DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 36th MEET-UP - THE ICE WARRIORS

Sunday 7th June 2015

Say whaaaaaaaaaat?!  Another weeky - another meety!  Now it was looking like Jim wasn't coming back, so I decided to change our sign - it now states "AND SHAUNY-JIM".  I LIKED having the name Jim in it, so Shaun got a re-christening!!

Anyhow, this time we all met around Jason's house to watch the six part story "The Ice Warriors"!  Yup we were BACK in the snow "Oh no, not again!  Tibet was bad enough, but I think you've put us down just further up the mountain!" Jamie tells us!  But never fear - we're actually in England again, but in the distant future during a future ice age!  Human beings are struggling to keep the glaciers from taking over England, with the aid of computers and keepy-icey-away-machines!
Meanwhile other scientists on an archaeological dig find a massive warrior entombed in the ice!

We're mainly set in Brittanicus Base where senior control technician Jan Garrett and her staff struggle to control an ioniser they are using to slow the progress of glaciers rolling over Britain.  Leader Clent is convinced they can avert a new Ice Age, but the group knows they are only a few hours away from being forced to abandon the base.  Tensions rise when Penley, a maverick scientist who has defected from the team, is mentioned. 

Thus opens "The Ice Warriors" - four episodes of this exist (found back 1988) but the other two have been animated.  Thankfully we start with an actual episode which at least gives us an idea of what the characters look like!

Photo 1: Jason, Leigh (holding the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and Shaun
around Jason's house!

And what great characters we had!  Leader Clent was marvellous - he was ALWAYS right.  Even when he wasn't!  He was so uptight and didn't care for others opinions as he limped around the base with his cane!  We also had Penley, the defector (that sounds wronger than I meant it to!), played by Peter Sallis (famous as playing Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine AND the voice of Wallace from the animated Wallace and Gromit films).  He had a fun world-weariness about him.  He'd seen all that humans were trying to do and didn't approve of any of it!

Photo 2: Jason, Leigh (fighting over the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and MJ
around Jason's house!

But what of the Ice Warriors?  Apparently they had come to Earth from Mars but their ship had crashed and frozen solid in the ice.  Though I wasn't OVERLY convinced by the Ice Warriors rubber pincer type claws (how on Earth (or Mars) did they build anything with those?!) or the way they moved their mouths (it looked like hey had something wrong with them!) I did think the look of them was quite impressive - tall and bulky.  They were all played by very tall actors - in fact their leader, Varga, was played by Bernard Bresslaw who was a very famous tall actor who was well-known from the Carry On film series.  In fact that was quite an oddity - why have a world famous actor and them completely cover him up!?

Oh and the way they talked was very hissy (or hissssssssy) - I guess they got the actors to do that as they were reptilian, but it did get a little wearing after a while.

Photo 3: Jason, Leigh (holding the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and Shaun
around Jason's house!

I thought the animation was good - Patrick Troughton must have been a joy to animate as he has such a wondefully expressive face!  The style was simpler than "The Reign Of Terror", "The Tenth Planet", and "The Moonbase" but I think it suited the story well.  Plus you could always tell who was supposed to be who!
 

Photo 4: Jason, Leigh (with the DVD Cover),
 Mark (holding the sign) and MJ (doing an "Ice Warrior Hand")
around Jason's house!

So that's that - next time we shall be watching a serial that was only re-found again back in 2013!  So until then, I shall return, yes I shall return!

MJ - 10-06-15