The Ice Warriors (TV story)

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Synopsis

The TARDIS arrives on Earth at the time of a new ice age and the travellers make their way into a base where scientists commanded by Leader Clent are using an ioniser device to combat the advance of a glacier.

A giant humanoid creature, termed an Ice Warrior by one of the scientists, has been found buried in the glacier nearby. When thawed, it revives and is revealed to be Varga, captain of a Martian spacecraft that landed on Earth centuries ago and is still in the glacier. Varga sets about freeing his comrades and formulating a plan to conquer the Earth - Mars itself now being dead.

The scientists meanwhile realise that continued use of the ioniser could cause the alien ship's engines to explode. Their trusted computer is unable to advise them without further information, and it seems that disaster is imminent. The disaffected scientist Penley, supported by the Doctor, eventually decides to risk activating the ioniser. There is only a minor explosion, which destroys the Martians and, at the same time, checks the ice flow.

Plot

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Cast

Crew

References

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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 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 aggressive 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.

Ratings

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Myths

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Location Filming

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Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

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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.
  • The Ice Warriors next appear in The Seeds of Doom.

DVD, Video and Other Releases

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Target Novelisations

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See Also

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External links

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