The Ice Warriors - 2

The second episode is the first of two animated episodes and I think that the animation is very good. I thought that they have managed to make the walking look convincing and the eyes don’t do that thing where they seem like they are constantly on the move. I also like the fluidity of the movements and it just seems that a good job was done in animating this episode. In terms of how the animated characters compare to the real life I must say that they did quite well. In fact all the animated characters look right and the whole thing look really good even the opening shots when they were showing the episode name. So much so that it took me a little time to realise that it was animated.

Unfortunately, I thought that the animation was going to be the best thing about this episode.  The first 15 minutes of the episode were particularly slow and it wasn’t until the Ice Warrior and Victoria started to move that the episode really got going. The problem with the six parter is yet again on show here as very little actually happens after the Ice Warrior escapes with Victoria. Even though its animated the sight of several Ice Warriors waiting to be thawed out was a great way to end the episode.

I like the speech between the Doctor and Clent where the Doctor tries to convince Clent to true humans more than machines.  I must confess that I was quite pleased when the Ice Warrior knocked out Clent and hoped that it would last longer than it did. I thought that Troughton actually had a good episode and so did Jamie (to begin with). Whilst the Doctor and Jamie are ok together its Victoria that suffers and she spends the entire episode being the Ice Warriors companion. I think that the more the stories progress, the more that Victoria will be the spare cog in the show which is a shame but inevitable as the combination of the Doctor and Jamie gets stronger with every episode.

I enjoyed this episode and thought that once it got going, the episode was enjoyable and had a very good ending to it. I’m still not convinced about whether this story needs to be six episodes long but only time will tell but at the moment and I know that this is still quite at an early stage but I think that this might the second best story of the season so far (behind Tomb).