182 The Ice Warriors: Three

EPISODE: The Ice Warriors: Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 182
STORY NUMBER: 039
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 25 November 1967
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 7.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors
TELESNAPS: The Ice Warriors: Three

"Don't you understand? They're ruthless killers and they'll stop at nothing. Now please, listen to me. There's no time to lose!"

Varga frees his four warriors from the ice: Zondal, Turoc, Isbur and Rintan. Arden and Jamie return to the base for the proper equipment. Storr won't believe Penley's tale of a warrior in the ice. They are visited by Miss Garret who tries, unsuccessfully, to get Penley to return to the base. He does however tell her to look at his notes on the Omega Factor to help with the ioniser. Zondal is ordered to locate the ship an excavate a cave as a trap. Penley's notes help the Doctor in his attempt to remedy the Ioniser. Entering the cave Arden and Jamie are shot down by the Ice Warriors. Clent cannot contact them and the Doctor is worried. Penley enters the cave after the Warriors have entered their ship and checks the bodies. Arden is dead but Jamie lives: he takes him back to the building he and Storr are living in. Victoria sneaks away from the Ice Warriors and, finding Arden's body, uses his communicator to contact the base. The Doctor is concerned when he hears what has happened but all Arden is interested in is details of the ship which leads Victoria to become hysterical. Meanwhile the Martians are training their cannon on Victoria and preparing to fire....

This episode seems to be all about arguing.

CLENT: Well, this is all very impressive, Doctor, but don't you think it'd be simpler to use a computer?
DOCTOR: Four. What computer?
CLENT: The base computer.
DOCTOR: Six. Yes, they're useful for digital analysis, but I very rarely use them, except when I have to. There is one thing you could do for me which would be very important.
CLENT: Yes, yes, anything. What is it?
DOCTOR: Lend me a pencil.

We've got arguing about if humans are better than computers

DOCTOR: Possible? It's perfect! Well, it's nearly perfect.
CLENT: We shall see.
DOCTOR: Oh, it'll work, all right.
CLENT: The computer will confirm that, I'm sure.
DOCTOR: Computer?
GARRETT: Well, everything's checked.
DOCTOR: I resent that!
CLENT: Just normal practice, Doctor.
DOCTOR: It should be the other way round.
CLENT: We have to be quite sure. It'll only take a matter of seconds. Copy all this down, Miss Garrett, and then we can feed it through the computer and do a simulator run. I'll just go and set it up.
DOCTOR: I shall demand an apology, you know.

Arguing about science's use over human abilities:

PENLEY: You're fit enough now. To do the cooking, at least. Thanks to science.
STORR: Science! Och, it wasn't science, it was just good plain doctoring.

Arguing about being able to choose a way of life over others needs:

GARRETT: But you can't just step aside. A man like you, living like a scavenger? It's utterly wrong. Civilisation needs you.
PENLEY: Jane, I chose this existence. I chose it because I refuse to be sucked into that computerised ant-heap you call a civilisation. I'm a man, not a machine. I will not return.
GARRETT: Not even to save the world?

And when they're not arguing they're traipsing about in the snow: Miss Garrett from the base to Storr & Penley's hideout and back, Arden & Jamie from the base to the spaceship, Penley from the hideout to the spaceship and then back again with the unconscious Jamie! There's a lot of travelling in a very short amount of screen time which makes the three locations seem right on top of each other! Throw in Victoria's attempts to escape from the Ice Warriors and, as I remember it, you've got the pattern for the rest of the story!

We're missing what look like a couple of great sequence with the Ice Warriors here as Varga digs his crew out: Zondal, Turoc, Isbur and Rintan. I think this is the first non humanoid race we've seen with individual names since the Tenth Planet Cybermen.

The Ice Warriors then get to work creating the cave outside the spaceship which serves as one of the main sets in the rest of the tale.

We get to see the Ice Warriors sonic guns used for the first time as Arden is killed and Jamie is injured. I remember these from pictures as a youth just being a tube on the arm but here the sonic gun appears in the form of a short tube protruding from a rounded box on the arm.

It would appear the memory I have of the sonic guns appearance comes from pictures of The Ice Warriors on their first return appearance in Seeds of Death rather than here and in particular their leader Slaar. Of course at the time I became a Doctor Who fan Ice Warriors was completely missing from the archives so there were limited visuals from this story!

Lets have a look at the Martian members of the cast and attempt to tell the difference between them! Bernard Bresslaw, appearing as Ice Warrior leader Varga, needs no introduction. He became famous appearing in The Army Game, an ITV military comedy, alongside the then future first Doctor William Hartnell. Hartnell went onto appear in 1958's Carry On Sergeant, the first of the Carry On films, and although that was the only one of the series Hartnell appeared in Bresslaw later joined the series appearing in 14 of the films frequently as a sidekick to Sid James.

Varga's lieutenant Zondal looks very similar to his superior. His helmet is perhaps a little thinner and pointier but his mouth looks a lot wider than Varga's. If you see another Ice Warrior talking in this story, then it's Zondal! Unfortunately Roger Jones, who plays him, is the only Ice Warrior without and Doctor Who connections either in the past or future!

Turoc is played by Sonny Caldinez, who was previously Kemel in Evil of the Daleks. Caldinez will be the main hench Ice Warrior from now on, returning as an unnamed warrior in Seeds of Death, Ssorg in Curse of Peladon and Sskel in Monster of Peladon.

What we can see of Turoc's costume in the next episode, and in particular his helmet, is markedly different from the other Ice Warriors. Like Varga's initial helmet, seen clearly in the episode one climax, it's lacking a chin guard and does look more like a helmet belonging to a Viking, like Arden initially thought Varga was!

We hit a slight problem with the last two Ice Warriors: we don't know which is which! The picture on the right has both of them in, with Zondal on the left and Varga on the right. Both seem to have much smaller mouthpieces that the other two in the picture with one having larger eyes.

Tony Harwood, playing Rintan, was a Cyberman in Tomb of the Cybermen and a Yeti in Abominable Snowmen so he's been in three stories on the trot. Like Sonny Caldinez, he's back as another Ice Warrior in Seeds of Death and plays the Ice Warriors brief cameo in The War Games episode 10.

Isbur is Michael Attwell's first Doctor Who appearance. He's probably best known as Kenny Beale in East Enders but he's got a memorable return Who appearance as Bates in Attack of the Cybermen. He appears to have been in just about everything and taking a peak at his CV I realise that I can remember his Sykes in the Classic Serial Olive Twist very well (Producer: Terrance Dicks) There's a few other Who personnel involved with that too!