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| The Doctor encounters an Ice Warrior. |
1 episode. Approx. 43 minutes. Written by: Mark Gatiss. Directed by: Douglas MacKinnon. Produced by: Marcus Wilson.
THE PLOT
The Doctor and Clara arrive on a Russian nuclear submarine running drills at the North Pole, circa 1983. The Doctor explains to his companion that at this time, the world was a nuclear powderkeg. It would only take one push for the Soviet Union and the United States to launch their vast nuclear arsenals, marking the beginning of the end of the human race.
The submarine also has cargo: A creature removed from 5,000 year old ice by Professor Grisenko (David Warner), to be brought back to Moscow as a prize. When the ice is melted prematurely by a particularly idiotic random crewmember, the creature inside is released. It's no woolly mammoth - it's Skaldak (Spencer Wilding, with voice by Nicholas Briggs), an Ice Warrior. When the humans attack him (admittedly, after he kills several of them), he considers that a declaration of war. Making his enemeies not just the submarine crew, but the entire human race!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: On first seeing the Ice Warrior, he switches to his default method of dealing with scary aliens: He tries to talk to it and calm the situation while there still might be a chance of doing so. He winces the instant Skaldak reveals his name, recognizing this particular Ice Warrior's history as a dangerous one, but he still hopes to resolve things peacefully - right up until one of the sailors knocks Skaldak out with a cattleprod. Realizing this will be considered an act of war, he pragmatically insists that the alien should be chained up. He continues to try to reason with Skaldak at their every encounter, however, with increasing desperation as the body count rises.
Clara: On Akhaten, everything was so strange and alien that it must never have occurred to her that so many of those she was around apparently spoke English. A Soviet submarine in the 1980's, however - This is familiar enough that she soon realizes how odd it is that everyone is speaking perfect English and understanding her perfectly. So she confronts the Doctor about how she could be speaking and understanding Russian while in mid-interrogation. As the only complete non-combatant on the submarine (the Doctor hasn't qualified as such in a very, very long time), she volunteers to talk to Skaldak to attempt to negotiate a peace. She fails, but does catch enough of Skaldak's sympathy for him to actually listen to her later when he defies or ignores all the others.
Ice Warriors: The Ice Warriors make their first proper television appearance since 1974's The Monster of Peladon. It's a pity it couldn't have been in a better story, but at least the production keeps the classic design intact. The Ice Warrior armor is a bit less clunky than it's 1960's - '70's counterpart, but it's instantly recognizable, as is the effect of Skaldak's sonic blast when it shoots a Russian sailor just after the credits. Skaldak's characterization is consistent with what we've seen of the Ice Warriors in the old television serials, with a healthy dose of the more honor-conscious warriors of the novels and Big Finish audios. Cold War doesn't quite work as a story, but it does leave me hoping for a decent new series Ice Warrior tale at some point down the line.
THOUGHTS
Writer Mark Gatiss has yet to pen a televised Doctor Who that I actually enjoy. Despite a promising setting and a watchable first half, Cold War keeps that streak alive. It is at least marginally better than Series Six's Night Terrors, which was itself substantially better than Series Five's Victory of the Daleks, so hope exists for an eventual good Gatiss Who script. On the other hand, he has yet to write anything for the Moffat era that even manages to be as good as his mediocre The Idiot's Lantern in Series Two - so it's fair to say that it's going to be a very long time before I stop cringing when I see his name on the credits.
I will start with the good. The idea of setting a Doctor Who monster story on a Russian nuclear submarine is a good one. Submarines are inherently claustrophobic, and making this a crashed submarine whose air is running out even as its crew are picked off by the monster just ratchets up the tension that little bit further. Add in excellent guest actors such as Liam Cunningham, David Warner, and Tobias Menzies, and the ingredients are here for an outstanding little horror story.
But while the idea is good, the execution is botched from the get-go. For a story like this to work, we first need to lay out the geography. The viewer needs a few scenes establishing how each room and corridor in the submarine connect. For as confined a setting as a submarine, it would probably have been enough for Capt. Zhukov and Lt. Stepashin to march the Doctor and Clara through the rooms and corridors while laying out exposition. But this script doesn't take that time. The Doctor arrives to the submarine sinking. Everything's frenetic right away, and even when it calms we don't walk from room to room - We cut from room to room, with no sense of placement between one room and another. It's such a small thing - But when that's done right, it adds so much to the sense of place. Done wrong (or not at all), as with this story, and the piece is left feeling like what it is: A collection of scenes in a collection of separate sets.
The actors are excellent, but the characters are paper-thin. Tobias Menzies' Stepashin is a poorly-written stock "bad guy" character, there I think to try to create some conflict in the early scenes, before Skaldak emerges as a full threat. His early conflict with the captain and his suspicions of the Doctor never come to anything, which is a shame since some interpersonal conflict might have added a bit of spark. Capt. Zhukov isn't much better a character, though Liam Cunningham is able to invest some screen presence in the role. Only David Warner's Professor Grisenko comes across as more than one-note, his scenes with Clara giving a hint of warmth to this otherwise entirely mechanical narrative.
It all ends with the Doctor making a speech to the bad guy to convince him not to blow up the world because of sunshine and puppies and the like. Then a plot beam from a nearby spaceship whisks everyone out of danger in time for the amusing tag. Points where they're due, however: The tag actually is amusing, even if the punchline is clear from a mile off.
In absolute fairness, Cold War is not as awful as I've probably made it sound. It is a watchable mediocrity that only really tilts toward bad in its last ten minutes. But it's frustrating to see the potential of its setting and premise so badly squandered by a generic script combined with the most visually uninteresting directing of the entire season. It's the worst episode of Series Seven so far... Though with one more Gatiss script to come, I fear it may not hold the title for long.
Overall Rating: 4/10.
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