THE DOCTOR WHO RATINGS GUIDE: BY FANS, FOR FANS
The Ice Warriors


Reviews

My favourite alien race by David Barnes 12/7/02

The Ice Warriors first appeared in a sixties story of the same name, battling the second Doctor. Now this wasn't my first story with the Martians (mine was Curse of Peladon) but this story encapsulates many of the Martian traits.

Now, Doctor Who was bound to feature Martians, but rather than use little green men, they used very large green men! The Ice Warriors (so called because of a scientist giving a name to the creature he has found in the ice; the term Ice Warrior is not used often by the Martians themselves) are a very noble race that usually get much better dialogue than Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarons etc. Quite often, nobility can be quite boring but the Ice Warriors never got boring (although there are several gaps in my knowledge of Ice Warrior stories; I have never read The Dying Days or Godengine and have never listened to Red Dawn).

The Ice Warriors features 5 Martians: the leader Varga (who gets most of the dialogue), Zondal the second in command who is notably more bloodthirsty than his leader and Turoc, Isbur and Rintan who just stand around making up the numbers and chase after people. The Ice Warriors are one of the first alien races to actually give names to each other (usually alien races have a name for their leader but that's it), although this approach was dropped for their later stories.

Now, The Ice Warriors is not a very good story really (out of the four TV appearances it is the worst) as it is a bit dull but the whole story does introduce the Martians wonderfully (aside from some dodgy lines such as "Your Doctor friend porked.")

Their next story was the far greater Seeds of Death. This introduces a proper caste system (although Varga was a leader he looked roughly the same as his warriors). An Ice Lord (never explicitly referred as such on screen) makes a first appearance in the form of Slaar. Slaar isn't very noble, he is very sadistic and arrogant. He doesn't consider the humans very strong at all, and even worse, underestimates the Doctor (which of course leads to his downfall). A Grand Marshall (sic) also makes an appearance on a screen, who is really in charge of the scheme.

Unfortunatly, with leaders being introduced, the other Warriors are neglected (as is always the case; notice what happened when Davros and the Cyberleader appeared) and are left to just standing around in the background and shooting people. But there is a marvellous sequence of scenes showing an Ice Warrior walking to the Weather Control Bureau (that shot of him standing in the trees is very creepy).

There is an odd bit in this story, that contradicts every other Martian story. An Ice Warrior is killed with a heat weapon and it seems that he melts! The Ice Warriors states that the Warriors are wearing armour and other stories make it blindingly obvious that the Warriors are not made of ice!

The Curse of Peladon was their next foray, this time with Pertwee's Doctor. This time, the production team made the clever move of making the Warriors goodies; throughout the story the Doctor is reluctant to trust them until it is obvious that they mean him no harm. This is my favourite Martian story. It is a really good story on its own but the warriors (only two this time, Lord Izlyr and a troop called Ssorg) are given marvellous dialogue and their honour and nobility shine. Izlyr is always trying to help the Doctor ever since the Doctor saved him from being crushed by a statue at the beginning of Part 2.

The Monster of Peladon, a sequel to Curse, is almost universally hated by most fans but I like it quite a lot! The Warriors first appear in a superb cliffhanger at the end of part 3. Again we have the Lord + Subordinate pairing (Azaxyr and Skell) but there is an army as well. Unfortuantly, with the exception of the main duo, the other Warriors don't seem to be in the best of nick. Many of the costumes are mismatched and one Warrior isn't even wearing the makeup around his chin. But luckily the lines given to Azaxyr more than make up for the other failings of the Warriors.

These were the only appearances on TV for the Warriors. A story was proposed, Mission to Magnus, for the 6th Doctor but was never realised on television. However it was released in book form. The Warriors are quite good but are somewhat underused, probably due to various other baddies in the story, such as the Mentor Sil.

Legacy was a New Adventure and is a cracking novel! This was the first New Adevnture I actually enjoyed. The Warriors are marvellous and are greatly expanded. The fact that this is another Peladon story (the third in a trilogy) makes it all the better. I really liked this book and I really want to get my hands on GodEngine but alas it is very hard to come by.

As I have said, I cannot comment on The Dying Days or Red Dawn as I do not possess them.

There was an Ice Warrior as a companion in a comic strip with the 8th Doctor at some point but I know little of him, other than his name is Ssard. He does make an appearance at the beginning of Placebo Effect but dosn't really contribute to the story, being as it is a story that already uses two past adversaries, the Foamasi and the Wirrn. Overall though, this is a very good book and is one of my favourite EDA's.

So, the Ice Warriors have made many appearances, on TV, on audio, in books and in comic strips. They are one of the big 5 adversaries of Doctor Who (the others being the Master, Daleks, Sontarons and Cybermen) even though they are not always the bad guys! The fact that you can't always tell whether they are going to be on the Doctor's side or not helps to make them a really 3 dimensional alien race. They are my favourite aliens of Doctor Who.

But after all this is said and done, what do I know? After all, I like the Gundan robots of Warriors Gate...