twice been filmed as The Thing From Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982). This features an alien found frozen in ice who is thawed out and comes back to life to threaten an [Antarctica|Antarctic]] research base. In the original story the "thing" is a shape-changer that absorbs knowledge from its victims, themes exploited many times on Doctor Who, but lack of technology to realise these ideas meant that the 1951 film has the creature merely a large aggressive plant-man (used again in "The Seeds of Doom") and "The Ice Warriors" follows this model by making the Ice Warriors large agressive green creatures. The major difference with the basic plot of the film and "The Ice Warriors" was that in the film the alien spaceship is destroyed while the scientists are trying to remove it from the ice. In "The Ice Warriors" fear of destroying the spaceship prevents the use of the weather control system.

Archeological discoveries of the time, notably the Sutton Hoo dig, also influenced the idea of a buried body proving to be an alien, with the Ice Warrior's space helmet being mistaken for a ancient helmet. Again, Doctor Who would return to the theme in "The Daemons".

Notions about Mars, current in 1967 but now known to be false, also inform the programme, such as the nitrogen atmosphere of Mars which causes the Ice Warriors breathing difficulties on Earth.

Finally, the theories of a "nuclear winter" and "a New Ice Age" are the basis for the setting of the story. The disputes between the scientists seems to represent the debate amongst scientist over the validity of these theories. The idea of weather manipulation had appeared in "The Moonbase" and was also reappear in "The Enemy of the World", which followed from this story.

Continuity

The Doctor is wearing his fur coat from the previous story, "The Abominable Snowmen". Jamie also suggests at first that the Doctor has landed further up the mountain in Tibet, because the environment is still icy (ironically, no ice appeared on screen in "The Abominable Snowmen").

The crew have to climb out of the TARDIS because it is lying on its side. The Doctor has to enter the TARDIS under similarly awkward circumstances in "Time-Flight."

External links

• BBC The Ice Warriors page
• Outpost Gallifrey The Ice Warriors page
• BBC The Ice Warriors photonovel
• The Ice Warriors transcript
• The Ice Warriors detailed sypnosis at Doctor Who Reference Guide