Cold War (TV story)
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Cold War (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Cold War was the eighth regular episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. It saw the first televised appearance of the Ice Warriors since The Monster of Peladon 39 years previously, and their first appearance in the BBC Wales version of the show.
Synopsis
On a Soviet submarine in 1983, a frozen alien warrior is waking up, just as the TARDIS materialises. According to the scientist on board he has been frozen for 5000 years. When he escapes, he is revealed to be the "heroic" Grand Marshal Skaldak. Initially, peace might have been made, until one of the crew members instinctively attacked Skaldak and convinced him he was at war with the human race under Martian law. He therefore attempted to use the submarine's nuclear missiles to destroy the planet, but was eventually persuaded by the Doctor that destroying the planet wasn't worth anything to him. Skaldak's allies' craft pulled the submarine up and over the ice before summoning their Grand Marshal and leaving the planet, deactivating the warheads.
Plot
The episode starts in the North Pole in 1983. Aboard a Russian submarine, a warning repeats that the "signal is genuine". The captain and first mate use their keys, priming a ICBM launch. They prepare to fire, but are interrupted by the professor singing. The captain reports the drill has been abandoned. Phew. The first mate says they must run it again, to which the Captain says "tomorrow". The Captain then asks the Professor about the "specimen", wondering if it's a mammoth. In the hold, the crewman in charge of the specimen muses how they have to wait till the crew arrives back in Moscow to be thawed out. Unfortunately, he uses a blowtorch to thaw the block of ice, until he is grabbed by a claw.
Then there are scenes of havoc upon the submarine; the hull has been breached. People are being attacked by a green armoured figure; an Ice Warrior. The Captain orders the sub to be brought to the surface as the TARDIS materialises. The Doctor yells "Viva Las Vegas" as he's thrown across the bridge. The Captain asks who they are, while being told the main turbines aren't responding until the Doctor tells them their only chance is to use the lateral thrusters. The Captain decides to listen, and the sub crashes into a ridge, preventing it from dropping further. They are searched, with a Barbie, a ball of yarn and other items pulled from the Doctor. His Sonic Screwdriver is confiscated, and Clara falls into a puddle after a jolt rocks the sub. The TARDIS de-materialises.Clara wakes up as the Doctor and the Captain are arguing. They are interrupted by raspy breathing.The Doctor initially thinks it's gas, but turns around to see Skaldak. After some bickering, the professor reveals that Skaldak has likely been sleeping for five thousand years. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Stephashin electrocuted the poor bastard. The Doctor berated him and revealed that it was an extremely bad idea to have done so, and warned the crew to lock up Skaldak.
Cast
- The Doctor – Matt Smith
- Clara Oswald – Jenna-Louise Coleman
- Captain Zhukov – Liam Cunningham
- Professor Grisenko – David Warner
- Lieutenant Stephashin – Tobias Menzies
- Piotr – Josh O'Connor
- Onegin – James Norton
- Belevich – Charlie Anson
- Skaldak – Spencer Wilding
- Voice of Skaldak – Nicholas Briggs
References
Places
- The submarine is in the ocean underneath the North Pole.
- The Doctor and Clara were originally planning on going to Las Vegas.
- The TARDIS rematerialised at the South Pole.
Songs
- Professor Grisenko is listening to "Vienna" by Ultravox and singing "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran.
Items
Story notes
- This story features some similarities to TV: The Ice Warriors. Both involve an Ice Warrior being frozen in ice, being found by a scientist, and then thawed out by someone who was impatient. Both scientists mistake their Ice Warriors for prehistoric Earth creatures — in Warriors it's a mastadon; here it's a mammoth. Both take place in extreme cold. Both have the Doctor initially saving a team of humans from an immediate crisis — in Warriors is an uncontrolled weather event; here it's the submarine sinking.
- This is the first televised story to feature the Ice Warriors since the Monster of Peladon in 1974.
- This is the first time an Ice Warrior has been seen "out of uniform" on television, but it's not the first time fans have been able to peek behind the armour. Skaldak's true face is remarkably similar, allowing for a difference in gender, to Lee Sullivan's depiction of the female Ice Warrior Luass in the Eighth Doctor comic story Ascendance. However, the more tentacled hands of Skeldak are less compatible with Luass' human-like hands.
- The existence of powerful female Ice Warriors, Skaldak's rank as the leader of a caste and the general implication that Ice Warriors have a feudal sense of honour originate not with Ice Warrior creator Brian Hayles but instead with Gary Russell's reinvention in PROSE: Legacy and COMIC: Ascendance/Descendance.
- The Doctor's sonic screwdriver displays a red diode setting when he threatens to blow up the Soviet submarine. He previously received a modified sonic screwdriver from River Song in his tenth incarnation with a "red setting" of its own. (TV: Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead)
Ratings
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Filming locations
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Production errors
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Continuity
- The Doctor claims the TARDIS' Hostile Action Displacement System hadn't been used in "donkey's years". And that's true enough in terms of televised stories. The only other televised reference is in The Krotons. But it's made several appearances in other media — as recently as AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was. Perhaps the most notorious use of the HADS was in the the novelisation of Time and the Rani, where Pip and Jane Baker blame the Sixth Doctor's tepid regeneration on the fact that the he didn't set the HADS and therefore failed to prevent the "tumultuous buffeting" of the TARDIS that ended his life.
- The portrayal of the Ice Warriors as "cyborgs" is an innovation of this story.
Home video releases
DVD releases
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Blu-ray releases
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External links
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