What's Wrong With... The Ice Warriors

 

Very occasionally, changes were made to costumes or effects once a story was already in production. A remount of the first episode of The Daleks allowed Ray Cusick to have a much better city model built. Later, the Menoptra costumes were revised between the Ealing filming and the studio recording. This lead to a noticeable mismatch. Something similar happened with The Ice Warriors.

Director Derek Martinus listened to actor feedback and decided to amend the helmet design for the Martian costumes so that their wearers could move their heads around more.

The difference in design is most noticeable with the cliffhanger at the end of Part One. The Warrior who has been thawed out of the block of ice is supposed to be the leader Varga, but once he's up and about we can clearly see that he has a different helmet to the figure in the ice. It isn't the same actor either, as Bernard Bresslaw only joined the serial with the second episode.

Jamie thinks that the Doctor has landed them somewhere on the same mountain in Tibet (referencing the previous story). It's the sight of lots of snow which prompts this remark yet - as we pointed out last time - there was no snow on location or in studio for The Abominable Snowmen.

The TARDIS materialises on its side, for no obvious reason. What's even stranger is that it has magically righted itself by the story's conclusion, and it's no longer immediately outside the dome.

The biggest problem with this story is the whole background to the new Ice Age. There's the whole problem of what defines an Ice Age, writer Brian Hayles seeming to think of them as big one-off events, rather than much longer geological periods with "surges" occurring every so often.

The events described by Clent would not lead to an Ice Age - rather they would lead to the opposite effect of global warming.

Hayles seems to think that trees produce carbon dioxide, rather than absorb it.

The script seems to have a problem with timescales. Sometimes it sounds like the Ice Age has just begun, and at other times it's been going on for years.

It is a remarkable coincidence that Varga, his men, and their spaceship, should all still be grouped within a few metres of each other after several thousand years - and still be intact. Whenever items such as crashed aircraft have emerged from glaciers, they have often been shredded by the ice.

The Ioniser seems to only cover a small area close to the base, so how can it possibly halt the glacier advance across the entire country? A base on mainland Europe would surely be much more effective as well, from a global perspective.

The scavenger Storr hates the scientists and won't have anything to do with them, yet he's happy to approach giant green reptile people from outer space for a chat, knowing they killed Arden and wounded Jamie. Storr talks a lot about "Loyalists". Loyal to what, or to whom? 

Why would the base have environmental controls that could potentially kill the occupants?

Victoria disappears half way through the final episode. Not a mistake or anything, just that no-one - including Debbie Watling - could remember why she was given the evening off (her scenes for Part Six being recorded during camera rehearsals in the afternoon).

Despite the crisis everyone is struggling through, Miss Garrett finds time to change her costume - twice. She's back in her Part One costume for Part Six.