The Ice Warriors Deserved a Better Doctor Who Comeback Than 'Cold War'`
Matt Smith’s submarine thriller had the cast, setting and monster for a classic—then squandered them on a thin script and easy ending.
Plot summary
A stranded ice warrior threatens to use a nuclear submarine to turn the Cold War hot.
Notable for:
First televised Ice Warrior story since The Monster of Peladon (1974), a 39-year gap
First time an Ice Warrior is shown outside of their armour on television
First Ice Warrior story not written by Brian Hayles, written here by Mark Gatiss
First physical on-screen appearance of David Warner in Doctor Who; he had previously only provided voice roles in Whoniverse productions
Inspired by The Hunt for Red October and Das Boot
The new Ice Warrior costume used flexible urethane rubber rather than fibreglass, improving comfort and on-screen credibility
Set aboard the Soviet submarine Firebird, a Delta II class vessel, in 1983 at the height of the Cold War
Establishes the Martian code: harming one Ice Warrior is considered a declaration of war on the entire race
Features future Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham and future Normal People star Josh O’Connor in guest roles
Pete commentary:
There’s surprisingly little going on in Cold War, considering the premise: the first appearance of the Ice Warriors in NuWho, a thriller set during the Cold War on a submarine, and finally showing us what Ice Warriors really look like, sort of. In the end, though, it feels like a “pop” of a story, one whose impact feels like a drop in the ocean of both Doctor Who and the Cold War.
Let’s start with the Ice Warriors. Ever since the Troughton era, Doctor Who seems like it keeps apologizing for how they were portrayed.
Cold War feels like a Doctor Who story set on a submarine rather than the Doctor and Clara wandering into a submarine thriller. I would have much rather seen the latter.
Overall Take
Ultimately a weak episode. It never feels grand or epic even though it should, since this is the first appearance of the Ice Warriors in the new series.
The Ice Warrior Reveal
When they finally show the Ice Warrior out of its armor, they don’t commit. We get a head and some clawed hands, never the full body, even though it’s clearly meant to be humanoid.
On the commentary track, writer Mark Gatiss is vague about what’s actually under the armor. He hints at something like hands coming out of a chest without ever confirming it. There was a real chance to show more of the design here and the episode mostly passes on it.
The face itself feels off. The eyes read like the helmet’s eye lenses reused, so it almost looks like the helmet rendered in CGI, and the mouth movement looks wrong compared to the classic Ice Warriors.
Teasing this reveal for so long and then delivering something underwhelming was a mistake.
Submarine Doctor Who
Structurally this is a Doctor Who episode grafted onto a submarine setting. It would have been bolder to do an actual submarine thriller and let the Doctor and Clara wander into it.
The Ice Warriors, Redeemed Again
Every time the show brings the Ice Warriors back, it plays like an apology for the Troughton years, when they were one note invaders to be fought off.
In The Seeds of Death, a story generally considered a classic, Troughton’s Doctor just wipes them out without giving them a chance. That feels like the turning point.
After that they keep getting rehabilitated, starting with The Curse of Peladon, part of the same arc where the Doctor increasingly gives the villain a chance, right up through how the show treats them today.
It’s the same problem the Klingons have in Star Trek. The more you use a warrior race, the more you have to prove they’re not one dimensional, built around honor, with some factions more militarized than others.
Cold War wants it both ways: give the Ice Warriors texture as a species while still playing Skaldak as pure aggression.
Skaldak
Skaldak is hostile within seconds of waking up, which doesn’t track tactically. He’s alone on a human submarine, badly outnumbered, and going full aggression immediately is close to suicidal.
He pulls the wrist mounted sonic weapon we’ve seen referenced in the classic series, but the episode never actually lets him fire it. No payoff, no effect, just a mention.
His stated plan, wiping out the entire planet because his honor was slighted, is a genocidal overreaction the story never makes remotely reasonable.
The Ending
The ending leans on a deus ex machina: an Ice Warrior ship shows up at the last second, rescues Skaldak, and saves the sub too.
That undercuts the stakes, especially since later stories establish Ice Warrior invasion fleets clearly more powerful than anything Earth has. If that’s the case, it’s not clear why they wouldn’t just take over outright.
None of this needs to be a dealbreaker, Doctor Who has plenty of stories that aren’t great, but a lot of the choices here feel misguided.
Clara Talks Him Down
Sending Clara in alone to talk to Skaldak doesn’t really hold up. The rationale is something about Skaldak not respecting the men as equals, or seeing them as rivals, but it’s fuzzy on screen and worth double checking against the transcript. As written, it just doesn’t land.
David Warner
It’s neat that David Warner was genuinely keen to do Doctor Who. Fun in the role, but he doesn’t get much to do, and a bigger part would have suited him.
Glad he wasn’t cast as the villain for once, since that’s his usual lane.
His one big moment, shooting Skaldak point blank once he’s out of his armor and no longer bulletproof, somehow does nothing. That doesn’t make sense.
The Missile Launch
It’s too easy for Skaldak to get the missiles launched. Warriors of the Deep at least built a real plan around it, with a specific device designed for that job.
Here Skaldak is just some guy who’s been frozen in ice, and he casually overrides a nuclear submarine’s entire safety and authorization chain from inside his suit. You want a formidable villain, not one who clears the biggest obstacle in the story that easily, especially if he’s already got that level of technological superiority. Why would this even matter to him?
Titles and Continuity Nitpicks
Not a fan of the Series 7 title sequence.
The HADS reference, the TARDIS relocating itself, is a nice Troughton homage.
It creates a continuity problem though. The TARDIS is established as what translates languages for everyone, so if HADS sends it all the way to the South Pole, how is everyone still speaking Russian? Minor nitpick, but it’s odd to ignore the show’s own lore like that.
Also not clear why a nuclear submarine is drilling for oil in the first place.
Skaldak vs. “Dalek”
The structure here is almost the inverse of “Dalek” from series one. That story works partly because the Dalek is just an ordinary soldier, nothing special.
Skaldak turns out to be the greatest general in Ice Warrior history, which raises the question of why he isn’t an Ice Lord with the gear to match.
A more interesting version has an Ice Warrior stranded on Earth that nobody, maybe not even his own people, cares about, and maybe they come around for him by the end. Instead the story leans on him being the most legendary Ice Warrior around, which makes everything around it weaker.
Small Things That Bugged Me
The chains on Skaldak look weak and loose, like he could break out any time he wanted.
The sub looks hot, and the story never uses the classic detail that Ice Warriors thrive in cold and are weakened by heat. Skaldak should be at a disadvantage here and it’s never referenced.
The Ice Warrior ship design is uninspired, basically a flying saucer with strange things stuck on the side.
Performances
Clara and the Doctor are fine, but the story never finds enough gravitas for what’s supposed to be happening.
Smith is Smith, always a little funny, but he never quite finds the gear to make the drama believable. Still love Matt Smith, the script is just weird here.
Broadly, Mark Gatiss understands the vibe of Doctor Who without really knowing how to write good television. That’s the most straightforward way I can put it.
Smith and Coleman have real chemistry though. In the hug at the end you can’t help thinking these two should just get a room. Probably for the best they were only paired for half a season, they’re almost too good looking not to get together on screen, whether that counts as praise or criticism I’m not sure. Obviously the show eventually went there anyway.
What did Pete’s family think?
She likes Smith, but she thought this one was just “there.”
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Gotta do post WWII after Let’s Kill Hitler. Historical geopolitics is great fun for the Randomizer
What if the evil plot had succeeded? World destroyed, or submarine destroyed? The Doctor is a coward, any day, but what does that mean in this context?
Where’s the Clara splinter? Manning the research station in Antarctica, keeping baddies away from the HADS-displaced TARDIS.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixd Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Professor Hayter. You tried to make the Ice Warriors new and interesting, but it did not work at all.
Chris commentary:
Did Ultravox split up? They had not done so permanently when this aired, but they did indicate they were done in 2017. Sorry, professor.
The professor’s music choices are … well, not wrong, just off. When tapes circulated in the USSR in the 1980s, they were usually recordings from the 1960s (hence the Spitting Image sketch – “it’s John Lennon … I just heard … he’s married!”) Unlikely that the professor would have an up to date tape, or that he would flaunt his bootleg so carelessly on a Soviet sub.
Why switch to Duran Duran, and why choose Hungry Like the Wolf to make Clara sing? First of all, it is NOT an easy track at karaoke by any means. People tend not to know the words, they kind of mumble the tune. Secondly, more importantly IT’S A SONG ABOUT A PREDATOR. About being chased! How is that going to help her calm down? “Fear Her” made a better musical choice than this with the kookaburra song!
The most aggravating thing is that both bands he mentions HAVE TRACKS THAT DIRECTLY MENTION NUCLEAR WAR. Duran Duran has “Is There Something I Should Know,” and it was a much bigger hit (their first UK number 1 in 1983), an easier song to sing, and contains the most Doctor Who appropriate couplet: “and fiery demons all dance when you walk through that door/Don’t say you’re easy on me ‘cause you’re about as easy as a nuclear war.” The professor could have started with that one, abandoned it when he got to that line, and also he could have used the title again when asking about the future.
As for Ultravox – well, “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” is right there! Sure, you’d have to move the date to 1984, but Cold War tensions were even higher then and the music was even more nuclear: led by the UK’s biggest hit of that year, “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Vienna isn’t really the best choice because it works against a story with a thin script. “This means nothing to me” – Midge Ure came up with that lyric on the fly as a response to the classical music they were trying out in the studio.
They really needed to establish why the professor can get away with such behavior.
Clara needed more dialogue! She’s barely there at the beginning.
The ending is … Ice Warriors Ex Machina. Ugh. Very “Fear Her.”
The cheery “reset the HADS” end bit only works for nerds. The Ice Warriors returning works because you can make them scary and you don’t need to know about the classic show. Who cares about the HADS? And to end on a cheesy US sitcom-style “oh, silly Doctor” note – it’s just weird.
Especially as the trip to the South Pole would take 18 days minimum. That’s a long time to be stuck on that vessel.
Love you Mark Gattis, but the cozy Sherlockian relationship with Moffat may have let you sail through with flawed scripts. Feels like they’ve been going downhill since the brilliant Unquiet Dead, and he’s on “historical with new companion” autopilot by this point.
Cold War history corner? We’re probably talking November 1983 after the Able Archer exercises that put the Soviets on full nuclear alert – the “saber rattling” Zhukov mentions.
Zhukov having the same name as the Soviet World War II hero should definitely get a mention.
This has to be the high point of the Doctor Who / Game of Thrones intersection – and the scene where they’re all talking with the professor may be one of the best acting groups ever assembled on the show. Pity they didn’t get a better script.
But hey, it really looks amazing! Even if the sound is a bit … submerged.
“Milaya moya” is Russian for “my dear” but it’s exclusively applied to women. Why would Piotr use it for the creature in the ice?
“Prepare to launch nuclear weapons” is way too on the nose as a first line.
Two Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Why did the Randomizer take us here? It’s a fan of too easy plot resolutions (Jo and Azal, Skaldark and the other warriors)
Where’s the Clara splinter? Skaldark’s daughter!