PLOT:  The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria land outside Brittanicus Base circa 3000 AD Earth on the verge of a new Ice Age only to encounter the Ice Warriors who are thawed out looking to destroy the humans who want to breakdown the approaching glacier.

 

ANALYSIS:

THE ICE WARRIORS is the first story to introduce the Ice Warriors which has a great music score only to be undermined by a story that goes on for a little too long.  THE SEEDS OF DEATH is the sequel which improves on it where you really like the bad guys more than the selfish good guys that the doctor is supposed to be helping.   Clent is a bureaucrat more interested in listening to what the computer says instead of having an independent thought of his own or listening to other people.  No wonder Penley (a former scientist on the project) went AWOL from the project.  Varga is definitely a well spoken and menacing character that you really want to win since the Doctor is pretty inactive in this one and not the man of action while he is mostly fixing things while Jamie is out to face danger and Victoria is captured by the Ice Warriors who just want to fix their ship and conquer mankind.

 

The production design is great for the low budget they have to work with and the Ice Warriors are menacing.  The costumes for the humans in the complex feel totally sixties.   The computer is very retro and has a small guy inside it to turn it (which is quite funny).  The title sequences are some of the best I have seen on DOCTOR WHO.   What quite doesn’t work is the animation for the missing episodes (episodes 2 and 3) that is handled by a different company than the people who done the animation for the missing episodes for THE REIGN OR TERROR and the fourth episode of the upcoming THE TENTH PLANET DVD release.  I think the motion of the characters don’t quite work where I felt previous animated efforts for missing episodes flow better in that aspect.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Audio commentary for episodes 1, 4, 5, and 6 with actors Frazer Hines (Jamie), Deborah Watling (Victoria), Sonny Caldinez (Turoc), designer Jeremy Davies, and grams operator Pat Heigham

Audio commentary for animated episodes 2 with actors Bernard Bresslaw (Varga), Peter Barkworth (Clent), Wendy Gifford (Mixx Garrett), make-up supervisor Sylvia James, writer Brian Hayles, director Derek Martinus, and costume designer Martin Baugh

Audio commentary for animated episode 3 with Patrick Troughton’s son Michael

 

Production Notes subtitle option provides many interesting tidbits on the production of the series for episodes one, four, five, and six

 

COLD FUSION- making-of documentary which has interviews with surviving members of the cast and crew (in addition to the son of Bernard Bresslaw) as they look back and remember the making of the story

 

BENEATH THE ICE- a behind-the-scenes look into what went into making the animation for episodes 2 and 3.

VHS LINKS FROM THE 1998 BBC VIDEO RELEASE which are interesting to look at as episodes 2 and 3 are compressed down into a 15 minute bridging link with narration, audio from the episodes, and telesnaps.

BLUE PETER DESIGN-A-MONSTER focuses on the Blue Peter contest to Design a Doctor Who monster and showing off the winners as built by the BBC creature makers

Animated version of the trailer for the serial which features audio from the original trailer now lost with only the audio existing

 

DOCTOR WHO STORIES- FRAZER HINES Part Two talk about his time on Doctor Who including returning for two appearances as Jamie during the 1980s (THE FIVE DOCTORS, THE TWO DOCTORS) and recording a music single that bombed

Photo Gallery slideshow

Coming Soon trailer for SCREAM OF THE SHAKLA

PDF materials for Radio Times Listings

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:   Not as great as THE SEED OF DEATH, THE ICE WARRIORS works better in the music and production design department since the characters except the Ice Warriors come off too selfish in one of Brain Hayles weaker efforts as a writer for the show.   The extras are always top notch as always

 

This DVD review is (c)9-29-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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