N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

I have to confess that I wasn’t looking forward to The Ice Warriors: interminable hissing and dithering was how I remembered it.

But it has Peter Sallis in it. Yes, that Peter Sallis. And Angus Lennie as The Poet McTeagle Storr. So it can’t be all bad, can it? Can it!

Well … there is a lot of hissing and a fair amount of dithering, but at least it’s well-played dithering, especially by Peter Barkworth as Clent.

“The trouble with Clent is he’s not a proper scientist: he’s an organiser.”

Arden, The Ice Warriors: Two

Indeed, for me the most interesting thing about the story is how we’ve been dropped into the middle of this interpersonal battle between Clent and Penley.

Unlike the leaders of The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen, Clent’s being out-of-his-depth seems a genuinely important part of the story. Maybe it’s the performance, maybe it’s the characterisation, maybe it’s the slowly revealed backstory of him and Penley.

Clent’s inflexibility – not a great trait for a manager to possess, it must be said – seems to increase his inability to make a decision that hasn’t been checked, cross-checked and triple-checked with the computer. Unlike Hobson and Parry before him – people who’ve risen to leadership roles for which they do not appear suitable – Clent is actually a trained manager – ‘an organiser’. His intractability is what makes him interesting, especially when comparing his obvious difference in outlook to erstwhile scientific adviser Penley.

I’m not sure why I’ve gotten so hung up on this lack of leadership quality of late. Perhaps it’s down to the sudden prevalence of it, or that it’s a characteristic that is more conspicuous now we have a slightly less authoritarian Doctor. The First Doctor (and indeed companions Ian and later Steven) had no issues stepping forward as leaders, but the Second Doctor prefers to chip away and manipulate the situation from the sidelines if he can. He’s still leading the action, but his not seeming to be the leader serves to highlight the ineptitude of those actually charged with leadership.

Whether it was deliberate or not, in The Ice Warriors, the Doctor’s being (if not a go-between) in-between Penley and Clent really bring this to the fore and eventually leads to Penley returning to the fold to work with Clent and his team. Indeed, ultimately it is Penley who is the decisive one; Clent’s victory at the end is to be the only one who can write a report. It’s not exactly Pyrrhic, but it does feel a little hollow.

“Proper Ice Warrior, isn’t he, sir?”

Walters, The Ice Warriors: One

Finally, back in Galaxy 4, I mentioned how sometimes names ‘stuck’. In that case it was Vicki and the Chumblies, but here’s a classic example. Otherwise unsung base member Walters’ remark to Arden somehow becomes the nom de guerre (or is it a sobriquet?) used by the Martians themselves, albeit not in this story.

It’s an unusual phenomenon. After all, the Inuit of Northern Canada don’t generally refer to themselves as eskimos; native Americans certainly do not refer to themselves as Red Indians (nor indeed as Native Americans) . Other than Lutherans, it was a struggle to find a single example of where an initially pejorative name had been adopted by its target in this way (and I have my wife to thank for my knowing that one). It’ll be interesting to note the context in which the term ‘Ice Warrior’ is used by an Ice Warrior (in The Monster of Peladon I think).

All in all though, this was much, much better than I had expected; it has great performances, a suitably ominous soundtrack and funky outfits for the base staff (the ladies certainly catch Jamie’s eye). It is, nevertheless, a story to watch, as it was originally intended, in single-episode bursts – otherwise its torpour might just make you think fondly of the fast-paced action of The Web Planet.