Doctor Who (TV Series) The Ice Warriors: Episode Six (1967) User Reviews

Decent story, well the bits of it that still exist anyway.

[poolandrews · 6/10 · 9 November 2007]

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors: Six (unusually there's no 'Episode' prefix on screen) starts as Varga (Bernard Bresslaw) & his Ice Warriors manage to gain entry to the Brittanicus Ice Base & hold everyone hostage while they claim to be after Mercury Isotopes to power their spaceships dead engines, Clent (Peter Barkworth) says they have none but Varga doesn't believe him. Meanwhile back on board the Ice Warriors spaceship the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) has been able to turn their own sonic cannon against them, but is it enough to stop the Ice Warriors & save the Ice Base?

Episode 16 from season 5 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during December 1967, directed by Derek Martinus this is one of only four surviving episode from The Ice Warriors after the BBC scandalously junked & wiped lots of Doctor Who episodes during the 70's. The script by Brian Hayles is a sci-fi alien invasion tale with a moral message, the anti-technology message has really come to the fore during this & the previous episode & in a way has overshadowed the Ice Warriors themselves which in my opinion wasn't a great move. To be brutally honest the Ice Warriors are far more interesting & entertaining than a silly morality message about the dangers of relying on & placing too much trust in computers, well that's what I think anyway. I also have to mention how little Jamie is involved in this story, since at least episode four he hasn't been involved in the action at all & has been firmly in the background paralysed from the Ice Warriors weapons which neatly brings me to the point that at the end when it's time to leave he suddenly & miraculously recovers & regains full use of his legs, may I ask how exactly? It's still a decent way to pass 25 minutes & is pretty fun & entertaining though.

I have to say I didn't think The Ice Warriors as as story was particularly scary, there's no traditional jump out of your seat moments or any horrific ones either. This is far more a straight sci-fi tale rather than a horror one. The Ice Warriors themselves look OK but they aren't overly menacing & those silly claw like hands are just so impractical, how on Earth do they press buttons & pick things up with them? Then again maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. The employees at the Brittanicus Ice Base wear odd uniforms, the girls have very short skirts & boots with strange psychedelic patterns all over them. Hardly practical dress for scientists working during an ice age! For some reason the closing credits run over a montage of icy & snowy backgrounds, the only episode in this story to do so.

The Ice Warriors: Six is a good end to a good story, the loss of episodes two & three surprisingly doesn't affect the flow of the story that much & it's relatively easy to pick up from episode four with only a few unanswered questions. Overall I'll give The Ice Warriors a solid 6 stars out of 10 across it's four surviving episodes although the fact that two episodes are missing presumed dead obviously doesn't help & may put some off but I'm sure fans of the show will love it. The Ice Warriors themselves would return in the six part story The Seeds of Death (1969) the following season.

It's a very good final episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 24 February 2020]

Clent refuses to make a decision on how to proceed, having faith only in his computer, but when it fails Penley is the only one that can be relied upon.

It's been a very good debut story for The Ice Warriors, they often blur the lines between friend and foe, but are good value here. Their mission is simply to survive, they're not maniacal or ranting, just carry out their business with certainty.

The computer has become a menace, a very vague similar type computer would be used later on in Inferno, The Ice Warriors screams of originality.

Terrific production values once again, I thought the closing scenes looked very good.

This shows the pitfalls of having a manager in place of someone with an in depth knowledge, Clent can't think for himself, Penley backed by The Doctor has to be brave.

A Must Have for Whovians!

[steelergirl83 · 8/10 · 19 September 2013]

~ This is a review of the entire "Ice Warriors" story on DVD ~

If you're a fan of the Doctor Who series, chances are you've come across the Ice Warriors. Most recently, we met Ice Warrior Skaldak in the series 7 episode, "Cold War." As intimidating as a trapped Ice Warrior in an immobilized submarine may be, the Ice Warriors first appeared in the earliest years of the classic Doctor Who series, a whole bunch of them stuck on earth during a new Ice Age is ten times more frightening. Imagine watching a handful of these giant creatures lurching after you with no way to stop them -- until the Doctor that is. In this newly remastered 6 episode set from BBC DVD that's exactly what you get, a group of Warriors hellbent on reshaping the earth's climate to make it their perfect home no matter who gets in their way.

"The Ice Warriors" first aired in 1967 but surprisingly it doesn't feel like a 1960s production. Sure, the costumes and the black and white picture let you know that you're watching something filmed in the 60s but the special effects weren't all that bad. While watching the extras included with this terrific set -- interviews with producers and actors involved in the making of the Ice Warrior episodes etc. it was mentioned that in spite of the low budget, this story turned out surprisingly well and I have to agree! The avalanches, the snow, and even the ice were a lot more realistic than the set in most of the newer Doctor Who episodes. The only thing that bothered me a little were episodes 2 and 3. The video for those episodes had been lost with only the original audio remaining, exclusively for this DVD the episodes were animated. The animation was flat and 2 dimensional so the characters looked and moved like paper dolls on the screen. I would have loved for it to have been more 3 dimensional. That said, I am so glad that the BBC included the animations in this set. It would be a shame to not be able to watch this gem of a story in its entirety.

As for the actors themselves...brilliant! Let's face it, there were bits where they flubbed their lines and the monsters bumbled things up, but I thought it led to a sort of authenticity. I don't know about you, but I think I'd become more than a little incoherent when faced with a huuuuge, scary Martian who wanted to kill me and destroy the planet! Patrick Troughton (the Doctor), Frazer Hines (Jamie), and Deborah Watling (Victoria) all had great chemistry together. Jamie and Victoria's little conversations concerning Miss Garrett's costume was hilarious. In spite of the terrible danger that the Doctor and his companions find themselves in, there's always a moment or two that elicits a giggle.

"The Ice Warriors" is a terrific set for anyone who's a longtime Whovian or someone who's just starting out. If you want to start off your Doctor Who viewing with the classic episodes, this story set is a good one! Adventure, danger, and thrills abound in this great collection from the BBC.

~ My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars ~

*I received a complimentary copy from the publisher/publicist for review purposes. I received no compensation. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.*

Icy but super hot - this is a fantastic production and a real classic

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 10/10 · 1 September 2014]

Review of all 6 episodes:

This is a tremendous production in all respects. The costumes really stand out straight away as superb and believable. They are stylishly and expertly made especially for the humans and also for the Ice Warriors. The acting and characterisation are of a high standard throughout with guest parts well written and acted providing realistic and interesting characters. The Ice Warriors are brilliant, the TARDIS crew main cast are on great form and the script is fantastic. The story itself is great fun with plenty of action but also intelligent and thoughtful science fiction. There are ideas of humans over-reliance on machines, people torn between just running away from a system they dislike or fighting to change it, relationships with aliens (those different to us) and the threat of war and moral questions which result. More than that though it is just a fine example of a very well produced, exciting story with great villains and three dimensional characters.

I really could not disagree more (and frankly do not understand) a review I read on here giving this a very cool (pardon the pun) reception. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but the only direct criticism I could spot in that review was to say this is somewhat copied from the story of The Thing From Another World, other than that they just say it did not grab them. Well if this does not grab you I suggest Doctor Who will never rate well for you. This is top notch Doctor Who, and that is a view supported by its high rating on IMDb and by reviews by Doctor Who specialist reviewers such as the BBC Episode Guide. To say it is like The Thing From Another World is not entirely wrong in that the story contains an alien preserved in ice which is then thawed out but would that reviewer criticise The Brain of Morbius (widely considered one of the best ever stories) because it vaguely copies the premise of Frankenstein?! I am not a fan at all of copying other people's ideas or derivative stories. However, this is not derivative it purely shares an aspect of that story just as the ideas of nearly every science fiction story all share some aspect or other with at least one other story. The Borg in Star Trek for instance are quite close in concept to the Cybermen (and all cyborgs in sci- fi) but it does not make them rubbish because they are done differently enough and are good in their own right.

This story over its 6 episodes has way more going for it and way more ideas than just the alien in the ice premise. It is a perfect example of an alien menace adventure. The only significant flaw for me is a tiny bit of the scientific explanation regarding the ice age in Episode 1.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 9/10, Episodes 2-6 - 10/10

S5: The Ice Warriors: Solid but a little slow

[bob the moo · 21 December 2013]

Although a couple of episodes form this serial are missing it is still a pretty enjoyable one. It follows a theme that the previous serial took – humans on one side, aliens on the other – but it does have more interesting characters than the Cybermen in the Ice Warriors. Unfortunately the missing episodes serve as the introduction to them and when I picked it up a few episodes later it was not as clear as I would have liked it to be, although they still have engaging motives for their actions. Their design is nice apart from being a bit chunky and unwieldy as costumes (witness several of them boshing their heads on the low door frame) an their low hissing voices are sinister even if they are hard to hear all the time.

The plot uses them pretty well although the conclusion centering around the computer is a bit all over the place and I'm not entirely sure it worked. It is a little slow at times and I don't think it had the urgency and sense of danger that the Tomb of the Cybermen did better. The human cast are good and the standard of performances is generally better in this season than in previous ones (in terms of the supporting cast). Troughton gives another very good turn and even Hines is growing on me now that I have had a few chances to actually see him in a story or two; Watling is yet to really make an impression on me though – not all her fault, she really does feel like another in a long line of "passing through" companions who come and go is lost episodes.

All told though, an enjoyable enough serial with good characters in the aliens and humans, although the pace is a little slow and perhaps could have done with a bit more urgency and pace.