OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 236
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 22 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)
"Our warriors will land here, on the moon. When the seed pods have done their work on Earth it will be time to commence the second stage of our plan!"
Fewsham attacks the Ice Warrior distracting it long enough for the increased heat to start to have an effect. The warrior attacking Jamie and Miss Kelly is also overcome as the Doctor came round. The Ice Warrior in London reaches the weather control station and destroys the control mechanism. Fewsham returns the others to Earth, saying he'll follow courtesy of a timer mechanism. Slaar reduces the Moonbase temperature and tells Fewsham more Ice Warriors are coming. The Doctor collects a sample of the foam. Miss Kelly finds away to route essential T-Mat functions via satellite. The Doctor discovers the foam absorbs oxygen. Absorb enough Oxygen and Earth's atmosphere would become similar to Mars. He finds the fungus foam can be destroyed by water. Jamie & Zoe go to the weather bureau to pass the Doctor's instructions for rain on to them. They find bodies, the wrecked controls and the Ice Warrior. The Grand Marshall reports the Martian fleet is nearing the moon. Fewsham broadcasts the lunar control room to Earth but is killed by the Warriors who sever the link. The Doctor comes up with a plan to deceive the Martians with a false homing signal. Finding out that Jamie and Zoe have gone to the Weather Control where the Warrior was sighted the Doctor races there, but finds the door locked as he is overcome by foam ..........
Another decent pacey adventuring episode. A few things caught my eye in this episode. Has the Ice Warrior entering weather control got proper mouth make up on? I've looked at the Ice Warrior mouth make up ever since while watching Monster of Peladon years one caught my eye as apparently having a green piece of cardboard across it's mouth.
Radnor's boss shows up in this episode so we've now got three older characters running around in these silly plastic outfits which looks like they have their underwear on the outside of their trousers! That reminded me of the how the actors playing the Sensorites looked and made me wonder if the costumes here were recycled from there!
We finished looking at all the human members of the cast who'd appeared so far last week so today we'll look at the Martians.
Alan Bennion makes his Who debut this story as the "Ice Lord" Slaar. He'll be back every time the show needs an Ice Lord appearing as Izlyr in The Curse of Peladon and Azaxyr in The Monster of Peladon.
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Two of the Ice Warriors, Tony Harwood & Sonny Caldinez, were in the previous eponymous Ice Warriors story.
Harwood, Rintan in the Ice Warriors, was a Cyberman in Tomb of the Cybermen and a Yeti in the Abominable Snowman. He'll be back as the cameoing Ice Warrior in the War Games and Flynn in The Ambassadors of Death (Director: Michael Fergusson).
Caldinez, Turoc in the Ice Warriors, had previously been Kemel in Evil of the Daleks will return as Ssorg in Curse of Peladon and Sskel in Monster of Peladon. Outside of Doctor Who he appears in the Roger Moore James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun as Kra, Hawaii Five-O as Code #42 in Nine Dragons, Raiders of the Lost Ark as the Mean Mongolian, Neverwhere as the Market man in Knightsbridge and The Fifth Element as Emperor Kodar Japhet.
The third Ice Warrior actor, Steve Peters, was billed as Alien in the first episode to disguise which monsters were in the story. He's easier to pick out than the others as he's the Ice Warrior seen in the location sequences in episode 4! He's already been an extra in The Romans and the leader Roboman in Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. and will return as a Pirate Guard in The Space Pirates, and as both astronaut Lefee and his alien substitute in The Ambassadors of Death, which features Ric Felgate, who played Brent in the first four episodes here, as Van Lyden, one of the other missing astronauts/aliens and is directed by this story's director Michael Ferguson. He was in two now missing third season Out of the Unknown episodes appearing as a man in 1+1=1.5 and a Plainclothes Man in The Yellow Pill, both of which are also directed by Michael Fergusson! He can be found in the Doomwatch episodes You Killed Toby Wren as a Man in Laboratory and The Inquest as a Man and appears as a Technician in the Moonbase 3 episodes Departure and Arrival & Behemoth.
Meanwhile the Grand Marshall is Graham Leaman who has already been the Controller in The Macra Terror & Price in Fury from the Deep and will return as Time Lords, possibly the same Time Lord, in Colony in Space & The Three Doctors. Early in his career he was a recurring bit part player in Hancock's Half Hour. He appears in two Doomwatch episodes You Killed Toby Wren as Professor Eric Hayland and Cause of Death as Wilfred Ridge, leading character John Ridge's dying father.
Hugh Mortonplays Sir James Gregson in just this episode. I can see an episode of Z-Cars The Great Art Robbery on his CV which was directed by Michael Ferguson as well as the film version of Quatermass and the Pit. He was later in The Professionals as Smithson in It's Only a Beautiful Picture.
Peter Whitaker briefly appears as the Weather Station Worker. He'd previously been, also briefly, Inspector Gascoigne in The Faceless Ones episode 1. He returns as a Thal Politician in Genesis of the Daleks, a Mentiad in The Pirate Planet, a Grecian Man in Four to Doomsday and an Onlooker in Remembrance of the Daleks part one. He's in Doomwatch as the Ministry Inspector in Train and De-Train and as a Man in Flood plus appears as a Scientist in the Blake's 7 episode Project Avalon.
This episode exists as a high quality 35mm film print that was in the BBC Film & Video library when Ian Levine arrived to buy episodes in 1978.
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