Not being very familiar with the previous Ice Warrior episodes, I can’t really comment on their return. But as a monster for this episode, I loved it. Visually, it looked great, and while I would’ve preferred it to spend more time in the armor, the Ice Warrior worked great both inside and out. The CGI was particularly good at the end when its true face was revealed, and it was a truly threatening presence with some great voice work by Nicholas Briggs.
The weakest part of this episode was the plot. Set in the eighties during the Cold War, the submarine crew has a nuclear bomb that they can deploy any time they want. When the Doctor using his screwdriver (don’t ask me how) threatens to blow up the submarine first, rather than let Skaldak deploy the bomb, it feels a bit forced. And then once it’s revealed that the rest of the Ice Warriors have indeed survived and takes him away, I was left thinking, “that was it?”
While I liked how the Ice Warrior, Skaldak, was used, I do wish we had seen an army of them instead of one. Skaldak himself proved to be a great monster, killing off some of the crew. But had we seen an army we could’ve had a proper threat. I desperately wanted the Doctor to have a proper hero moment, thinking up some clever way to stop them, but when it came, it wasn’t much. Again, within the story, this all worked great, it’s just not something I loved watching. The tension in each scene was perfectly played up, yet a part of me just wanted it to get to the end.
On a side note, I enjoyed seeing Clara realize that she, and the rest of the crew, were speaking Russian, and having the Doctor explain the translation matrix of the TARDIS to her. By now, Clara’s become as much a companion as the rest of them, but it’s still good to have him introduce different little things to her. It was a nice little detail to add in this episode. I also liked the hug she gave him towards the end, a nice touch.
Like I mentioned before, it was the very brief moments of humor in this episode that I loved the most. In particular, I loved the exchanges between the Professor and Clara, the fact that the Doctor has a barbie doll hidden in his packet, and especially the little exchange beween the Doctor and the professor when he returns the sonic screwdriver to him:
“Oh Professor, I can kiss you.”
“If you insist.”
I also liked the Doctor’s little laugh at the end when imitating the Captain, it saved that scene from being completely cheesy. Unfortunately, there was a disappointing lack of music in this episode, but it was necessary to keep the suspense up. There was also an ‘I am the Doctor’ variation at the end. You’d think it’s overused by now, yet each time it comes back a little different, and that keeps it refreshing.
Overall, this was a good episode, but not great. I don’t want to sound like I am hating on this episode because I did like it, I just didn’t love it, especially compared to the rest of the series. But again, Doctor Who is going 3 for 3 so far. This is by far Mark Gatiss’ best Doctor Who script. But I think it’s safe to say that I prefer his work on Sherlock. Who knows, maybe his second story, The Crimson Horror, later this series will be better. I certainly have high hopes for that one. Speaking of high hopes, next week’s Hide looks pretty good, and it seems we’ll get a few more hints at the overall story arc.
What did you think of this week’s Doctor Who? Let us know in the comments.