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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.
- You may wish to consult
Cold War (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
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, the warrior has been frozen for 5000 years. When he escapes, he is revealed to be the "heroic" Grand Marshal Skaldak of the Ice Warrior race from Mars. Initially, peace might have been made with the warrior, until one of the crew members instinctively attacks Skaldak and convinces him he is at war with the human race under Martian law. He therefore attempts to use the submarine's nuclear missiles to destroy the planet, but is eventually persuaded by the Doctor that destroying the planet isn't worth anything to him. Skaldak's allies' craft pulls 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 to prime an ICBM launch. They prepare to fire, but are interrupted by the entrance of the Professor, singing. The Captain reports the drill has been abandoned. 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 that they are supposed to wait till the crew arrives back in Moscow to thaw the specimen out. However, he uses a blowtorch to thaw the block of ice, until he is grabbed by a claw that emerges from the ice.
Then there are scenes of havoc upon the submarine; the hull has been breached. Crew members are being attacked by a green armoured figure: an Ice Warrior. The Captain orders the sub to be brought to the surface, just as the TARDIS materialises. The Doctor yells "Viva Las Vegas" as he and Clara are thrown across the bridge from the TARDIS. The Captain asks who they are, while being informed by a crew member that the main turbines aren't responding. The Doctor tells them their only chance to survive is to use the lateral thrusters. The Captain decides to listen, and the sub crashes into a ridge, preventing it from dropping further. Crew members search the Doctor and Clara, pulling a Barbie, a ball of yarn and other items from the Doctor's pockets. His Sonic Screwdriver is confiscated, and Clara falls into a puddle after a jolt rocks the sub, temporarily losing consciousness. The TARDIS de-materialises. Clara wakes up as the Doctor and the Captain are arguing. They are interrupted by a raspy noise coming from behind the Doctor. The Doctor initially thinks it's gas, but turns around to find the green armoured figure, which is revealed to be an Ice Warrior called Grand Marshal Skaldak. After some bickering, the professor reveals that Skaldak has likely been sleeping under the ice for five thousand years. The Doctor seems to be close to diffusing the tense situation when Lieutenant Stephashin sneaks up behind Skaldak and electrocutes him with a cattle prod. The Doctor berates the Lieutenant and reveals that it was an extremely bad idea to have done so, and warned the crew to lock up Skaldak.
Cast
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 mastodon; 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, and the first to not be written or co-written by Brian Hayles.
- 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)
- 1983 was indeed the point in which the the Cold War could have very easily run hot, due to the (alluded to) Able Archer '83 exercises that terrified the already paranoid Soviets. There were even several close calls throughout the year, including one famous incident where only the cool head of a Soviet radar operator deciding that the missile that appeared on his screen was not a launch but most likely an equipment malfunction prevented a full-scale nuclear launch.
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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