Episode #39 : The Ice Warriors

"In 2 minutes 38 seconds, you're going to have an almighty explosion!"

Episode 39:   The Ice Warriors.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 11th November to 16th December 1967.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in 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, called an Ice Warrior by one of the scientists, has been found buried in the nearby glacier. 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 is now dead.

The Ice Warriors is a story that feels much more like it should have appeared as a Star Trek story. It just has that Trek vibe rather than what I expect from Doctor Who. It even has some odd moments with the female "oooo" sort of singing over things. Very odd. But that aside, it is a reasonable story despite there being one or two moments where I found myself distracted because the story wasn't going anywhere. In places it needed more action.

This is the introduction of the Ice Warriors race who make a handful of appearances later on in the show, mainly for the second and third Doctors. These reptilians are the inhabitants of Mars which has lost its ability to sustain life. They came to Earth thousands of years ago and got stuck in the ice. Very ironic for a race people call Ice Warriors. They are aggressive conquerors but to me they seem a tad simplistic in how they do it. One last thing... although the costumes for the Ice Warriors are suitably iconic, they do often look bloody silly waddling around in them.

A reasonable story that introduces one of the lesser but also iconic villain races.