Synopsis:
Jamie and Victoria have been left in the laboratory whilst thermal packs melt the ice encasing the figure found by scientist Arden in the glacier. They do not notice that the ice has melted quicker than anticipated, and the creature is stirring to life...
They become aware of the Ice Warrior only after it is already on its feet. It knocks Jamie unconscious and seizes Victoria.
Clent and Arden are discussing the computer and the Doctor's suitability to assist them when he enters to tell them of his findings regarding the figure in the ice. It is alien. Clent dismisses this as unimportant, until the Doctor points out that it must have come here from another planet, and the only way it could do so is in a spaceship - a craft which might still be intact within the glacier. Arden realises that if they use the Ioniser at full strength it could detonate the ship's engines. If these are nuclear powered, the explosion could wipe out the base and much of the surrounding area.
They dare not use it until they can ascertain the nature of its engines.
Jamie then staggers in and informs them that the creature has come to life and has taken Victoria.
They go to the laboratory where they realise what has happened - the intense heat generated from the thermal packs using high current, passing through low resistance, shocked the Warrior back to life.
Clent hesitates to mount a search party as it would divert men from other duties, and he wishes to consult the computer, much to the Doctor's annoyance.
The Ice Warrior has taken Victoria to a storeroom. There it identifies itself as Varga - a native of Mars. She is forced to tell him that he has been buried in the ice for thousands of years. Varga states that his spaceship crash-landed at the foot of the ice wall whilst on a reconnaissance mission to Earth, and he and his crew were buried by an avalanche.
She tells him that the scientists will help him, but he fears they will destroy him. He would rather negotiate from a position of strength. They will either return home - or conquer this planet.
Just as the Doctor expected, the computer merely states that it cannot advise until the spaceship engines have been investigated. It recommends one person be sent. Arden insists on going as he was the person who found the Warrior. Clent refuses to allocate anyone else, but Jamie points out that he is not one of his staff. Miss Garrett insists that the advice of the computer must be followed and so Clent reluctantly agrees that Jamie can go - but Victoria's fate cannot take precedence over the global fight against the glaciers.
At an abandoned plant museum nearby, Penley is tending to Storr who had injured his arm in the recent avalanche. Storr is vehemently opposed to the base, believing that it was scientists who were the cause of the world's current problems. He becomes paranoid when Penley prepares to go out to steal more food from the base - thinking he will hand him over for deportation as a scavenger.
Varga demands to know how he was reanimated, and Victoria tells him about the thermal packs. He orders her to take him back to the laboratory so they can take more of these, in order that he can free his crew.
The Ioniser is operating on half power for now. The Doctor attempts to find out why Penley left. Clent is resistant to creativity and individuality amongst his team and was worried about his own reputation, having selected Penley for the job.
Clent leaves for the laboratory where he encounters Varga, who has now obtained a number of thermal packs. He knocks him out.
Penley witnesses the departure of Varga with Victoria, and then meets the Doctor who tries to convince him he is needed here.
Penley refuses and leaves, and the Doctor uses smelling salts to revive Clent. Miss Garrett reports that the creature has just broken through the base perimeter, heading towards the glacier.
Arden wants to wait until morning to set off, but Jamie insists on leaving now.
Varga uses a detector to locate where his crew are buried. He has a sonic weapon built into his forearm and uses this to begin melting the ice.
Penley is back at the museum, where he tells Storr about the creature he has seen.
Varga soon has his crew members freed from the ice, ready to bring them back to life...
Written by Brian Hayles
Recorded: Saturday 28th October 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 18th November 1967
Ratings: 7.1 million / AI 52
VFX: Bernard Wilkie
Designer: Jeremy Davies
Director: Derek Martinus
Additional cast: Bernard Bresslaw (Varga)
Brian Hayles had specified that Penley and Storr lived in a plant museum in his original story outline - helping to juxtapose their kinship with nature as opposed to the clinical environment of the base. It was described as having various plants dotted about, marked with labels, and with furs draped over the windows to keep the cold out. Furniture was composed of pine branches and their utensils were rough and hand-made.
The base computer was originally to have been part of Clent's desk.
In the draft script there was more dialogue between Jamie and Victoria in the laboratory before the Ice Warrior attacked, with Jamie enjoying the relaxing vibro-chair.
Varga was to be shot initially from low down, to accentuate his towering height. At this point the Warriors' only had implants and these were to have contained lights. Each of the uncovered crew members was to be found in a different position - one crouching, one standing, one lying prone etc.
The guns were not built into the Warriors' bodies, as Varga is described as drawing his sonic pistol and pointing its barrel at Victoria.
It is obvious now that the Ice Warrior seen emerging from the block of ice at the conclusion to Part One did not resemble Varga closely at all, as he has quite a different helmet design. The one used for the cliff-hanger had no chin piece or projecting "nose".
Hayles had intended his creations to be more humanoid in appearance, with electronic implants - making them cyborgs. Costume Designer Martin Baugh thought this too close to the Cybermen, and picked up on a line in the script about their armour looking reptilian in appearance. He therefore decided to make them fully reptilian in nature, armoured from head to foot.
Bernard Bresslaw was just beginning his lengthy career with the Carry On... team, but was already a household name due to his appearances in The Army Game (opposite William Hartnell) and had starred in the 1959 film The Ugly Duckling - a comedic rendering of the Jekyll & Hyde story from Hammer (in which he played opposite Jon Pertwee).
He expected to be playing a proud Viking warrior figure, and was surprised to be sent to a boat-builders yard for his costume fitting.
The main carapace of the Ice Warrior costume was made from fibreglass in two halves - front and back. These would be bolted together at the shoulders and crotch. The actor first put on the legs, which were designed like anglers' waders, held up by elasticated braces. The arms were of a similar pliable rubber worn like long opera gloves, again held in place with elasticated straps. With arms and legs in place, the two torso sections could be fitted. These were dressed with hair to help hide the joints. For inspiration Baugh had looked to the Crocodile Soldiers who feature in the procession marking her entrance into Rome by Cleopatra in the 1963 Taylor / Burton epic. These costumes would actually be repurposed to make the Ice Warrior bodies.
The hands were designed as rubber clamps. On the right forearm was attached a small perspex tube - the Warrior's personal sonic weaponry. This could be illuminated when firing - an electrical connection being made when the actor brought wires hidden in the hand clamps together. This is why the Warriors always clench their fists when they shoot.
The guns weren't originally incorporated into the costume when filming commenced at Ealing. Bernard Wilkie was asked to do this only after Derek Martinus requested changes be made to the Ice Warriors before the story went into studio. More of this later.
A number of different helmets were put together, one of which was built around a motorcycle crash helmet, so it is bigger than the others. As we've already noted, not all encompassed the chin.
Where the mouth area was exposed, rubber appliances textured like scaly skin were attached. The eyes were covered with thin sheets of plastic. Beneath, the actor had dark green make-up applied around the eyes.
One idea dropped was that the costumes would have built-in lights. Varga's chest was to have lit up to indicate that his detector was operating. It was also planned that there would be lights within the helmet. This proved quite impractical as the costumes would already be heavy and extremely hot to wear under studio lights.
Bresslaw later reported that about a pint of sweat gathered in the boots after each recording.
In interviews, Baugh was quite clear that as far as he was concerned the Ice Warriors did not wear their armour like a suit, but this was their actual physical form, like bipedal turtles.
This episode was produced entirely at Lime Grove, requiring none of the Ealing filmed material.
Joining rehearsals this week, as well as Bernard Bresslaw, were Peter Sallis and Angus Lennie - their Part One scenes all having been captured at Ealing.
Bresslaw was an old friend of Troughton's and was particularly looking forward to helping create a new Doctor Who monster. Knowing that he would not be recognised at all in costume, he concentrated on the vocal performance. It was he who decided that the Ice Warriors should speak in a hissing, sibilant whisper - something which was adopted for all subsequent appearances by the Martians.
Roy Skelton recorded his computer dialogue on the Thursday before recording.
During the afternoon of 28th October a number of photographs were taken of Bresslaw donning his costume - some of which you can see above. Photographs were also taken of some of Peter Barkworth and Wendy Gifford, plus Varga with Victoria in the storeroom.
Bresslaw rehearsed without his helmet, only donning it for recording. Once on, he was unable to wear his spectacles. This, combined with the tinted plastic eye-pieces, left him virtually blind, and Debbie Watling took it upon herself to help guide him around the set. Unable to sit down, the actor used a shooting stick and when not in front of the cameras took the opportunity to peruse the Sporting Life racing paper, an image which Frazer Hines found hilarious.
The rubber mouthpiece proved to be too inflexible and so Bresslaw had to pre-record his lines earlier in the day.
Keen sighted viewers would have spotted the helmet design discrepancy mentioned above as the opening credits played over a filmed reprise of the Part One cliff-hanger.
Unusually for the time, it was decided to record some computer room scenes back to back and therefore out of story sequence.
There were two new sets this week - the storeroom where Varga seeks refuge with Victoria, and the dilapidated plant museum which is home to Storr and Penley. This was based on a Victorian botanical gardens greenhouse, with cast iron fixtures.
The glacier scenes were done in studio this time, and at one point Bresslaw slightly damaged the polystyrene ice face when he bumped into it due to his restricted vision.
The well known Ice Warrior gun effect doesn't arrive here yet. The camera simply zoomed in and out from the ice.
The shot of the four frozen crewmembers embedded in ice was achieved using a model. The closing credits rolled over this before the fade to black.
"I wonder... A name that's been nearly worn out before anything came to claim it. Was this really a Martian...?"
So said Professor Bernard Quatermass (Andre Morrell) in Quatermass and the Pit. Doctor Who is rapidly approaching its fourth birthday in November 1967, and only once has the series even thought of going to Mars (before the TARDIS got diverted by the Gravitron in The Moonbase).
Martians - aka "Little Green Men" - had been a science fiction cliché since HG Wells wrote War of the Worlds and were a staple of the 1950's sci-fi movie boom, so it's surprising that it has taken this long for the programme to feature them. Instead of Little Green Men, however, we get Giant Green Men.
The Ice Warriors have often been regarded as the bronze medallists in the Doctor Who Top 3 of monsters. Like the Yeti in the previous story, this came about because of Target's Doctor Who Monster Book. This arranged the monsters in order of frequency of appearances, and back in 1975 Ice Warriors had featured in the series four times, behind Cybermen and Daleks. All the other creatures featured in the publication had been seen only once or twice at best.
When the series returned in 2005, most fans were expecting them to make a reappearance some time soon - but it took until Series 7 in 2013 for it to happen. Had RTD stayed on for a fifth year he might have contemplated bringing them back. Steven Moffat was resistant, thinking them the epitome of the lumbering man-in-suit monster. Too slow to be any real kind of menace.
We have Mark Gatiss to thank for the belated return in Cold War - an episode which borrows heavily from The Ice Warriors. Gatiss is known as a fan of the Pertwee era in particular, which included the Peladon stories. He was able to convince his Sherlock co-writer that they could be made an effective foe once again - though the way he achieved this is questionable. Remember that their original designer was adamant that the armour wasn't something which could be taken off, like a Medieval suit of armour.
Even when they introduced the "Ice Lord" caste in The Seeds of Death, all subsequent Ice Warriors owed much to the original performance by Bernard Bresslaw, which we first see in this episode.
Trivia:
- The ratings see a rise of almost half a million viewers since the opening instalment, whilst the appreciation figure remains the same.
- In his Target novelisation of this story, Hayles named the computer ECCO.
- A native of the region, Hayles appeared on the local Midlands Today programme on Thursday 16th November to discuss his latest Doctor Who story.
- The episode was discussed at the BBC's weekly Programme Review meeting on Wednesday 22nd November, during which the new Controller of BBC1, Paul Fox, praised how this latest adventure was progressing.
- In 1957 Bernard Bresslaw was a strong contender for the role of the monster in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein, losing out to Christopher Lee. Whilst I could see him also playing The Mummy, I can't quite see him as Count Dracula, however.
- Radio Times had another piece on the series this week, a brief item about composer Dudley Simpson:
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